Freya Vie

How I Use Notion

Introduction

I jumped on the Notion bandwagon in late 2021.

I was using Evernote at the time, but decided to explore other options as soon as they changed their dashboard settings. I came across Notion and gave it a trial run. I remember feeling frustrated because, without any coding or web development background, the learning curve felt incredibly steep.

Four years later, I'm still loyal to Notion.

Sidebar

There are only 3 pages in the Private section that make up my main menu.

Inbox is where all my notes will land first. It acts as a holding room while I work on it further and decide what I'll do with those notes.

Second Brain is the permanent home for all the notes I've distilled and reviewed. Hence, if I need to refer to something, I'll just head straight to this section.

WeekNotes are for materials that I'd like to include in my future weeknotes blog posts. This section is new, so I'm still building the habit of placing notes in here. More often than not, I forgot this section exists.

Inbox

Here, I add a total of 6 pages:

Do is for the tasks I wish to complete when I'm on my laptop. It may not be urgent, nor does it have any deadline.

Read is for all the online posts, articles, and materials that I will revisit when I have a suitable time to read them properly. I usually add items here during my 30-minute commute to or from work.

Write is for all the quotes I chance upon and wish to write them in my quotes journal. I do this because someday, I intend to turn it into physical books that I can gift to my children when they're older.

Ideas is for the interesting things that I wish to do someday. It could be a blog post idea, journal prompts, photography/videography projects, and other activities to try out. The ideas in here are usually specific. For example, have a coffee date with myself, then note down all observations or take photos of only two people with lots of white space around them.

Learn is for topics that I wish to read up on or explore further. This page empties easily as I only do a quick search on these topics. Nothing extensive.

Transient Notes is for all the notes that I wish to understand, edit, distil and keep permanently (until I decide that the note is no longer relevant to me and I might dispose of it). Some of the items that go in here are reading notes, book reviews, research, useful articles, ChatGPT conversations and everything else.

Second Brain

Here, I add another 6 pages, in this order.

Expenses is my monthly checklist for all the payments I need to make as soon as my salary comes in.

Shopping List is an inventory of all my staple groceries and household items. They're accompanied by checkboxes, so I tick and untick them as and when I need. As soon as an item runs out of stock, I will untick it. This also makes for an easier reference when I am at the supermarket. I don't have to come up with a shopping list every time I intend to make these runs.

Reading Notes is where I keep my personal book reviews, annotations, TBR list, book review guides and other miscellaneous book-related records.

Checklist is my personal life review guide. It's where I track monthly to-dos (backup photos, scan journal entries, dispose expired food, etc.), objective reviews and annual reviews. I only started this page at the end of 2024, so I’ve yet to see its full impact.

Resource Vault is where I store all the notes I've distilled from everything I've read. The sources of these notes are books, newsletters and online articles/posts. A little feature I include in this page is a section called "Stubs". They're micro notes that do not fit anywhere in the sub-sections of this page.

All Notes is where I record all my personal notes—ranging from recipes and travel packing lists to cemetery information of deceased loved ones.

Conclusion

That's it.

That’s a complete overview of how I use Notion. I access my workspace daily, so navigating it feels second nature. That said, I consider myself a casual note-taker—I’m not using Notion to its full potential, but it meets all my needs.

I hope you’ve found an idea or two from my workflow that might inspire your own. If you're a fellow Notion user and have processes or tips you think could enhance my setup, feel free to share—I’d love to hear how you use and manage your workspace.


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