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Even if you are only remotely interested in productivity and organization tools, you have almost certainly seen a particular tool’s name and logo keep popping up in your timeline or in your video recommendations — Notion.
With its meteoric rise in popularity over the last few years, Notion has certainly become one of the most talked about apps on social media lately and has gathered a sizable and very passionate community of users.
This guide will get you up to speed on the fundamentals of this trending software, so that you know what it is, how it works, what it is used for and if it is worth your time to give it a try.
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What Notion Is Often Described As
First of all, Notion is a web application that runs in the browser and can therefore be used on most computers and smartphones. Desktop apps for Windows and Mac and mobile apps for iOS and Android are also available.
Across the internet and social media you will find Notion being described in various ways and as many different things, such as:
- a productivity tool,
- a note-taking app,
- a knowledge base,
- a project management software,
- a workflow management system,
- a software to organize your life.
On Notion’s website the company describes the tool as “the connected workspace where better, faster work happens” and that “brings your wiki, docs, and projects together”.
All of this sounds great, but what does it actually mean and why do different people describe Notion in such different ways? It’s because Notion can be used as any one or all of these things and even more beyond that.
Notion — The All-in-One Workspace App
At its core, Notion is a software that enables its users to build their own custom workspaces. It serves as a central platform to capture data and information and is equipped with various functions to structure, organize, connect, and visualize that information in meaningful ways.
This allows individuals and collaborating teams of any size to use Notion as a central source of truth, where — if set up correctly — important information doesn’t slowly disappear into the void of an obscure folder structure.
One of Notion’s biggest selling points as an all-in-one workspace app is that it allows its users to consolidate tools and to cut costs. That is a big deal in a world where there is a different subscription-based app for everything. Especially, when you are running a business.
To get a better understanding of what it looks like to work with Notion and what enables its high level of flexibility and customization, we have to take a look at its architecture.
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How Notion Works
If I had to summarize the architecture of Notion in short, it would be this:
- Information is placed within movable blocks,
- blocks make up pages,
- pages are organized in databases,
- and database views make the information accessible.
Let’s take a look at each of these levels one by one.
Build with Blocks
In Notion everything is built with blocks. When you add text to a page, it sits within a text block. When you add an image, it sits within an image block. When you add a table, it sits within a table block.
There are many different block types and you can add and embed almost any kind of content in Notion. On top of that, the block architecture makes everything easily movable and you can simply drag and drop any block around. This makes the creation of a useful layout very intuitive.
Jake Teton-Landis, one of Notion’s earliest software engineers, compares Notion’s blocks to LEGO in his article about the data model behind Notion:
They’re the LEGOs we use to build and model information. And when put together, blocks are like LEGO sets, creating something much greater than the sum of their parts.
Blocks are really what makes Notion so flexible and customizable, because you can use them to build something that fits exactly the needs and requirements of your use case. Just like you can build almost anything you want using LEGOs.
To make it clear that blocks can be used for much more than simple document creation, here is a short list to show you just some of the available block types:
- Basic blocks for text, headings, tables, lists, quotes, and dividers
- Inline blocks to mention people, refer to other pages, or to add dates and reminders
- Media blocks to embed images, videos, audio files, PDF files, bookmarks, and file uploads
- Embed blocks to embed content, information, and data from a wide range of third-party websites and tools, including Google Drive, Dropbox, Twitter, Google Maps, Figma, and GitHub
- Advanced blocks for tables of content, math equations, button automations, and synced blocks
- AI blocks that can help you to texts, summaries, and lists of action items
All block types can be put right next to each other on a Notion page.
Create Versatile Pages
At first glance, you might think that Notion is just another document editor. But given the possibilities of the underlying block architecture, it can really be used for a lot more than that. That’s why Notion calls the canvas you work on a page, rather than a document.
Remember that Notion uses blocks for everything? That is also true for pages, as they are just another block type.
By adding page blocks to another page, you create subpages to separate and organize your information in a meaningful way. Exactly like you are creating subfolders on your computer to store information in a way that let’s you find what you need quickly.
Pages are organized in the sidebar of Notion. You use them to structure your workspace into different areas, much like the folder structure of the operating system on your computer.
Any page can also be referenced and linked to from any other page, so you can easily interconnect pages to jump between them with just one click, rather than going through the sidebar each time.
Pages can be stand-alone entities, but can also sit within a database, which enables numerous ways to organize and structure them.
Organize with Databases
Databases are one of the most powerful features of Notion and allow you to keep pages of the same kind in one place. When used as the foundation of a workspace, databases are the key to preventing information to be scattered around different places and with different formats.
Just like pages, databases are also just another block type. They can be used as stand-alone pages or added as inline databases to an existing page, right next to blocks of other types.
In the classic table view, every row represents one database entry. Every database entry is made up of a Notion page, which is required to have a title, and an unlimited number of properties.
Properties add context to each database entry. There are many different property types available, including text, numbers, dropdown select options, status, dates, persons, files, checkboxes, URLs, formulas, and more.
While similar at first glance, Notion databases are different from the spreadsheets you know from Excel and Google Sheets. I would describe it in the following way:
Notion databases are used to organize and structure information, spreadsheets are used to organize and structure data. The difference between the two being that information already has a context that makes it useful to work with, while raw data usually requires you to make sense of it first.
There is definitely an overlap between their features and use cases, but there are also things that you can only do with either one of them.
For example, I use Notion to organize and structure my blog posts, but I will definitely not use it to make sense of the data export I get from my SEO keyword research tool. However, after I made sense of that keyword data in Excel, I might add some of my findings to my Notion content database.
Connect Databases with Relations
You can create relations between databases to pull up particular property values from one database on another database, and vice versa. This makes it possible to create clear structures in your workspace, while also allowing everything to be interconnected.
For example, you might have a contact database with information about your business partners, and a database containing your business projects. You can then connect these two databases, so that you can see the contact information of all business partners involved with a project right on the project’s page.
By structuring your information in databases and connecting them with each other, you can really build your own custom software systems right within Notion.
Visualize with Database Views
Every Notion database comes equipped with the option to create multiple different views. There are six different database view types available:
- Table
- Board
- Timeline
- Calendar
- List
- Gallery
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Each view has a different way of displaying the information stored in the database, suitable for different use cases. You can create as many different views of a database as you need, even multiple ones of the same kind.
Based on the properties you have defined for a database, you can also sort and filter every database view to display only database entries of a certain kind and in a particular order.
For example, for a task management database you could set up a list view with a filter that shows you all open tasks, a board view that shows you all tasks separated by their specific category, and a calendar view that shows you for which days these tasks are scheduled.
What makes database views truly amazing is the ability to add them as yet another block type to any page in your workspace. This makes it possible to create amazing dashboard pages, which present you all the information you need from multiple databases in one place.
On top of all that, Notion being a cloud-based web application makes it a terrific collaboration and sharing tool.
Collaborate & Share to the Web Easily
Since Notion runs in the cloud, pages and databases can be accessed and edited by multiple people at the same time.
A workspace, its pages and databases can be tailored to the specific needs and requirements of a team. Every team member can create their own custom pages based on the shared workspace information, to only see information that is relevant to them and their responsibilities.
It is also very easy to share information from Notion with people who are not part of your workspace, since every page can be shared with the click of a button.
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You can even use Notion to create makeshift webpages, by publishing your Notion pages to the web and making them indexable by search engines. The beautiful design of Notion certainly makes that a viable option for some use cases.
Notion’s Clean & Simple Design
The design of Notion is definitely another big factor for its success and has since become an inspiration for many other tools.
Notion combines a very clean default interface with different opportunities to give pages your own touch, like page icons and covers. This gives Notion users a feeling of building something on their own and for themselves.
Combined with the ability to use blocks to build custom page layouts of all kinds, this level of flexibility and customizability makes Notion so appealing to work with for many people. To the point where many of them happily share and rate each other’s Notion dashboards setups and designs on platforms like Reddit and YouTube.
Powerful AI Capabilities
Notion has also jumped on the AI train by publishing their own Notion AI product, which brings the power of generative AI and large language models right into your Notion workspace.
You can use it to write texts, create drafts and outlines, translate to other languages, fix spelling and grammar, change the tone of your writing, and many other things.
What Is Notion Used for and Is It Worth It?
I hope you can understand by now why Notion is often described as many different things. It’s because it is a highly customizable tool, that allows you to create a workspace with functions that fit your specific needs and requirements.
You can take notes with it. You can manage tasks and projects with it. You can create a knowledge base with it. You can collaborate on documents as a team with it. You can organize your business and your life with it.
Other apps that focus specifically on one discipline might be better in their particular field, however, if you are someone who is interested in consolidating tools and bringing things together in one central place, then Notion is definitely a solution you should consider.
Personally, the first thing I used Notion for was to build my own to-do list. Since then things have escalated a bit and I use Notion nowadays to organize my entire personal and business life. I manage my projects and tasks in Notion, I track my habits in Notion, I write blog posts in Notion, I even create and publish websites like this one right here with and on top of Notion.
Getting Started — Is Notion Free?
Notion has a very generous free plan, which comes with very few limitations and allows you to get started without any financial commitment. In fact, the free plan will probably cover most of your needs, until you decide to use it more intensely for your business activities.
After that, paid plans start at $10 per month when paid annually. If you are a student, you can even use the features of the Plus plan for free by creating an account with your academic .edu email address.
You can check out the different plans and sign up for a free account on the Notion website, once you are ready to give it a try.
I highly recommend you to take a look at the free Notion 101 introductory video course and other resources within the Notion Academy.
Also, make sure to take a look at Notion’s official template gallery, where you can find templates for many different use cases that you can easily duplicate into your own workspace and customize to your own needs.
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