According to Notion, it is an “all-in-one workspace.” It’s a tool that you can use for almost anything to do with editing digital data. It can be used to generate a straightforward text document, develop enormous, intricate knowledge bases, record notes from a college lecture, or construct interconnected Kanbans to manage numerous engineering projects. It is accessible and usable on your browser in addition to the desktop applications for Mac and Windows.
This article will explain in detail how Notion works, and how you can use it for taking notes, producing documents, and monitoring tasks and projects, among other things.
What is Notion?
It is one large, infinitely customizable digital area with ready-made templates that make it simpler to write papers, plan work, track and manage projects, construct knowledge bases, and organize notes and clippings, as opposed to being a collection of tools.
You can build a database using Notion while working on a document. It is a genuine database as opposed to a spreadsheet, with each cell representing a Notion page. Project management tools, calendars, all kinds of content, and even additional databases can be added to those sites as you opt for.
How Notion works
Blocks serve as the foundation for the notion.
An image or a paragraph of text can both be considered blocks. It might either be a Kanban chart or a calendar. In Notion, there are more than 50 different types of blocks, and new ones are continuously being created.
Its features are accessible everywhere.
Whether you want To-do lists with checkboxes, calendars, or making tables, it’s possible with Notion. That’s only a fraction of what you can do with Notion.
Pages appear as new documents
To access your work, simply open it on a new Page in Notion. Anything that Notion can do can be described on each card: embedded papers, sales materials, notes, audio and video (so you can record entire sales calls), and photographs
The notion was developed as a codeless app builder. In reality, a Notion page is a web application. Additionally, the code blocks are pre-made.
A further step website, Notion Pages, is devoted to providing unique Notion templates for a variety of uses, including bullet notebooks, employee handbooks, and curriculum managers.
A blueprint for using Notion for documents
It’s simple to generate documents using Notion’s default blank page.
By clicking and dragging, you can add images, format text, add tables, and rearrange blocks once you’ve started a page in this manner.
Including pictures in your Notion document
The block menu in Notion documents allows for the addition of images. Open a new block, navigate to the Media area of the block menu, and choose Images from the list:
From the block menu, you can choose a picture straight from Unsplash, a free image library, upload your own, embed one using a link, or all three.
Adding tables to your Notion document
Notion tables offer a tonne of capability, unlike just text-based apps like Google Docs or Microsoft Word. If you intend to use this as the index for a database, then the headers—Name, Tags, and Files will seem obvious.
Column headings can have their labels changed by clicking on them. The type of data that is kept in that column can also be changed using a menu that is provided.
You can show fundamental data just like you would in Docs or Word by setting all of your columns to Text.
Rearranging the blocks in your Notion document
Text in a Docs or Word document can be moved by copying or cutting it, then pasting it in the desired location.
Simply pick the “handle” of a paragraph—the square next to the addition sign at the side of each block—and drag it to the new location.
With Notion, you can call out or mention other people when commenting on text. To take full advantage of this, everyone must have an account because you cannot call out non-Notion users.
Notion will, on your behalf, ping the person you’ve mentioned, a practice you may be accustomed to from using other collaborative document-creation platforms.
When a block is clicked, comments can be located there instead of in the regular block menu.
Reminders, including ones for dates and times, can also be set. If the desktop application is active, Notion will ping you, and if you have the options turned on, it will also email, text, and push you on your desktop.
Formatting text
Notion documents’ block menu also supports text formatting. You may find header choices by opening a new block and selecting them from the menu.
There are only two options in the block menu: plain text and h1 through h3. Use the common keyboard shortcuts to some extent if you need anything more. (Ctrl/Cmnd+I for italics and Ctrl/Cmnd+B for bold both work; Ctrl/Cmnd+U for underlines doesn’t, nor do the conventional shortcuts for strikethrough text, superscript, or subscript.)
Notion Tasks
Notion provides you with effective tools for tracking and managing tasks, either independently of projects or as part of managing one or more projects.
You can turn almost anything into a task list, such as food recipes, things to buy, what to carry on your journey, and places to visit among many others.
All you have to do is start a new page, then choose “To-do list” from the block menu:
Afterwards, copy and paste these suggestions. Each paragraph will automatically become a block in Notion, and you can then make each block into a to-do list.
Simply press “Return” to start a fresh task list when composing your own. You can also nest checklists. Pick up a new to-do item by its handle, then drag it into the list you want to stack it inside.
Notion Projects
Calendars, Kanban, to-do lists, and collaboration tools are all included as basic project management tools with Notion right out of the box. These can be set up as pages on their own or as blocks within already-existing pages.
All of these items can be altered and arranged in rows too. It is possible to make a Kanban with a calendar and checklist on the back of each card. You can create a table with each cell having a calendar and a Kanban to display various project aspects. Selecting them from the block menu, followed by a simple drag and drop, is all that is required. Each block has a customizable element.
Notion Notes
Notion has a note-taking app as well. There is a browser extension that is promoted as a Web Clipper but serves as a gateway to the entire Notion domain. It is available for Firefox and Chrome.
The bookmarks bar of your browser is where Notion Web Clipper stays after installation. It will store the page you are on in your Notion workspace when you open it from there. Additionally, it will allow you to launch Notion directly from the browser extension window.
When you do that, Notion instantly changes the page you were on into a Notion document so you may add and update text and other content, mention people, make reminders, move text and images around, and more. You can retrieve the stored version of the page you were on right away.
Notion Wikis
With Notion, you may create wikis or interactive knowledge base pages. They may be created collaboratively by several users, and Notion’s ability to organize pages inside pages allows you to build sophisticated FAQ and knowledge base tools that users can use on their own.
You have the option of creating them from the ground up or using the template found in the Engineering menu.
Notion Membership
Personal plans cost $5 with a monthly payment, while team plans cost $10.
The Team plan is much less expensive than many rival products. For example, Trello costs $12.50 per month per seat with a limited free version, G Suite costs $6 per month for the Basic plan, and Evernote Premium costs $7.50
Conclusion
And that’s our beginner’s guide to using Notion. It is indeed so much more than just a platform for taking notes and organizing ideas. Notion, for instance, can be used to collect notes, monitor your progress, make art mood boards, and arrange project specifics.
You can choose how you want to use this extensive variety of tools.
