Notion is like a box of Lego without the instructions. When you start a new page you are given a flashing cursor and some options - nothing much! But once you start to work with the huge set of tools and options you will be able to do just about anything with this customisable productivity tool. And once you start working in Notion, like Lego, you discover that it is largely based around Blocks that contain information - and the ability to link blocks together to create useful views is what makes Notion such a powerful productivity tool!

Apart from Blocks, you will see that Notion is also based on Pages and Databases.

The App is free to use unless you want to get into the power user zone which for most users won’t be necessary!

Getting Setup

To get set up with Notion take these steps:

1. Download the Mobile App
2. Download the Desktop App
3. Bookmark Notion in your Browser.

Task: Create a free Notion account and you will be set to go.

Best Practises

1. I use Notion to keep related information for a topic or project in one pace. I do this for Book Summaries; Projects; Personal Information; Personality Type Systems; etc.
2. Use Notion to share information that you create with people by sharing the page and sending them a link to the page.
3. Use Notion to create a set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for different aspects of your work or hobbies.
4. Use Notion to Manage Action - your Projects and your Tasks.
5. Use Notion to Track Habits instead of using a different app.
6. Use Notion to process Notes that you take.
7. Use Notion to keep Quotes for use at a later stage.

Moving Around

Notion has a Sidebar that is like Finder or File Explorer – you can add Favourites for pages you use often and navigate around your system from there. Notion combines a traditional hierarchical file structure with the hyperlinked structure of the web. The cool part is that if you move pages around, the hyperlinking updates automatically. The sidebar is a great place to explore your system and you can expand the toggles to view sub-pages. You can also move pages (or blocks) to other pages by right-clicking on a page or a block and selecting “move to”. ****You can drag and drop pages in the sidebar to move them around. ****You can also link from one page to another using Links – you can even link to a specific Block on a page (Notion is all about blocks which can be formatted and edited) - more about linking a little later in this guide.