Notion 101: Start Dominating Your Tasks Today

Heyo 👋 Jordan here,

3 years ago, I found this little tool called Notion.

I immediately loved it, but I never bothered to do much with it. I had so many things in Evernote that it just didn’t make sense.

Nearly 9 months later, I was still sleeping on the awesome things you can do in Notion.

But then, during my 3-week winter vacation off work, I got inspired.

Starting simple and then exploring more & more:

• Writing pages

• Sharing them with friends

• Creating databases for all kinds of things

• Figuring out new and interesting ways to organize my current knowledge base

I was sold. I moved everything from Evernote to Notion. And spent the next 3 weeks obsessing over how much was now possible. Ended up making so many things I had to delete half of them because I never used them.

3 years later, I’m just as obsessed. I even got certified in Notion (which is something I never do).

Here’s how to use it:

✍️ Notion’s Editor 101

When you open up Notion for the first time, you’ll be greeted with something like this:

There are a few extra buttons, but this is very similar to any note-taking app. It’s just they aren’t called “notes” here – they’re called “pages”.

The editor can do a lot, but there is only one thing you need to remember to use it perfectly.

When looking for something, use the / key. It will show you everything you can add.

I would start with:

• Headings

• To-Do lists

• Callout blocks

Getting used to the / key will let you write beautifully-looking notes with zero editing.

🗄️ Notion Databases

Databases in Notion are kind of like notebooks.

Just like any notebook is filled with pages, every database is filled with pages.

Now, if you go through a bookstore and browse the notebooks, you’ll notice that a ton of them have some stuff that’s on every page.

Example:

So, you can rely that you have some specific properties of every page of your notebook (like page numbers or dates). That’s unlike a piece of paper for your printer, which is just empty.

Databases work in the very same way – besides your list of pages, you have a list of other properties they share.

Example:

The only difference between the properties on your notebook and in a database is:

You can change the properties in your database.

This allows you to create all kinds of specialized databases for anything you can imagine.

To make that even easier – you can use templates.

🗂️  Notion Templates

Templates are premade databases ready to go.

You can quickly create them and get going without spending too much time setting things up.

Enter:

The Notion Template Gallery

There are many great options there (with even more community templates at the very bottom). Pick something similar to what you need, and you’ve completed 90% of the work already.

Also, a lot of creators give away or sell their own templates as well (e.g. I have a free template with almost every one of my Notion videos).

I’d love to say a LOT more about Notion, but that will be too much for a single newsletter. We’ll go more in-depth in another issue!

Your biggest fan,
Jordan

⚙️ Tools, Apps, 'n' Gadgets

Here are today's picks:

• Blue Willow — Midjourney but free.

• PlaygroundAI — Upload a selfie, write “add sunglasses”, enjoy looking at yourself with sunglasses.

• Bardeen — Automate boring work in your browser – surprisingly easy to use!

• Lumix S5II — The best full-frame camera for mid-level creators. Now with fantastic auto-focus – you can’t get anything even close even at 1.5x the price.

🔦 Creator Spotlight

A shoutout to Casey. I’ve never been into vlogging. Lately I found that I’m actually not into most people vlogging. I’ve been learning a ton from your content, thanks!

📰 Last Week with Jordan

General theme sentence

• Free tools to grow on Twitter — A few alternatives to popular software to get you up & running on Twitter now (& for free).

• Why smart people make so many mistakes — The Dunning-Kruger effect in action. Talking from experience.

On the topic of Notion, here’s some of the more advanced stuff you can do 👇️

That was it for today. Have a great week and I'll see you next Sunday!
— Jordan

PS: Help me out by sharing this with a friend who'll find it useful 🫶