A month-long challenge dedicated to revamping our Notion setup? It’s much needed, in my opinion. 🤔
Ever since we hit the ber months, I’ve been thinking more and more about optimizing my Notion setup in preparation for 2023. Especially because, admittedly, I’ve slowly grown out of love with mine. (I’ll get to that in a little bit!) And as they say, there’s always room for improvement, right?
But before we delve into the details of this challenge, let’s do a quick run-through on what Notion is, what it does, and how it can help us in our planning, be it on a day-to-day or long-term basis.
What is Notion?
As described by its founding developers, Notion is an adaptive project management and note-taking software platform that is designed to boost efficiency, productivity, and in some cases, collaboration. In simpler terms, Notion is a one-stop shop of productivity and planning tools. And because of this impressive toolbox, you can now easily build a workspace that fits your specific needs.
From companies to teams to individuals, anyone can use and benefit from Notion. Mainly because this platform allows them to write, plan, and organize in one place. And these are vital functions in both large-scale projects and personal planning.
How do I use Notion?
I mainly use Notion as a day-to-day planner, organizer, and diary. With the added bonus of having a neat dashboard where I can keep track of work-related tasks and deadlines. Here’s a small preview of what my Notion currently looks like!
I’ve relied on Notion since September 2020. Prior to discovering this software, I had used traditional methods, such as notebook planners, and later on, bullet journals and spreadsheets. But I’ll be honest, going back and forth between them could get very tedious and exhausting — and that made it more difficult for me to organize consistently.
For me, I’ve found that Notion combines the practicality of spreadsheets + charts and the creative freedom of journaling. Thus, giving me the best of both worlds! And honestly, I’ve never looked back. I’m a Notion girl for life, friends. 🥰
Why did I “fall out of love” with Notion?
While I still fully believe in the superiority of Notion as a planning + organizing app, I admittedly haven’t been updating it as regularly as I used to. Especially during the third quarter of 2022. I’m talking lots of blank spaces in my diary and habit trackers — and even, sad to say, my daily gratitude log. I’m pretty bummed about it since I usually adore documenting my life.
So, what happened? Did I fall out of love with Notion? Yes and no.
Mindset affects planning.
I do think that external factors have deeply affected my mental headspace over the past few months, which have interfered with my routine and habits. Including my steady reliance on Notion to navigate my life.
But that’s just one of the side effects of having an unhealthy mental headspace. I didn’t just fall out of the Notion hype train. I also started reading less, eating less, and at times, sleeping less. So, yeah, with that, I can’t discount that my mental wellness definitely plays a role into things. After all, it can be difficult to prepare for the future when the present seems so… spectacularly bleak. But I digress.
People evolve, so should their plans.
Aside from the external stuff, it’s become more apparent than ever that I’m changing. Just the other day, I retook the MBTI personality test and received the most perplexing result: ENFJ. For reference, my initial result from years ago was INFJ. And yes, okay, I’m aware that only one letter is different!
But here’s the thing: I’ve been an introvert since the dawn of time (only a slight exaggeration, I’m sure). I’m the walking advertisement of introvertedness. For an online quiz to suddenly tell me otherwise, well, it was pretty jarring. However, it was also the knee to the proverbial balls that had me stepping back and reflecting. While I still maintain that the quiz result was wrong, I do believe that because of the forced isolation during the height of COVID-19, I now view and value relationships in a different light. And I think this is just one of the indicators that I’ve changed and evolved as a person.
Honestly, my priorities are vastly different now, too. And because of that, my current Notion setup no longer serves me. It is too much and too little at the same time. By that I mean, there are too many things that no longer resonate with me and too few things that are aligned with my current trajectory.
What is NaNoReMo?
With the year almost drawing to a close, I felt that a Notion revamp was very much needed. And since I’m a slow, meticulous planner, I know that this revamp process would take me weeks and weeks to do. And ta-da, just like that, the idea of dedicating the entirety of November to fixing up my Notion was born!
After a quick search on Twitter, I soon discovered that #NotionNovember already seemed to be a thing from 2021. Unfortunately, however, I couldn’t find its initial organizer and I saw no announcements about a 2022 iteration. Hence, I threw caution to the wind and decided to organize my own Notion challenge! 😎
Since it felt weird to use an existing hashtag, I decided to take inspiration from a popular mainstay event on the writing side of Twitter: NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). In other words, welcome to NaNoReMo! Our National Notion Revamp Month. ✨
What is the goal of this challenge?
As implied by its name, the main goal of NaNoReMo is to plan and build their Notion setup in preparation for the coming new year. It is a month-long challenge that will take up the entirety of November. This is to give #NaNoReMo participants enough time to do either of the following:
- Build a Notion setup from scratch
- Work on improving an existing Notion setup
How can you participate in NaNoReMo?
It’s pretty simple. Just use the hashtag #NaNoReMo on your preferred social media platform. Post whatever updates, progress screenshots, or tidbits that you feel like sharing! You can set concrete goals for yourself, or you can opt not to. It’s all up to you!
What else can you do?
If you want to go an extra mile, you can challenge yourself further by completing some of these prompts:
- Create a game plan and write about it. How will you revamp your Notion? What are your Notion essentials? How will you navigate the balance between aesthetic and function?
- Create an aesthetic moodboard of your ideal Notion setup. Show us the dashboard of your dreams!
- Do a before-and-after reveal. Before the start of NaNoReMo, how did your Notion setup look like? And how did it look like after? Was this challenge helpful to you?
- Share tips and strategies. Thse can be extremely valuable to other participants and even non-participants who want to try out Notion someday.
- Reflect after the challenge. What are your main takeaways from this experience? Did you learn anything? Would you encourage other people to give it a go?
If you do decide to write a piece of content dedicated to #NaNoReMo, please link back to this post so that other people can find the Notion challenge details and prompts. (Plus, I would love to see everyone’s experiences with this! 😉)
My plans for NaNoReMo
It goes without saying that I’ll be participating in this month-long Notion challenge. And I am personally really, really excited for it! I’ve been wanting to make tweaks, both minor and major, to my own Notion setup since the start of this year. But alas, I could never find the time to do so. That definitely ends now! No more excuses, friends.
Personally, the odds of me discarding my entire setup and starting from scratch are low. My Notion setup’s vibe is very virtual bullet journal-like, and as of now, I’d like to keep it that way. Still, some form of overhauling will happen. And here’s how I intend to revamp my Notion for this challenge.
Strip down to the essentials.
Truthfully, my current Notion setup has plenty of bells and whistles. To the point that it can get distracting. Which is counterproductive to the essence of this software. (Oops.)
On top of that, my data-loving self kind of overdid it with all the trackers. And while it’s nice to have a wealth of information, constantly updating so many trackers and spreadsheets can feel very tedious. Especially when the data being tracked offers very little insight or value. Collecting data for the sake of collecting data is a waste of time and energy. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that I have very limited amounts of both.
With that, my intention is to bring my Notion back to the essentials. What do I need? Why do I need it? And most importantly, how does it help me? These are questions that I need to consider in streamlining my setup to fulfill its purpose. Moreover, a cluttered space can be overwhelming, and frankly, an overwhelmed me is not a productive me.
Make room for the new.
People are constantly growing and evolving. And as someone in her twenties, there’s still so much growth ahead of me! And my Notion setup should definitely reflect that. Hence, I don’t want it to be rigid and static.
Instead, I want to make sure that my Notion setup is flexible, adaptable, and of course, spacious. Because the truth is that life offers no guarantees, and we just have to roll with the punches sometimes. I have no idea what lies in the future, but I do know that it will impact me in ways I can’t even begin to imagine. And so, my Notion setup should have room for all that chaos, be it emerging interests or new aspirations.
Less pressure, less problems.
When I first started using Notion, my pretty pink homepage sparked so much joy in me. It felt like entering a safe space that’s uniquely made and designed for me. And I always navigated it with a sense of purposeful excitement.
Unfortunately, for the past few months, that hasn’t been the case anymore. In fact, there had been a whole month wherein I totally avoided Notion because it had felt so overwhelming and overpowering. Too much noise, too much clutter. And I also had a bunch of unfinished pages that I dreaded seeing because they made me feel like a failure. Like I, too, was too cluttered and falling apart.
In short, it was no longer a conducive space for productivity. Instead, it just reminded me of the pressures I was facing both online and offline. And that’s something that I hope to address when redesigning my Notion setup in November.
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I’d love to hear from you!
🌻 Do you use Notion to plan and organize your life? And if not, what do you use instead?
🌻 Have you joined in Notion challenges before? Will you be participating in the first-ever NaNoReMo? Let me know in the comments below!
while i dont think i can fully commit to revamping my notion board, i’m definitely looking forward to everyone else’s revamp!!!
Oh goodness me, am I so doing this. My Notion is a mess. 😂 I still use the daily To-Do list page, but every other page is practically ignored, which is…not really ideal. I’m super excited to participate in this and see how my Notion evolves. Thanks for organizing this and can’t wait to read any wrap-ups or thoughts you have about it (if you have the interest and bandwidth to share, of course).
I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS. I’ve been so agit to revamp my Notion and feeling so antsy about the fact that my current Notion no longer works for me. Idk why I didn’t think about it before but writing a blog post about what still works for me and what I want to revamp is the PERFECT way to get out all my agit feelings lmfao. Thanks for making #NaNoReMo a thing!