Notion GTD

30 minute video walkthrough

An opinionated todo list system in Notion

Do you use Notion for managing multiple aspects of your life but haven't yet figured out a system for tracking your ever growing list of todos?

I was in the same boat. I used Notion for:

• tracking my reading
• my writing
• my knowledge base

For my tasks however, I used dedicated task management systems like Bullet Journaling (paper based), Todoist, Any.do, Trello, and a few others. While they all worked well, I was irritated having to use multiple apps to manage my life. Plus I missed the awesome writing features of Notion. I wished I could write detailed plans with beautiful formatting for my tasks and projects; similar to what I did for all the other content I had in Notion.

Another problem I had was that eventually, my task management system got overwhelming. I would start avoiding my task list, and start feeling unproductive because there was so much to do and I was doing nothing. That problem was solved when I read the Getting Things Done book by David Allen. I initially started using one of the todo list managers I talked about before, but quickly realized that having something in Notion would be the best!

I started out with a very simple system of tracking projects and tasks in Notion. I iterated it over months, learning from where I would encounter friction, fixing any bugs I found. After a few months I landed with a system very similar to this (my system had a few personalizations to help my unique workflow). I have been very happy with what I had for the 3 years that I have been using it.

Getting Things Done in Notion

This template replicates the GTD system in Notion as I used it for over 3 years. It doesn't follow the GTD method exactly, but something very close to it. It's what worked for me, and I hope it will work for others as well.

This template includes:

1. Sample content to give you an idea of how you can use this to manage your task list.
2. A 2000 word guide that gives you an overview of the GTD system and gives you examples of how to use it specifically with this template.

How to start using this template

After duplicating the template into your own Notion account, I suggest:

• Browsing the sample data that I've added. It will give you some idea of how I have successfully used this system for over 3 years.
• Get yourself a large cup of your favorite beverage (I'm partial to tea/coffee) and read the getting started guide titled "How to use this template". It's linked on the dashboard of the template at the bottom.
• Delete the sample data from tasks and projects.
• Start using the system to manage your own todos.

Given the customizability of Notion, you will find changes that you can make to this system as you start using it. Make those changes! The reason Notion is a great tool for task management is precisely because it can be customized to suit your unique workflow. Add new fields where they make sense, create new dashboard pages showing you the tasks you need to see, create a shared space for your significant other to add tasks into your system.

Limitations

Notion is an amazing tool, but it has a few limitations that show up in this template as well. Here's a list of things I wish I had a better solution for:

• Recurring tasks. Right now I manually update the due date of a task to the next time I want it to show up, and I don't check the "Done?" checkbox until I am ready to stop the task from showing up again.
• When completing or deleting projects, you'll have to manually mark as done or delete all the tasks inside that project. Otherwise those tasks will keep showing up in the different views of the task database. I had hoped that the new buttons feature in Notion would let me automate this, but it doesn't. So for now I have to manually complete/delete the tasks under a project before completing/deleting that project.

Is it free?

For now. Right now I'm focusing on getting feedback from people who use this template so I can improve it for everyone. The plan is to change the price to $10 in a couple of weeks from today (30th April 2023).

If you end up using this, I'd love to get feedback from you on what worked for you and what didn't. Did you get stuck anywhere? Was anything confusing? Is there something I could change to improve the template?

You can reach out to me on Twitter with your feedback. I'd really appreciate it.