Notion
- Thread starter John Forrister
- Start date
No. MS 365 (To Do / Outlook Calendar "for GTD" and OneNote for "Second Brain" works perfectly for me).
jkhloomis1103
GTD|Connect
I got myself set up for GTD on Notion and we use it as a company. Its a great PM and documentation tool. A little on the complex (not complicated) side for GTD imo. Recently switched to MS 365 which has much better integration features.
James M
Registered
I'm using Notion - I think its power is in its "blocks" approach, that lets you mix page content, embed videos etc, and – best for implementing GTD – databases.
I've built a full "trusted system" in Notion, modelling out databases for Areas, Projects and Tasks, with links between each.
Then using Notion's database filters, saved them as views for context / energy / time etc. Waiting For and Someday lists, based on Task status.
One of my long-term goals was to build out some of the features in David Allen's slide deck for the ideal GTD system, such as a minesweep tool, and to get the system to highlight to me, for example, if I have any Projects without open tasks, or any Projects older than 12 months. Using the Notion API and a set of scheduled macOS Shortcuts, I've built up automations to achieve this and used Notion's saved database views to present them to me.
I've been a GTD user for about 15+ years (on and off!). Previously I used Cultured Code's Things, which I would still very much recommend. But over time there were features that I wanted for my own system and Notion's flexibility and accessibility of the backend through the API (which is very well documented) has enabled me to build all this. I would be dishonest not to say that tinkering away and building out the functions to interact with the API has been its own fun for me at least!
Happy to share more if anyone would find it helpful. I think the bottom line about Notion, though, is it's not really a GTD tool as others like Things, Omnifocus, Nirvana, Todoist etc.! It's more like a platform on which someone could build out a GTD system, or indeed any kind of personal management / second brain system (as many contributors on YouTube attest!). A guide could certainly help though to get someone set up. If I can be any help at all with that I'm happy to, although again my particular set up relies on Shortcuts on macOS. Potentially these could be built as Python or Rust scripts, but I don't have enough knowledge of those (yet?)!
I've built a full "trusted system" in Notion, modelling out databases for Areas, Projects and Tasks, with links between each.
Then using Notion's database filters, saved them as views for context / energy / time etc. Waiting For and Someday lists, based on Task status.
One of my long-term goals was to build out some of the features in David Allen's slide deck for the ideal GTD system, such as a minesweep tool, and to get the system to highlight to me, for example, if I have any Projects without open tasks, or any Projects older than 12 months. Using the Notion API and a set of scheduled macOS Shortcuts, I've built up automations to achieve this and used Notion's saved database views to present them to me.
I've been a GTD user for about 15+ years (on and off!). Previously I used Cultured Code's Things, which I would still very much recommend. But over time there were features that I wanted for my own system and Notion's flexibility and accessibility of the backend through the API (which is very well documented) has enabled me to build all this. I would be dishonest not to say that tinkering away and building out the functions to interact with the API has been its own fun for me at least!
Happy to share more if anyone would find it helpful. I think the bottom line about Notion, though, is it's not really a GTD tool as others like Things, Omnifocus, Nirvana, Todoist etc.! It's more like a platform on which someone could build out a GTD system, or indeed any kind of personal management / second brain system (as many contributors on YouTube attest!). A guide could certainly help though to get someone set up. If I can be any help at all with that I'm happy to, although again my particular set up relies on Shortcuts on macOS. Potentially these could be built as Python or Rust scripts, but I don't have enough knowledge of those (yet?)!
sellaz32
JamieS
I've been using Notion for many things over the past 2 years, but still using Todoist as my primary GTD go to. I did purchase Thomas Frank's Ultimate Brain template in which he has developed a GTD styled inbox for processing. It is solid, but it is difficult to beat the quick entry (although Notion's iOS app is much faster than it used to be) and recurring tasks of Todoist.
So as I sit here today I am:
So as I sit here today I am:
- Using Notion for project management, higher horizons, and reference data.
- Using Todoist for mind sweep and task management.
Thanks for all the thoughtful answers and questions. Very helpful. And please keep commenting if anyone else has more to add.
SomeCallMeTim
Registered
Thank you for posting and going in to detail! Have you thought of sharing it as a template through Notion's community site? It sounds like you've done a lot of customization but seeing the general structure of it would be great. I am starting to learn Notion and I can see the potential but am not interested in re-inventing the wheel. There are a few templates out there that claim to be GTD but they are pretty much looking at the to-do lists and do not encompass the entire system.
TruthWK
Registered
I have tried for a long time to use Notion as a GTD tool but have moved away from it. Love it for notes but I struggled a lot with the complexity of options for how to implement a system in Notion. They have recently added subtasks and recurring functionality but I have not tried those. My recommendation from past trials, would be to use a single database for everything. This allows the use of their smarter fields like dates and relationships but creating multiple databases becomes cumbersome in Notion. The simpler approach is to avoid DBs altogether and just do pages as lists with pages in them. In the simpler approach you lose the ability to sort though. My issue is that while its flexible, all the work I do in it, you get for free in a simple task manager and when I try to do advanced stuff, I can do it but it always made my system feel too complicated and tough to use when i'm tired.
britdunlop
GTD|Connect
I use Notion and while previously I had built out a "second brain" sort of system, over the last couple of years I realized that wasn't really doing me any favors personally. I've set up a new Notion space and actually purchased a template on GTD that did a great job building the database and templates into Notion. It's been a good system so far and I was actually hoping there would be a set-up guide on Notion when I joined GTD connect.
Hi Brit, thanks for sharing. And I'd love to learn about the template. Do you by chance have a link?
britdunlop
GTD|Connect
Hi John, of course, I'd be happy to share. Here's the template I purchased:
.png)
www.notioneverything.com
The site has other GTD templates, but I can't speak to those as I haven't tried them. I've been using this template consistently for about 8 weeks and overall I like how it's set up, links next actions and projects (or not), though I did delete out a good few properties related to progress tracking, levels/gamifying as that isn't of interest to me.
The two main things that make it 'less than perfect' for me are Notion limitations, not GTD ones. First being the speed of the app, especially in a browser... it's sometimes a bit slow. Second being repeating tasks are really quite annoying to do / not nearly as intuitive as any other tool out there like Todoist, Trello, Asana, etc.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Getting Things Done (GTD) template | Notion Everything
Bring order to chaos with this notion template designed based on the concept of Getting Things Done (GTD), a productivity system created by David Allen.
www.notioneverything.com
The site has other GTD templates, but I can't speak to those as I haven't tried them. I've been using this template consistently for about 8 weeks and overall I like how it's set up, links next actions and projects (or not), though I did delete out a good few properties related to progress tracking, levels/gamifying as that isn't of interest to me.
The two main things that make it 'less than perfect' for me are Notion limitations, not GTD ones. First being the speed of the app, especially in a browser... it's sometimes a bit slow. Second being repeating tasks are really quite annoying to do / not nearly as intuitive as any other tool out there like Todoist, Trello, Asana, etc.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Hi John, of course, I'd be happy to share. Here's the template I purchased:
Getting Things Done (GTD) template | Notion Everything
Bring order to chaos with this notion template designed based on the concept of Getting Things Done (GTD), a productivity system created by David Allen.
The site has other GTD templates, but I can't speak to those as I haven't tried them. I've been using this template consistently for about 8 weeks and overall I like how it's set up, links next actions and projects (or not), though I did delete out a good few properties related to progress tracking, levels/gamifying as that isn't of interest to me.
The two main things that make it 'less than perfect' for me are Notion limitations, not GTD ones. First being the speed of the app, especially in a browser... it's sometimes a bit slow. Second being repeating tasks are really quite annoying to do / not nearly as intuitive as any other tool out there like Todoist, Trello, Asana, etc.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Hi. I was just wondering if you still use it and if everything works? I downloaded this template but it has some issues with counting the numbers of a couple of lists. I was just wondering if you have noticed som bugs. Otherwise it seems to work so it is not a crucial problem.
I worry that Notion is a 'fad', bit like Evernote (or is that too controversial?). It looks wonderful and seems to be very powerful. I also think the powerful nature of the system could lead to the constant tinkering of the system. I know I am very fallible to this. But I also admit I haven't tried it fully. I am trying to hold myself to a promise that for 2023 I focus on my current system and not to change it (again).
Last edited: