One of the productivity and organization tools that have become the most fashionable in recent years are applications. And it is not for less since, without a doubt, they have been able to seduce the general public by the amount of facilities they provide to the user. One of the most famous and best, which does not always imply one thing to the other, is Notion. Therefore, in this post we want to explain everything you need to know to start using this complete application, without dying in the attempt.
What is Notion?
Notion is a productivity application that provides you with a huge number of tools to help you manage both your projects and the tasks that make them up. The number of options for using Notion are almost infinite, yes, we are not deceiving you. This application has a very minimalist interface, it can even give the sensation at first glance of being an app that is too simple to be able to house all the potential it has within it.
Well, despite this simple aspect, the truth is that with this application you can do practically anything you propose, from using it as a task list application to having in it the database of your business or project, the calendar of publication of your Instagram account or the economic accounts of your store. Really, Notion can be as easy or complicated to use as you want, because here, the user has absolutely all control of what may or may not happen.
In this post what we want is to give you the basic knowledge so that you can start using Notion without having the feeling that this application is too much for you, something very common in all users who from one day to the next install this app on their device and they start using it, that is, we want to make it as easy as possible for you so that you can start taking advantage of Notion from the first day you decide to start using it.
On what devices is it available?
Before going into talking about the application in question, we want to tell you on which devices you will be able to use Notion, and above all, which of them will be more comfortable for you. This application has a fundamental requirement that all apps that want to succeed and seduce the user in the productivity section must have, and that is to be a multiplatform application. This means that you will be able to enjoy Notion both on your iPhone, on your iPad, and on your Mac, always maintaining total synchrony between all your devices.
Depending on the use you want to make of the application, it will also be more appropriate to use one device or another when entering new data or creating new pages. We could say that Notion is designed, always with exceptions, to dominate it with the Mac or iPad, and use the iPhone to always be able to consult at all times and regardless of where you are, all the information that you have entered in it. However, this is not written in fire anywhere so each user can and should adapt the use of this app according to their needs.
Organization by pages
Pages? What’s that?
We can say that Notion works by pages, the pages are a blank canvas where you can create everything you want, you can use it to write, use one of the many templates that exist or use one of the five types of database that Notion provides From the outset, you can even create more pages, we’ll talk about all of this in detail later. You can give each page the name you want and customize it to your liking, we will also talk about this later, and above all, one of the most outstanding points is that you can create as many pages as you want.
Create your own
As we mentioned, when creating your pages, you can choose two different ways, on the one hand, use a template, or template as it is called in Notion, there is an infinite variety within the app itself and even web pages where you can download even more. Or, you can create your pages manually based on the five types of databases that Notion offers. The second option is the one that we will talk about now and later we will enter the world of templates.
The five types of database that Notion offers are the 5 basic uses that you can do with this application. After all, your Notion pages can be as simple or complex as you like. Here are the five types of database that you have.
- Boards.
- Boards.
- Lists.
- Calendars
- Gallery.
- Timeline
In more detail, we are going to see what each and every one of the database types are for, or also, we could call them, page types.
Types of pages
Boards
The first type of page that we are going to talk about are tables, an element that can be really useful to organize according to what content. The tables that you can create in Notion are fully customizable, since you can include as many rows and columns as you want, and also the most interesting and that gives a great value to the app, with the content you want within them. This content can be of two types, basic, or advanced. Within the basic content you have the following options.
- Text.
- Number.
- Selection.
- Multi.selection.
- Date.
- People.
- Files.
- Check box.
- Links.
- Email.
- Phone number.
On the other hand, if you want to introduce content moving forward, the existing options are the following.
- Formula.
- Relationship.
- Rollup.
- Creation time.
- Created by.
- Last edition date.
- Last edited by.
Boards
The boards, or also known within the application, as Board, are used to establish what the status of different tasks is at all times. They work in groups of tasks that, after all, are the different states in which a task can be at any given time. You can rename these states, add, delete and even assign a specific color to differentiate them in a much more visual way.
Lists
An essential function, in order to achieve the objective pursued by Notion of encompassing within it all the functionalities that the numerous productivity apps have, are the lists. It is an element that many users use every day in many situations and obviously, in Notion you also have the opportunity to use them. In addition, the level of customization of the lists is impressive, so you can adapt them perfectly to each moment and to each type of list that you want to create according to your needs.
Calendars
A practically essential productivity element is the calendar and obviously, within Notion you have the possibility of creating your own and that, in this case, this app can replace your calendar application, to have all the productivity elements located in the same place, in the same application. In addition, in the same way that when you create a page, within that same page you can create as many as you want, with the Notion Calendar the same thing happens, that is, you can create all the pages you want within each of the days.
Gallery
The gallery is a way of being able to visualize in a different way all the pages that you have stored within a page. Instead of viewing it as it comes by default, which is in the form of a list, you can do it in the form of a gallery so that, if it is more useful to view it this way, you can adapt your productivity application completely to your liking.
Timeline
The Timeline or also known as Gantt Chart is another of the databases or types of page that you can create within Notion. It is a productivity tool widely used in project management, since it allows users to see the duration of a task to visualize in a much clearer and easier way when, in theory, each task. Other properties that Timelines have is that you can filter them by multiple parameters, depending on the date, creation time, start dates and end dates, you can also view your tasks by hours, days, weeks, fortnights or even months or years as well as adding a table, list, gallery or calendar view of the Timeline that you are using at that moment.
Style text with blocks
The time has come to start filling the pages with content, to start writing on them, and for this, Notion also gives its users the possibility of being able to style the texts, with the intention of enriching each of the pages created. This action can be carried out in two different ways, first you can write the text you want, and later, by clicking on the 6 points that appear to the left of the text, click on “Turn into” to choose one of the multiple existing formats and which we will now talk about. The second option is to previously choose the format you want to use, for this you just have to write “/” and then choose the desired text style. The styles that are available in Notion are as follows.
- Text.
- Page.
- To-do list
- Heading 1
- Heading 2
- Heading 3
- Bulleted list.
- Numbered list.
- Toggle list.
- Quote.
- Divider.
- Link to page.
- Callout.
Use templates
As we mentioned before, you can create your own pages to fully customize your content, but we also recommend that you keep in mind the option of being able to use templates from Notion or even from other users who make them available to the rest to be able to get the most out of it. possible.
In the menu on the left that you have in Notion, if you click on “Templates” you have at your disposal an almost inexhaustible number of templates to be able to create practically anything you want. They are grouped by different themes, such as the following.
- Design.
- Education.
- Engineering.
- Recursos humanos.
- Marketing.
- Personal.
- Product management.
- You go out.
- Support.
These are the ones that Notion gives you initially, however, it also gives you the option, by clicking on “Browse more templates”, to do a broader search through Notion’s own website. Our recommendation is that you spend some time browsing through the different options that exist because, almost certainly, you will find a template that can be very useful for the use to which you want to use Notion.
However, Notion templates are not the only source of inspiration that you can find, many users through their different web pages share their personalized templates and created by themselves so that other users like you can use them and take advantage of them. Without a doubt this is also an ideal way to find what you are looking for or even inspire yourself to be the one to carry them out. Here are several websites that offer really cool templates.
- RadReads .
- Notion Pages .
- Red Gregory .
- Notion Mango .
Import content from other applications or sources
Another option that Notion gives you is to be able to import content from other applications or document types. This is really interesting to be able to vitaminize your databases with content that until then you created with other software and that from now on you do with Notion. Here is the list of services from which you can import content to Notion.
- Evernote.
- Trello.
- Asana.
- Confluence.
- Text & Markdown.
- CSV
- HTML
- Word.
- Google Docs.
- Dropbox Paper.
- Quip.
- Workflowy.
Give it a personal touch
One of the recommendations we make is that you give life to your pages and all the projects that you manage through Notion. The application itself gives you the possibility of differentiating each of the pages by adding an emoticon to reference them, however, our recommendation is that you use personalized images, for example, you can add the logos of your clients, your profile image, that of the brand that you are managing, in short, that the options to customize both the image of the page and the background will be something that will also give a much more aesthetic and professional touch to your Notion.
It’s free, up to a point
Do not worry, initially you will not have to pay to use Notion, however, the free version has some limitations that, in most cases, are not an impediment for users. However, there are different plans depending on the needs of users that increase the value of this application. The plans that exist are the following.
- Personal.
- Pro Personal.
- Team.
- Business.
Of these four plans, the free one is the personal plan. However, as we mentioned before, most users have enough with this plan since the options offered by the application are really plural and satisfy the personal needs of the users.
