Do you want to improve your order at work? So, you need to learn what Notion is! Briefly, we can say that Notion is one of the best organization apps for mobile and desktop. Don’t you like to take physical notes? Don’t you set schedules, because you never meet them? When you learn what Notion is, that will come to an end.
Has it happened to you that you write down reminders in different apps to organize tasks? A list in Evernote, a note in Google Keep, to-do boards in Trello, and calendar notifications. You open three or more organization apps and, lo and behold, they don’t sync with each other!?
Don’t despair anymore. Here we tell you what Notion is and how it works so you can organize your work and improve your productivity. The notion can be the multi-platform, minimalist, and versatile solution that you were looking for to have everything organized in one place. And yes, it‘s free.
Are you interested? So let’s see what Notion is and how to use it in detail.
What is Notion?
The Notion is a cross-platform task organizer that allows you to take your personal and work planning to the next level. Whether you are connected to the internet or not, on your desktop or from your cell phone, you can write down and organize everything that comes to mind and collaborate with whoever you need.
Perhaps you have already been looking for an application to write down ideas, tasks, or expenses. Notion allows you to write texts, lists, checkboxes, or bullets, and organize this information in tables, databases, wikis, or posts.
For more orders, Notion allows you to add navigation filters and find everything quickly. In addition, you can add pages and subpages and organize them as you like, like the folders on your computer.
So what is Notion? An app to organize? Actually, it is much more than that. Notion works as a “second brain” with notifications, in which you can see in an orderly way everything you need to do at work and in your day-to-day. It is definitely one of the best project management tools.
How does Notion work?
To create an account on Notion, you just need to link an email or Google account. This will allow that, regardless of the device with which you connect, your information can be synchronized.
This is an alternative that the Notion website has imitated from many other platforms and apps, not only to keep the different accounts you have in sync but also to speed up registrations, which are often very extensive and tedious.
The tool works great from the web, but you can also download Notion for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. Even if you are offline, the program allows you to continue editing from your laptop and also synchronizes the new information when you are back online.
You already know what Notion is and what it is for. Read on for more details on Notion’s pricing and features.
Keep reading!
Who can use Notion?
Actually, everyone who needs to improve their planning and is looking for a free task organizer can benefit from Notion. Furthermore, if your goal is simply to stop being a messy person, Notion is for you.
Let’s look at some examples:
Students and faculty
The Notion organization tool can be used to make notes in classes, keep a calendar of assignments and exams, have the readings of the syllabus at hand, mark the progress of the thesis, and much more.
Among the advantages of Notion for students and teachers, we can highlight the following:
- You can use it on different devices: from computers to tablets or cell phones. Therefore, you can take your to-do lists with Notion everywhere.
- If you access Notion with an academic email, all its functionalities are free. All you have to do is register with your university or school account and that’s it!
Notion App is easy to use and intuitive, ideal for exam-time students and teachers who need to optimize their time and maximize their performance.
Freelancers, creative and creative
When explaining what Notion is, it was mentioned that it was mainly aimed at organizing jobs, advancing projects, following quotes, and controlling invoices, among other solutions.
Notion offers many features that will be especially useful for freelancers, especially those who work remotely. Between them:
- It allows collaborative work, so you can monitor projects with colleagues, without having to be in the same office.
- It is “all in one”: you can unify all your tasks on the same platform.
- As a freelancer with no fixed schedule, learning what Notion is and using it can allow you to allocate your time to be more efficient.
- It’s free for personal use!
Small Companies
Looking for an organization app for your team, but would rather not have to subscribe to three different apps? So, knowing what Notion is and how it can help you in your business is essential.
Did you know that according to Hubspot, companies marketing and sales departments lose up to 550 hours and $32,000 per person by using low-quality data? The possibilities of improving productivity by organizing task lists, manuals, onboardings, or product roadmaps, make Notion’s functions and tools great allies in work team planning.
In short, what are the benefits of Notion for businesses?
- Improve time management and achieve greater productivity.
- Tasks can be easily delegated.
- Optimize the organization of documents and tasks.
- It can be used on several devices at the same time, thus achieving collaborative work among all members.
Anyone who wants to organize
Write down the list of the market, make personal planning of your next trip, or put together your weekly exercise routine. The limit is up to you! Knowing what Notion is and how to use it for everyday activities can be an effective and quick solution that you should try.
What is Notion for fans of order and planning? The perfect tool! Among its benefits, we highlight:
- Notion’s interface is nice, intuitive, and customizable
- As we said above, it has tons of features: you can do anything from shopping lists to a project dashboard.
- You don’t need to download anything: you can use the web version.
How much does Notion cost?
Actually, there is a free version. However, if you want to access the premium options that the platform has for you, you can pay $4 per month for personal use.
If you want to work with Notion for business with your team and access management tools, you need to pay $8 per month for each member or contact sales for a custom quote for your business.
What is Notion for Business?
Yes ok. when talking about what Notion is. we gave it a more personal approach, a program with these characteristics could not be limited individually. Undoubtedly, Notion has a series of features that, when worked at a macro level within a company, can optimize many processes that occur over time.
This is how Notion decided to implement a category of “business account”, which can also be yours with a monthly or annual subscription. In addition to having the options that we already mentioned, Notion for companies adds some extra features that will allow fluid and fast collaborative work within organizations.
Do you want to send your Notion page to someone?
Although you already know what Notion is and its features, you may be wondering if you can easily share your Notion page with other people. The answer is yes, no problem. You can share your content with other users of the application or with external people, just like Dropbox.
Seriously, when we tell you that Notion is an excellent task organizer, it is because there are good experiences that guarantee it. There are users who use it to save their bibliography, keep track of their quotes, or plan a wedding. One Notion user even took the time to create a Pokémon database and categorize them by power type and evolution.
Without a doubt, this is a clear example to understand what Notion is and how it works. The web application can open up many possibilities, not only at a professional or business level but also in your hobbies and day-to-day activities.
If you are still intrigued to know what Notion is, read on and find out how to use Notion from any device.
How to use Notion?
You already know some of the most useful Notion features that the app has for you. As we have mentioned throughout the note, we believe that one of the main attributes of the application is the possibility of personalizing content and its great versatility. Regardless of your profession, the platform provides you with multiple uses.
Next, we will give you examples of how to use Notion and get the most out of the organization app in managing your projects.
1. Virtual agenda
Agendas are designed to organize people and guide them to prioritize and list daily and weekly tasks. Also, this allows professionals or, really, any ordinary person to be more efficient with their time management.
The Notion app allows you to create a daily and weekly planner to guide your goals and balance your tasks. In the same way, this will help you measure your progress and optimize your results. Whether you use it as a personal or business option, knowing what Notion is and how to use it correctly can help you achieve great goals in the short, medium, and long term.
2. Dashboard
Many times we have all our information and documents very messy in different folders on different platforms. In the end, we end up forgetting where we keep each item. This is over thanks to Notion!
The organization application allows you to create a control panel, also known as a Dashboard, to group all the information you need and make the operational procedures and tasks of your team much faster and easier. As well as knowing what Notion is, using its Dashboard tool will be of great help to you.
Creating a Dashboard in Notion is very useful since it allows you to have visual, understandable help with updated data in real-time. It’s great since you can have valuable information about your business at your disposal, facilitate decision-making, have faster reactions, and have greater effectiveness.
3. CRM
If you have a small business, Notion will be a great option for creating a CRM. In English, CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, which is a database system to collect information about customer interaction with the organization and manage your relationship with them.
Notion has some templates available within the app itself. Also, this allows you to have quick access to more relevant information. Having a CRM helps you increase your sales, streamline and optimize management processes and have updated information in real-time.
4. Databases
The creation of databases is one of the most interesting Notion functions and one that offers us more tools and customization possibilities. Notion allows you to structure information, categorize it, filter it and view it at your convenience.
The Notion application offers you to have a separate page for each database, as well as allows us to have customizable properties and different display modes (which we have mentioned before). In this way, you are guaranteed that the information you collect from different areas of the company is not mixed and is always kept separately.
There are different methods to create databases in Notion. You just have to create a new page and choose one of the options provided by the platform: Inline and Full Page.
What are the differences between these Notion options? An Inline database will be added as a block on top of the current page, this means that it will coexist with the information you already have on the Notion page.
On the other hand, a full-page database will create an entirely new page and allow you to view it independently. Also, you can choose to transform your Inline database to a Full page.
5. Road map
A product roadmap, also known as a roadmap, “is a planning document that allows representing the development cycle of a product”. Notion will allow you to design this visual tool to communicate the product’s strategy, its specific objectives, and how it supports the general objectives of the company.
6. Calendar
Calendars are super useful visual tools for anyone. This function of Notion will allow you to optimize your time and have your goals in the short, medium and long term clear and visible. Also, a calendar in Notion will keep you up to date with holidays, important events, and pending tasks.
Without a doubt, just learning what Notion is was not enough. Now that you know many of the utilities that you can give to this program, we are sure that your organization experience will be much more enjoyable and interactive.
Don’t stop getting all the juice out of Notion!
What Types of Content Blocks Exist in Notion?
Each piece of content that you can add in Notion is called a block. To add a block you just have to click on the + sign and review the list of available options. If you don’t want to take your hands off the keyboard, type the / symbol followed by the tool you want to add. For example: /headline.
You can combine the Notion blocks however you like! Notion’s customization option will allow you to make from very simple pages to complex dashboards. Also, Notion blocks are convertible, that is, you can transform them into the type of block you want.
Among the basic content blocks, you can find:
- Text
- pages
- To-do lists enumerated lists, or bullets
- Check box
- Headlines
- embedded codes
- links
- file upload
- Quotes
- Reminders
We think you might find it useful to learn more about Notion’s special block types that will help you organize yourself better. Next, we explain what each one is for.
Notion Blocks: Database
One of the Notion’s most powerful features is its ability to create databases. This category offers us 5 types of formats:
- calendars
- Galleries
- lists
- Boards
- boards
Later, we will tell you more about how to create databases in Notion.
Notion Blocks: Multimedia
We can add the following multimedia elements to Notion pages:
- Images. You can add images in almost any format, including gifs. Notion allows you to do it directly from the files on your computer, as well as by pasting the link (if it has already been uploaded to the web).
- Videos. Notion has the ability to upload videos from your computer. In the same way, it allows you to add videos found online on platforms like YouTube and Vimeo with just the link.
- Audio. As with the previous formats, with Notion, you can upload audio from your computer or embed songs from platforms like Spotify and Soundcloud.
- Almost any file. You can insert any file format from your computer or insert it via a link.
- Visual markers of other web pages.
Notion Blocks: External Applications
The Notion organization app grants the ability to embed content from over 500 apps. You just need to put /embed at the end of the Notion link and embed any website. Among some of the most popular, we find Google Drive, Loom, Google Forms, and Google Maps.
Other Notion Blocks
- Breadcrumb. With this Notion block, you can insert a workspace page navigation menu.
- Tables of contents. This is the easiest way to index the headers in Notion!
- Template button. Do you want to replicate a Notion template? This button allows you to configure the block or combination of blocks you want.
How to edit in Notion?
At first glance, Notion is literally a blank canvas. Its minimalist and simple style helps to organize tasks under a clean, orderly, and pleasant to look at the structure. However, understanding how Notion works can be confusing for some when all you have is an empty page.
But fear you must not, Yoda would say. Editing your workspace in Notion is as easy as clicking anywhere on the screen and starting typing.
Create A New Page in Notion
To create your first page in Notion, just go to the side toolbar on the left of your screen. At the bottom, hit the + New Page button and you’ll instantly have a new page in Notion.
The next step is to name the page. Also, Notion gives you the option to choose whether you want to start to blank or add a template, as well as you can select a background color or image.
Edit Texts
Notion allows you to make text bold, italic, change its color or add a link. First, select the text you want to change. An editing bar will appear above your selection and you can edit as you like.
You can also use your device’s usual editing commands, like Ctrl+N if you’re using Windows or Command+N if you’re on a Mac.
Drag and Drop
If you have already created blocks, moving them around is very simple.
On Notion web, Windows and Mac, you will see six small dots next to each block you create. Click there and drag the content to the position where you want it to appear. For mobile devices, hold your finger down on the piece of content you want to move, drag and drop.
From top to bottom or one column next to another. The customization of each page is entirely up to you.
Turn Into
Did you create a calendar instead of a table? Don’t worry. Select the block you need to modify and, in the editing bar, click Turn into, which in Spanish translates as “convert to”. It is not necessary to delete your trailer, with this option you can convert one piece of content into a different one with just one click.
Tag Other People
If you’re in a team workspace and need to mention a colleague, just type @ and enter their name. This person will receive a notification and will be able to review any comments you have left for them. Very similar to Trello. In addition, they will have the possibility to collaborate in real-time.
On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that we can use the same method to make a timestamp in Notion. That is if you type @ and a specific date, the organizer application will allow you to date your work.
Workspace Customization in Notion
Now that you have your entire workspace organized and you know how Notion works, it’s time to customize it!
In the top right corner of Notion for web, Windows, and Mac, you’ll find three horizontal dots. By clicking on it, the options for font style, text size, and width of the content on the screen will appear.
Play around with the buttons until your Notion account is exactly how you need it. Don’t forget that you can add an emoji to each page and subpage, to differentiate it easily, and a cover image, to further personalize your workspace.
Finally, it is necessary to mention that at the moment Notion is only available in English and Korean languages.
Looking for some tutorial for Notion? We recommend you watch the explanatory videos they have on their YouTube channel.
How to Organize My Content in Notion?
At this point, you probably already understood what Notion is and why it is one of the best tools for organizing tasks. Now we will give you some last tips to use Notion optimally and plan your personal and work projects.
Notion Templates
Does it seem like a lot of effort to create block by block? Don’t have time to develop a page? Once again, Notion brings you a simple and effective solution: default job templates.
What are they? Ready-to-use work pages. Just choose the template that offers the features you need, import it into your account, and voila! Now you can start adding your tasks, ideas, or project status.
Notion templates are divided into categories and subcategories of work. Within Design templates, for example, you can import roadmaps or user research databases.
In the Marketing category, you will find templates for content calendars, press release lists, or meeting notes. As you can see, they have all been created with the Notion blocks and organized according to the objective they point to.
To select the template you want to download, you just have to choose the “Templates” category in the bar on the right of the screen and all the available Notion templates will be displayed. Select the one you want to use by pressing the “Use this template” button and you can upload it to your account and edit it according to your preferences.
Personal and team workspace
All created pages and subpages are displayed in Notion’s sidebar. Is one page more important than another? Mark it as a favorite and you will find it first on the list.
In case you have purchased one of the Notion packages for work teams, your account will be divided into two: workspace and personal space. While the first will be visible to all your teammates, your personal space will remain private and only you can edit it.
Incredible everything that is Notion!
Notion Tricks to get the most out of it
Knowing what notion is and how it works will help you organize your tasks, interests, and projects in a single app. But knowing these Notion tips and tricks will allow you to get the most out of the app and your productivity.
1. Add emojis on Notion pages
Let’s start this round of Notion tips with a basic one, but if you didn’t know it, you’ll love it. When creating a new page, you will be able to add icons and emojis to the titles. This way you can make them more visually striking and, in case you have many, you will be able to identify them faster. On the other hand, emojis give each subtask an identity of its own.
2. Use Notion templates
If you still have doubts about what Notion is and its use seems somewhat overwhelming, don’t worry! Start making friends with the platform using Notion’s templates. We leave you our favorites:
- Lists to place design resources
- bullet journal templates
- Templates for research projects
3. Write Several Lines in the Same Block of text
When you type inside a block and hit enter, you jump to another independent block below. Even if you paste text from another location, it will also separate each paragraph into a different block. So how can you write a text with several paragraphs within the same block in Notion?
Easy: press Shift + Enter, instead of just Enter. Thus, you will go down two lines and you can start writing a new paragraph, within the same block of text.
4. Activate Notion dark mode
The dark mode is one of the biggest UX/UI trends in recent years, and Notion couldn’t be left behind. This trick is key since at first glance you will not find the option.
How to activate dark mode? Click the Settings & Members option, then Appearance and finally select the Dark option. And ready!
5. Don’t underestimate the power of the / and @ symbol
We mentioned them before, but these are such important Notion shortcuts that we want to repeat them for you:
- Write / in a block to choose between the different ones available, such as pages, titles, or text blocks.
- Type @ if you want to mention a person, link to another Notion page or assign a date.
6. Duplicate Blocks or A Notion Page
You are already very clear that it is Notion, you became an ace of the platform but laziness is your worst enemy and you no longer use the app as much as before. OK, maybe what’s happening to you is that you didn’t know that Notion allows you to duplicate pages or blocks, thus speeding up your work and saving you several steps.
7. Leave Feedback and Encourage teamwork on Notion
Did you know that you can leave comments in the text blocks? If you were wondering how to make collaborative work more effective in Notion, this is the answer! Leave comments to guide your peers, or even serve as reminders to yourself. Just right-click on the word you want to highlight, select comment, and you’re good to go.
8. Lock Notion Pages and Prevent Unintentional Modifications
Did you work for hours on a page and one small inadvertent click ruined all the content? You can pass! To avoid this incident there is the “Lock Page” option in the side menu of Notion.
9. Add Google Maps to Your travel lists
It’s not all work! Notion App also allows you to plan your trips. And what better than being able to add Google maps of your destinations on your pages? Follow these steps to achieve it:
- Go to Google Maps and copy a location link.
- Paste the link into your Notion page.
- A list of options will automatically open.
- Hit the Create embed option, and voila!
10. Link Notion with Google Docs, Asana, and more
Now we can confirm that Notion is not missing anything! This last trick is key if you are used to working with other productivity tools like Asana or Trello, or need to import information from Google Docs or Microsoft Word.
Just create a new page in Notion and click import in the side menu.
We hope that knowing what Notion is and how to use it has been very helpful! Discovering all the alternatives offered by this platform will help you optimize your time, improve your organization and be more efficient in your tasks. Remember that organization is a highly regarded value in many companies, so using this app is a great way to start training this ability.
And you, have you already clicked on downloading Notion to start organizing your work? Until next time!
