How to Get Started with Notion (without losing your mind)

to help you get started in notion without losing your mind we'll begin with a completely blank notion page and in just 12 minutes or so you have your very own life OS home screen up and running it comes with one essential dashboard to help beginners get started and this dashboard is powered by two extremely simple databases and to prove to you this is literally how I started using notion years ago this is my current life OS home screen and as you can see it's basically set up the same way so let's get started first we give this blank page a name name life OS and we choose an icon I like to use the Ying Yang icon here we press enter we press we press # twice space for heading two dashboard forward slash blue you can choose whatever color you want I'll choose blue background here enter and triple hyphen 1 2 3 to add a divider I just think that looks super clean and then double hashtag again one two and we choose we type a database here for slash gray gray background and triple hyphen again 1 2 3 now the most common advice you'll hear from experienced users is that databases are the Cornerstone of productive notion setups so we're going to first build out our databases then come back to the dashboard Pages go ahead and type in for SLT and select the table view under database here and then we're going to actually select the data source and select a new database we're going to name this task database and because I don't want a table taking up half my screen I'm going to choose this button here and I'm going to turn this into a page so I can now click into the task database and work on this in a clean page I'm going to choose an icon and let's choose a check mark here like so and this is going to be task uh this property I'm going to change this property from multi select to date because we want tasks are attached to due dates I like to select the month date year because I was unfortunately unfortunately brought up in the US and time format 24 hours and this is going to be renamed to do date like so let's decrease the size here a little bit and the final property we're going to add is a checkbox because we want to check uh tasks that have already been completed and I'm we're going to rename this oops sorry clicked too fast there to done and pro tip with checkbox properties you can actually just hide the property name I'm going to drag this to the left here so I can like click this like so right oops and I'm going to change this table name to all tasks and I will select a bullet point drop-down menu like so so it looks a little bit cleaner let's add some tasks just for placeholder purposes first is watch Appo Vision Pro review you and number two is sell kidneys to afford it uh due date let's say for the sake of argument today is when I'll watch a review tomorrow or on in 2 days I will sell my kidney oops there we go let's actually clear this up next we're going to book a flight to San Francisco to complain to Tim Cook directly and as you can see this has wrapped columns turned on so I'm just going to go to the three buttons here click uh layout and toggle off wrap all columns I just think this looks cleaner I'm going to choose a due date here to be two weeks from now and since this is a task database we're going to add a sort by due date ascending so that the next due task is shown up top and if you're using notion yourself you will not see this save for everyone option so you can choose to ignore it for this entire tutorial and now if I choose to add a new task uh like and comment on Jeff's video and said that due to today you'll see that it automatically jumps up top and that's it we're done with the task database now we can either click the life OS button here to go back a page or I recommend getting used to keyboard short cets as soon as possible so command or control left bracket to go back a page and we're going to not now start building our next not taking database so for slash table same exact process as before select a table View new database we're going to name this notes database and so last time we're going to click this and turn into a page to have notion the notes database rather be in a standalone page add an icon and I like to choose one of the writing icons here like so and when it comes to properties we're going to rename this to note we're going to change this to date actually and you'll see why in a little bit like so full date month date year and 24hour let's decrease the size of this a little bit and then we here we're going to add uh Select Property type and we're going to tr we're going to type note type and we'll come back to this in a little bit we're going to add the fourth property is created time so you know when the note was created let's choose the exact same time format and we're going to add a last updated time so how recently the note was updated we're going to change that and there you go you might be confused as to why there's another date property here for example if I had a one-on-one meeting with my manager I'm going to start the note today but the meeting is for tomorrow so the creative time wouldn't accurately reflect that I personally have three categories of notes the first notes type is when a meeting occurs or a presentation happens and you're taking down notes summarizing your uh learnings and findings the second type of notes for example let's say my friend tells me about his trip to Iceland I'm like oh think about traveling to Iceland sounds like a beautiful place to go and let's say this is happening like next week in the future this would count as a thought for me like thoughts right no meeting happened uh no presentation occurred it was just me thinking by myself oh I should do something or this was interesting and the third category of notes is if I clipped uh a YouTube video or online article for example intro to uh AI by Google and let's say this happens 2 weeks from now I would categorize this as research and you could change the colors of all these notes by clicking through button here let's say notes is uh blue thoughts is yellow and research we can let it remain gray and finally let's change the view name to all notes and similar to last time let's select the bullet point one and we can sort by date uh descending this time so that the most recent note recent notes are are shown up top save for everyone or just save if you're using notion by yourself now that we have these two databases let's build out our first dashboard so for slash page this time instead of a table enter and we're going to name this Command Center let's select an icon let's do the activity icon right like so and this is a personal preference but whenever I create a new page I like to press enter SL BREC Chrome to show the current page location then enter again hyphen hyphen hyphen to add a divider line I just think this looks super clean then uh top right we're going to choose as three dots and we're going to actually turn this page to full width to give us more space to work with uh hashtag hashtag or yeah pound sign pound sign space for heading to and we're going to choose uh weekly task view here for SL blue again uh hyphen hyphen hyphen we can select these two elements command D to copy and paste move the newly created elements to the right here like so drop it and we're going to move the divider line back up here we're going to change this to notes view this next part is what makes notion so powerful we will now create views of the two databases we just created so that we can see our Tasks and notes in a single location this is why this is called the command center starting with the weekly view section for SLT we we're still going to select the table view under databases but unlike last time we're going to select the task database we built earlier in this video and we're going to choose to copy an existing view all tasks now before we do anything else you want to actually left click on all task and make a duplicate view so you have the all task view still there and then we're going to play around with this new view we're going to rename this to upcoming I want to see the upcoming task in the next seven days we're going to change the icon here to an i icon and then we're going to select uh the filter to done is unchecked so that all uncompleted tasks will be visible right we're going to save this and we're going to add another filter because I want the upcoming 7day task to be visible only so we're going to choose the due date go in start date is on or before drop- down menu one week from now so all tasks between today and the next week will be shown we're going to save for everyone and we're going to make sure the sort due date is still ascending so the next task will be shown first so let's say cell kidney that's due 2 days from now if I were to select 3 weeks from now it disappears right commen Z we bring it back so that's how this works to clean this up a little bit we can actually click filter to get rid of all the filter and stord options options and we're going to click the three dots here and hide the database title now we can toggle between the upcoming View and the all task view the third and final view we're going to build is something called the inbox View and it's very important for task management and this is how it works let's first go to the all task view again we're going to left click Three Dots and make another duplicate of the all task view we're going to name this inbox and we're going to select the mailbox icon like so and the only only filter option here will be the due date is going to be empty is empty now the way this works is you can quickly capture any ideas or tasks you have in here without assigning a due date because sometimes you don't know when the task has to be due and you can find them all here the second you add a due date so let's go through an example uh rehearse for next presentation the due dat is empty right now but if I select it next week it disappears and if we go to upcoming it shows up rehearse for next presentation right so let's go uh let's actually command Z go back to the inbox view so all tasks without a due date will be shown here we can click the three dots and hi the database title and I like to move the inbox view oops to the middle here so now you have three views upcoming inbox and all task moving over to the notes view this going to be super simple compared to what we did with tasks for slash table we're going to select the table view under database and we're going to select the notes database we just created and we're going to copy an existing view all notes and if you remember this is sorted by the date descending so first let's hide this database title to make it cleaner and we're going to click on all notes here and we're going to make a duplicate view again and we're going to change this we're going to rename this to recent notes so recently updated notes I'm going to choose an icon so clock let's choose a clock something like this maybe and in instead of sort by due date uh sort by date descending we're going to sort by last updated time descending say for everyone here so let's say uh this this meeting my manager is happening tomorrow but if I just change this to even though the date is still scheduled for tomorrow but because the last updated time was just now a couple seconds ago it's going to it's going to jump to the top and speaking of this looks a little bit messy so I'm just going to actually click the three dots here and we're going to choose properties and we're going to deselect these two to keep this view cleaner this does not mean we're deleting the column but rather just hiding them so click and click so now within the notes view if you click on the filter option to get rid of the sort um options we see the note title the note date and the note type and we can even tidy this up a little bit more as you use notion more and more you'll figure out what other sections you want to add to your command center for example for me I have the exact same upcoming weekly task view here right but I have other sections as well let me know in the comments if you want an entire video on this hq/ Command Center of mine in the meantime let's move on to a must no feature all beginners should use templates for example in your notes view if you click here or click the new button here you'll be greeted with an empty page team meeting and you have to populate everything yourself the date oh it's on okay not Saturday Monday day the note type is going to be notes and it's going to be uh key takeaways blah blah blah one 2 3 um notes and then you have to do this again again every single time a much more efficient way is to first let's exit out by pressing escape clicking the drop- down menu here next to the new button and choose new templates and we're going to press command control enter to expand this to full screen click the three dots and we're going to click full width and let's title this oops new notes new note choose a meaningful icon let's say something related to writing again like a pencil I like to have the note type moved up below the date and we can actually choose the date to dynamically reflect the date you create the note so today and I like to hide the creative time and and uh last updated time uh last edited time rather to keep this clean and with then the page content itself um hash hashtag heading to key takeaways I like to use this the purple color let's switch it up right now three hyphens I'm going to select this like I did before command and control D to make a copy of this move this to the right and this is going to be oops this is going to be titled action items I'm going to move this up top and down here heading to again notes and we're going to have gray hyphen and we're going to have one bullet point one here we're going to have a number here because there's one 2 3 takeaways and for Action items I'm going to have a check boox back in our Command Center view we can select the drop down menu and choose this new note template we just created to be the default for All Views within notes database escape and now whenever you press the new button a new note will be generated with our template the three section headers are automatically populated and we can start taking notes uh Jeff's intro to notion video This is going to be a research note type because you're watching this video right now it's a nice video to learn from action items uh like and uh subscribe so this dashboard is more than enough to get you started but it wouldn't be a Jeffs video without a bonus tip so back in your life OS page let's create a new page and title it tasks view wait Jeff we already have an upcoming tasks view in the command center yes but I've only shown you one database format in this video so far and that's the table format back in these this newly created task view we're going to do this let's add an icon let's use another check mark not the exact same one as before uh personal preference enter for/ bread Chrome and hyphen hyen hyphen and now we're going to give a heading to calendar view and let's CH this blue hyphen hyphen Hyphen for SLT table view database and we're going to select the exact same task database as before copy an existing view all tasks except this time instead of table under layout we're going to choose the calendar view let's toggle off the database title again let's click X here and now oh let's click Three Dots and make a full width so it's nice and big now although this takes up more screen real estate so you don't want this in your command center this is a much more visual representation of your upcoming to-dos and we can even go a step further click Three Dots here go go to properties and show whether uh show the uh done check mark property by clicking the I icon here and I actually don't want the task to disappear because I want to see which task have been completed in this calendar view and I can even move the tasks to other dates like so as needed now back in our Command Center we can create a new section uh command D to make a copy of this section header name this quick links enter hyphen hyphen hyphen to add a divider and use the at button to refer to the task view we just created like so so that we can quickly click in and view our task in calendar format without again cluttering up our main command center page all right hopefully it's clear to you now how most notion setups are powered by databases you take some time to build out a few core databases once then you create dashboards and Views tailored to your own individual needs the possibilities are literally endless I know I talk a bit fast so if you have questions leave them down below subscribe to see how I set up my notion workspace see you on the next video in the meantime have a great one

Channel: Jeff Su

Views: 304,486

Keywords: How to Get Started with Notion without losing your mind, Notion, Notion tutorial, Notion for beginners, productivity, organization, databases, dashboard, task management, note-taking

Id: cYbcgtK0v_Q

Length: 18min 15sec (1095 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 20 2024