I TRIED USING NOTION FOR A WEEK | DID IT BOOST MY PRODUCTIVITY? (VLOG & REVIEW)

okay it's um currently like half nine so we're gonna say good evening it's sunday we are starting another weekly vlog it's a challenge week right i have never in my whole entire life used this this app notion right i've never used it in my life i don't really know a lot about it but i am very curious very curious i've seen it floating around on the internet but my one burning question whenever i read things or i see things about notion i'm like how did you start how long did it take you to set up your your life on notion because to me it looks quite complex so essentially i have signed myself up to this challenge of getting myself onto notion and trying to see if i can use it no should have very kindly sponsored this video which is crazy because you know i've never used notion and i said to them i was like look i've never used this thing i'm gonna be brutally honest throughout the whole of this video as a challenge to you guys if you want to join this notion journey with me there is a link in the description box you can join notion is 100 free for personal use and we can see if we can become experts in notion in like one week so yeah if you enjoyed this video which i hope you do give it a thumbs up and we will jump straight into monday okay so my first goal with notion was to first make an account and then secondly just kind of explore notion and get started essentially so when you first sign into notion and you make an account you come to this page that basically gives you a brief summary of how to use it with loads of links to their youtube videos and so i just had to play around and basically followed that and then i just basically started to customize my home page so i added a cover photo changed some of the emojis and i firstly made this table to create like a big master to-do list everything is super flexible so you can change anything that they suggest to you or set as the default i set different levels of urgency and then played around with adding different tags but at this point i really didn't know how to properly use tags and what i was really doing oh my gosh oh i just pressed delete and like the whole thing went and i was like what i just pressed command z and it came back oh my gosh that was like i'm kind of confused then i don't know what to do but i kind of see what's going on kind of okay so from my personal experience i don't think you can jump straight onto notion and fully understand how it all works and know what you can do with notion so yeah it took me a bit of time we made a bit of progress i had a bit of fun playing around i'm kind of seeing how things work this is what we have so far i'm trying to create like a main page this photo is obviously from australia it's uh not even questionable so i just have a master to-do list and then this daily schedule which i normally follow so cute nothing much but it's what i've done okay this master to-do list which i've created and then you can like open up from the main page i basically had this like big to-do list on my notes on like my phone and my mac and it would just be sitting in my notes and i thought i'd put that as like the first thing into my notion so these are the things i don't normally put on my weekly plan because they're just like big things that i can choose to do whenever and i kind of tried to highlight how urgent they are so yeah that was my little notion session of the day we're gonna do a bit more later i could like weekly plan in notion but personally i love weekly planning in my bullet journal just writing things down like i find it really therapeutic i don't really want all aspects of my life to be digitalized and on a screen because sometimes i just don't want to look at a screen and so like weekly planning for me is just something i will always do in my bullet journal i'm really sorry notion but stay out your eyes are so green anyways it's quite fun i like the emojis you can just add emojis everywhere and anywhere okay so later that evening i started to explore notion again and it can really get quite addictive you can add lots of different pages so that is what i started to do just to see the different sections that i wanted to create and then i added links to all of those from my home page so for example i had this page where i could just write anything just random thoughts or anything i just want to write down one of my favorite pages i've created on notion is the one dedicated to youtube and content creation so i made a database that would hold all of my video ideas and this is really clever because i could organize them into those that i'd already completed those i was working on and those i wanted to film i then made a page entitled learn and this is where i would hold everything to do with my studies so my masters as well as everything i've kind of learned through reading [Music] so something i was really keen to try and notion was note taking and this is what i plan to do in my weekly plan and my bullet journal again as i said i would keep my weekly planning in my bullet journal because i just love doing it that way it is tuesday evening and i am redoing my hair note taking on notion is kind of one of the key things that students use especially anyways so i'm very keen to try all using notion to make notes because i have like two mini lectures one basically lecture split into two parts that i want to go through this evening oh the shower is gonna start just ignore the shower noise but yeah i'm gonna try using notion anyway to make notes because they have quite cool features like this toggle feature i'm basically looking at if you are interested targeting like the cell cycle because obviously the cell cycle is defective in cancer cells so it's looking at therapies kind of targeting that to try and make things right again in cancer cells essentially yeah so that is what the lectures were about and i just split my screen so i could watch the lecture on the left and then take notes and notion on the right hand side i am really picky with the layout of my notes as i usually do this on word so i was just intrigued to see how i got on with notion basically so i made sure to try out the toggle feature and i used that to organize my subheadings i pasted in screenshots and images and basically just tried out everything i would normally utilize when typing notes on my mac okay so the summary the verdict how did we find note taking in notion oh that is loud these are my notes really like condensed because of this toggle button thing that you basically click on and then it opens up all the text underneath it i structured it so i have the summary of the lecture in italics at the top and then i just have the key sections of that lecture as the titles of the toggle things and then all of the information is beneath those basically i just don't know if i transfer all of my notes to notion because i already have them organized and set up on my like mac itself it's actually in my icloud drive but anyways the one thing i would say it's a very small detail and it's because as i said i'm really fussy with the way i make notes like by hand and on the computer i can't like stretch the writing so it spreads across the whole width okay apparently what i'm referring to is called justified text when you like align it that is what i like to do that's a really small thing but it wasn't a thing you could do on notion what i do see notion coming in useful for in terms of studying is like revision so you like ask a question and then you put the answer hidden within the toggle so it's like a flash card kind of thing but yeah that is me for the day on notion okay i know this is the next day but i just finished off the second mini lecture that morning again using notion i just think it is really smooth you can do everything you want to except justifying the text but it just saves automatically you can paste in pictures and images as i said use the toggle button it is really smooth and a really great note-taking tool if you want to use it now my main goal with notion on this day was to create something that i could use for revision basically to keep track of my studies when i am preparing for exams so i created these two big tables for my two modules makes me quite excited to start revision not that i have any time to do that right now but the intention is there so for each module i basically listed in the first column the title of each lecture and then in the two second columns i used those to highlight how many times i'd revised or re-looked at that material and then the other column was to note down how confident i was and i used emojis to rank that now for day four i didn't plan this but i had two huge revelations so i was getting really annoyed right because let me show you why i was getting annoyed it's um friday by the way this week is like going so fast anyways notion hi we're still trying to work out how to use notion so i've been looking at different like notion layouts and setups and other people's notion boards and whatever and they're all like wider than mine and i've been like why is mine like so narrow everyone else is spreads across the whole page and i finally realized there is like one button that you press so i just realized that you click the three buttons at the top of the page and you click full width oh my gosh yes that is so much better i think i can now add three columns so if i go heading and i move this around come on it's gotta go yep three columns look at that oh my gosh four columns okay we don't want you get rid of you okay so what i was gonna work on today is this page my reading page which i have not done yet i don't like this layout okay i'm gonna try and do something with this one of the things i was really loving about notion was the fact that i could have so many things in one place so before i did set up a goodreads account for my reading to try and track what i was reading but there's no place to like make any notes so i basically transferred everything to notion so i made different databases to list down the books that i wanted to read and those that i had already read and i just seriously wish i had notion when i started my book challenge because i would have been able to make notes on all of the books and write summaries but anyways so later that evening i had my second revelation as well as learning how to spread the width of the page across the full screen i also found out how to actually use and what linked databases are so i watched notions youtube video and oh my goodness me this is when i realized how powerful notion can be it's quite difficult to explain so if you are trying to set up i do recommend just watching notions youtube video and then you can oh my gosh you can do so much with these databases i firstly trialled using linked day spaces on my recipes page so this has all of my recipes that i was currently again just storing on my notes i could organize them add specific tags and then through organizing them into those that i had already tried and those that i hadn't i could create a linked database that highlighted just the recipes that i needed to try or taste test i created a page dedicated to my friends and people in my life and also used link databases here as well as in my revision pages so i basically could create a database that highlighted just the modules that i either had not revised yet or those i wasn't very confident on and this is just making use of very simple filters so you're just saying if the content hasn't been revised or i'm not confident on it and then it will just show you only those topics it's just oh my gosh i love it it's so clever so yeah i did that for both my modules and then you can extend this so you can create the database the link database on a completely different page their opportunities are endless okay hey guys little friday update um is it friday is it friday no it's saturday saturday update i'm just about to go on a run but i wanted to just jump in here and say a few things because yesterday i was up until gone midnight gone midnight it was like 12 30 and i was still on notion i worked out how to create like linked databases i worked out what they were and i also just realized how powerful they are i was like oh my gosh like everything suddenly clicked and i was like wow let me just bring you over to my desk it's very like basic coding and it's so satisfying because you can like filter things and then you have all of these databases and everything just like links like your little hub and space with everything and oh my gosh i it's yeah i think it's really cool up until yesterday this whole week pretty much i've been kind of like on the fence with notion i've been like yeah it's good like i think it's really cool and it can do clever stuff but i did not realize how clever it was until yesterday as i said at the start of this video i was very hesitant as to whether i should do this or not because i was like notion like i don't use these productivity app things i'm 100 not ditching my bullet journal like my weekly planning will stay in the bullet journal but i do really think notion can benefit your life like yesterday i realized this as i said see at this point i am fully confident in saying that link in the description box if you haven't tried notion i do recommend just like trying it and giving it a go and trust me if you work out how to use it and you get onto the linked databases as well you will have a good time like it is okay so i wanted to keep organizing everything on notion and basically transfer everything i was currently storing on my notes it was just so disorganized and so i basically made separate pages in notion and oh my gosh the level of organization that we reached i was just so proud i can now say that my notes on my phone and my macbook are just so organized and basically everything is now stored in motion just looking at my home page now what i've ended up with i just feel so motivated and i really really love it i won't show you all of my pages that i have currently in my notion and i will obviously keep expanding and updating it but this for example is a page i dedicated to travel and then this table in my home page related to reading is linked to a database on my reading page so everything's integrated as i said and yeah it's so good [Music] so we have come to the end of this challenge this week of using notion it feels like deja vu like we've literally come full circle i am by no means a notion expert i am very much still a beginner but yeah my notion is obviously gonna evolve and change it's not something i'm going to be using every day i don't think but i really like it because it definitely is an online space where i can literally organize track plan do so many things and i just think it's it's really great but yeah i thought i would just leave you with my five top tips which is five pieces of advice if you're a beginner if you're trying notion for the first time okay so tip number one i would say definitely spend some time at the start watching notions youtube videos and just familiarizing yourself with all of the tools and the buttons and things you can do on notion because it's important to know like what you can do with a table or a board or notion how you get a heading and how you make the heading a certain color and stuff like this just take the time to learn the basic skills okay the second tip i had to dedicate a whole tip to this one linked databases definitely learn how to use those and just learn about linked databases that was the game changer for me literally when i realized what you could do with like filters and tags and linked databases i really felt as if you know notion was giving something back to me like i was really guessing something out of using this app because you can obviously use motion on like a mac or a computer and it also has an app on your phone step number three is something simple it's something i also realized on like day four of using notion of this week make the most of your space your pages by just clicking that one button to get it full width unless you want a narrow page that's fine but i i wanted like a full width page tip number four is to do some research online and get inspiration from other people that have used notion okay and tip number five my last tip is to basically not expect to learn how to use notion and have everything all organized and in place in one day in like 24 hours because it's not gonna happen unless you dedicate a whole day and you just work on notion or you're really good with tech and digital stuff like this which i'm not just don't put that pressure on yourself just gradually learn how to use it so yeah basically that is my notion story my intro to notion journey story video for you guys i really hope you've enjoyed it and you've learned something from it and maybe you've been inspired to try notion as i said at the start thank you so much donation for sponsoring this video and for letting me do this because yeah i just wanted to show you guys me trying to use notion from scratch so yeah like this video if you enjoyed it definitely like this video if you would like to see more of my notion and how i'm going to be integrating it into my life i am definitely going to be using it for revision because i have exams in january i am going to say goodbye if you are new and you want to subscribe click that button and click the bell to stay notified and i will speak to you all very soon in another video bye [Music] you

Channel: Holly Gabrielle

Views: 200,990

Rating: 4.9583383 out of 5

Keywords: Cambridge University, Cambridge, Cambridge Uni, Study with me, Uni vlog, Exam revision, Uni student, How to revise, How to study, GCSEs, Science Student, Med Student, Holly Gabrielle, vegan holly, Room Tour, Science, A day in my life, Full day of work, University day in the life, Notion, Notion review, Productivity, Get productive with me, Study day, Study vlog, Week in my life, Weekly challenge, Student vlog, Organise my life, Revision in notion, How I take notes, Workout

Id: DmxCPZ57F_g

Length: 18min 11sec (1091 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 08 2020