In this article:
During junior year of high school, I serendipitously stumbled upon Notion. The clean, customizable interface drew me in right away. But what really stood out was how Notion changed my relationship with work - it made managing tasks feel manageable rather than anxiety-inducing.
Now, I’m a sophomore studying computer science at Carnegie Mellon. I have an arguably more demanding schedule. As my coursework has ramped up in difficulty, I’ve appreciated having Notion by my side.
Here's why: Notion is like a set of building blocks 🧱. But instead of constructing Jenga towers or Barbie Dreamhouses, you’re building a personalized workspace tailored to your goals. As a student, I’ve grown to use the tool for anything from organizing school tasks and habit-tracking to chronicling my café-hopping adventures. Notion helps me appreciate the journey, so that I can reach my goals and love doing so.
So let's dive in! I'm excited to share what's been working (and not working) for me and how my Notion setup has evolved over the years as a student.
<aside> 🎓 Tip: If you’re a student, take advantage of Notion’s free education plan by signing up with a school email address. This comes with unlimited pages & blocks, file uploads, and 30 day version history.
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As my responsibilities and priorities shift throughout college, I find myself continuing my journey of discovering what Notion workflows mesh well with me.
This year, I like to think I’m near where my ideal Notion organization is at. I have a centralized page with sections for everything I'd use, including academic goals, habit-building, and journaling.
Every year, my Notion dashboard goes through a makeover. 💅 As a plant parent of Willow (a spider plant) and Maya (a China Doll plant), I made my dashboard nature-inspired.
Tada, here it is :)
<aside> 🌱 Access my free School Dashboard template here!
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<aside> 🌱 Tip: I bookmark and pin this page to my browser for easy access.
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<aside> ⚙️ Avoid over-engineering: When starting out on Notion, I was admittedly very excited at all the things I could create. I spent hours creating these intricate databases before classes started, confident in what I thought would be useful.
Turns out, I completely misjudged my workflow. When it came time to actually using these workflows during the school year, I didn’t have time to upkeep a detailed template. I ended up abandoning the system altogether. After that, I started building up from scratch and appreciated the practicality of building as I needed them.
Oftentimes, simpler setups can get the job done more easily.
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Using Notion to keep track of things has allowed me to digitize my learning and made it much more convenient to analyze my progress. While note-taking has no one-size-fits-all approach, here are the main ways Notion helps me as a student:
Type or handwrite? 👩🏻💻📝
Coming into college, I’ve been struggling with this question of whether to type or handwrite my notes in class. In theory, typing all my notes in Notion sounds amazing - everything neatly organized in one place! So before freshman year started, I created elaborate templates and systems ready to document my learning.
But a few weeks in, I realized my grand plan wasn't totally realistic. For my technical courses, trying to neatly typeset symbols, diagrams, and proofs was clunky compared to handwriting them. It was just generally much easier to follow along lectures with pencil and paper. I also found that writing by hand helped solidify concepts in my mind in a way that typing didn't.
However, Notion proved more useful for my humanities classes, particularly those that focused on reading and discussions. In my Intro to Ethics course, which was focused on reading and discussion, typing notes helped me cleanly capture my ideas.
my ethics course page
Even if I didn't type my notes directly in Notion, I still created a page for each class. This space allowed me to clip anything related to that class or things I found useful.
some midterm review notes from my discrete math class :’)
Although I mostly handwrote notes for technical courses, I still took the time to rewrite key ideas and concepts on Notion. This approach helped me in two ways:
My note-taking tips 📑
I will wholeheartedly forget about an assignment if I don't write them down. Thus, I love and use a kanban board to track my assignments - it provides a high level snapshot of what's to be done, in progress, and completed. I also find it incredibly satisfying to drag tasks from one stage to another.
my kanban board so far this semester
I separate my board into three categories:
Current: Upcoming assignments due that week. These represent my weekly must-do's.
Review: I populate this view with completed assignments I like to go over afterwards. Although it may seem painstaking, taking the extra step to review assignments once they’ve been graded helps me identify knowledge gaps and improve my learnings.
I found reviewing assignments especially helpful for a Discrete Math class I took freshman year, where I’d review feedback on my proof-based psets that sometimes involve lengthy, confusing steps where I want to see if my work was on the right track.
Overall: The master list of every task, which acts as an archive of my assignments.
How I time-manage assignments
Notion is my bird's eye view of what needs to be completed, whereas Google Calendar is my tool for daily scheduling. In a nutshell, my kanban board acts as a reference for what to time-block into my schedule.
I find Google Calendar’s time-blocking more customizable and easier to visualize than Notion’s calendar views. Although they are separate platforms, I’ve found that these tools complement each other well and allowed me to effectively balance tasks.
<aside> 📒 Reminder: Notion doesn't have to be the sole component of your productivity workflow! Notion is designed to be a medium that integrates well with you.
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Admittedly, I’ve tried using these detailed, comprehensive habit planners and they’ve just been a lot of work to upkeep. As a busy student, habit trackers usually felt like a chore to maintain. However, I definitely wanted a way to track my habits and start databasing.
So when I started college, the key to my habit trackers were to reduce friction - making it as easy as possible to track progress. I wanted habit-tracking to be at most a few taps away - something I can do in the elevator at my dorm or in between classes.
More is less 😌
To stay focused, I only track 1-3 habits I really want to focus on. This semester, I’m focusing on (1) logging my runs and (2) tracking how much I spend on food. I’ve set up habit trackers for both and have a quick button for logging each page.
my running database this semester
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logging a run on my phone
I have a “log run” button on my home page that adds a new page in my database, selects today’s date, and only takes me several seconds to log the title, distance, and where I ran. This convenience makes me far more likely to actually mark down habits every day.
<aside> 📒 Tip: Download the Notion app on your phone! From there, you can favorite your home page or add the Notion widget to your home screen. This will make it much easier to document your habits on the go.
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Having a space for unfiltered processing was crucial for my mental health. Notion provided that refuge - a digital garden where my stream-of-consciousness could flow freely.
I enjoyed one page ‘diary’ dedicated to loose, random thoughts.
No pressure, no rules. Something to capture my thoughts as they were.
Having this low-barrier page for just writing down thoughts made me much more frequently going back to this page and adding to it throughout the school year.
Writing cumulative reflections 🏁
Come year end, I revisited this document to reflect on my personal growth. Synthesizing thoughts and moments throughout my journey helped me laugh back at moments, be reminded of them, and appreciate how much I’ve grown!
I love how easy Notion makes it to document anything. Since I began using Notion to document my life, I’ve developed a stronger sense of identity and self-understanding.
Every year, I compile a document for myself that includes all the challenges I faced, how I've grown, and what I've learned. I usually take experiences from my journal, habit tracker, and synthesize them into a page of reflections. Last year, it looked something like this. For privacy, I won’t show everything after :’)
Notion gives us these building blocks for a powerfully customizable, curated home. It can be a digital diary, habit tracker, assignment board, and completely flexible to each individual.
As Notion has empowered my growth, I'm excited to see how it can do the same for you. Let’s thrive this semester together with Notion. You got this!