If you like having granular control over your to-do list and don't mind creating a completely custom task manager dashboard at the outset (or using my Notion task list template!), Notion can be a great to-do list. It's nearly unmatched in its flexibility, customization, and aesthetics-but it's also severely lacking in task management features. Sure, you could… but should you use Notion as your to-do list? You can be sure that my week looked a lot less chaotic when I was planning it, but I adjusted events' times and durations according to what really happened throughout the week. I liked this process because I used Google Calendar as a record of how I actually spent my time. You can see the projects are on Friday, and I broke them down into subtasks during the week. In this system, every time I add a new project to my freelance project planner in Notion, Zapier sends that project to Todoist. Going back to my freelance project planner, here's how I've used Zapier to automate my to-do list using both Todoist and Google Calendar-but you should use the app that's most familiar to you. That way, you're maximizing the organizational power and customizable views that Notion does best.īut any time you have a project or goal in Notion, send the actionable tasks to another, simpler app that you use as your daily to-do list. Turn to your Notion workspace anytime you need to: For that reason, you might only use Notion to organize all of your higher-level documents and data. Notion's primary advantage lies in its combination of blank-canvas notebook design and extremely robust databases. It won't work for everyone as a to-do list. While I'm pretty happy with my Notion checklist so far, I feel I should repeat: Notion isn't an intuitive task manager. Alternatively: Use Notion for macro-level items and another app for your tasks Zapier is a no-code automation tool that lets you connect your apps into automated workflows, so that every person and every business can move forward at growth speed. So if you want to use Notion as a to-do list, you'll need to use one task list for everything-work and personal alike. The first and biggest shortcoming is that Notion doesn't have one central place that notifies you of all upcoming deadlines. Create a dashboard and your preferred views Simply click that link and then click Duplicate in the upper-right corner to create your own copy and start customizing it to your own preferences.īelow, I'll walk you through my custom Notion task manager and how I've (mostly) successfully made up for each of Notion's biggest weaknesses. If you want to give my method a try, here's the link to my Notion to-do list template. In short, I want the granular control of Notion without losing the best qualities of a great to-do list app. And I'm proud to say that after (too many) hours of experimentation, I think I've arrived at the solution: my Notion task list.
And I want different (and customizable) ways to visualize my goals, projects, and tasks in a way that makes sense to me. I also want the option to use different views, like Kanban, Gantt charts, and a calendar.
But in my experience, these apps are seriously limited in other important ways.įor example, as a freelance writer, I want a robust database for my client and business projects.
The best to-do list apps are the ones that let you brain-dump your tasks, organize them to your heart's content, and see all of your upcoming to-dos across all of your projects, both work and personal. Why I keep returning to Notion as a to-do list
I'll also give you a couple of ideas for integrating Notion into your task management process in other ways, if granular customization just isn't your thing. I've created my own to-do list in Notion that works pretty well for me (which I'll share below, in case you're a glutton for punishment like I am).īut I firmly believe that using Notion as a task manager isn't the right fit for everyone-and that's ok. I'll freely admit that I'm one of those people who keeps trying to turn Notion into my sole project management tool. Malcolm so eloquently put it, we've been so preoccupied with whether or not we could that we never stopped to think if we should. Sure, there are ways to make Notion work as a to-do list, but as the great Dr.