My 3 Levels For Organizing Notes In Notion
I used to have notes and thoughts clattering around in my head with no idea how to remember them all or put actions to them.
Keeping a pocket notebook with me at all times helped, but I'd often forget to look back through it for the idea I needed. When I would remember, I'd often have to look through a few notebooks to find the idea. The various other notes apps like Apple Notes and Evernote were helpful with search, but still didn't meet the organization I was looking for.
Finally in 2023, I found the PARA method by Tiago Forte and a Notion slipbox video by Elizabeth Filips that, combined, were the answer I was looking for.
Level 1: Fleeting Notes
The first thing to tackle was my notes/idea inbox to get ideas out of my head without unnecessary friction.
In his book, How To Take Smart Notes, Sonke Ahrens describes how written ideas are Fleeting Notes until they have been processed. The Fleeting Notes are my inbox in Notion. To make the process easier, I created a simple back tap shortcut to add notes to my Notion database from anywhere on my phone without opening the app itself.
Once the idea is out of my head, I can proceed with what I need to get done knowing that it has been captured in 1 place for processing.
Level 2: Slip Box Note Organization
Fleeting notes are either deleted or organized into my Notion Slip Box, which has dozens of different layered categories.
Following Elizabeth's advice, my notes are separated into 2 databases: the notes themselves and the slip box entries which relate back to 1 or mote notes. Each slip box entry is contained to a specific category I'm interested in and the notes can be directly related (primary), partially related (secondary), or conversely related (tertiary). The slip box itself is layered so ideas can scale up and down in an organized way and any note can be related to numerous different slip box entries.
Now we have the notes organized in a system where I can see related ideas all in one place to combine them, but I wanted to be able to see relevant notes across the rest of my Notion setup as well.
Level 3: Relations To My PARA Second Brain
Enter Tiago's PARA system which stands for Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archive.
In Notion, Projects, Areas, and Resources are all related to each other, which lets me see a particular Area's (like my online business's) Projects and Resources at a glance. In addition, each slip box entry can also be related to projects, areas, and resources depending on what it is. This minimizes how much I need to jump around in my Notion setup by having everything related available from any place in Notion.
It did take a couple of weeks to get right, but the effort was well worth the time savings as I go about day to day tasks.
