Digital Productivity, Online planners, Planners
Notion Daily Planner: Setup Guide & Templates
Apr
Okay so I spent like three weeks rebuilding my Notion daily planner setup because my old one was a mess and honestly I think I finally cracked it. Here’s what actually works.
The Basic Database Setup That Won’t Make You Want to Scream
First thing, forget those aesthetic Pinterest templates that look gorgeous but require a PhD to operate. You need one main database called “Daily Pages” or whatever you want to call it. I named mine “Days” because I was tired.
Create a new database and make the title property a formula that auto-generates the date. The formula is like formatDate(prop(“Date”), “MMM DD, YYYY – dddd”) and yeah you need a Date property first. This was the game changer for me because I was manually typing dates like a caveman before.
Your essential properties should be:
- Date (obviously, type: Date)
- Status (Select: Not Started, In Progress, Done)
- Energy Level (Select: High, Medium, Low, Survival Mode)
- Top 3 Priorities (Text)
- Tasks (Relation to your tasks database if you have one)
- Notes (Text)
The Energy Level thing sounds cheesy but I’m telling you, on days when I mark “Survival Mode” I actually give myself permission to do less and it’s been weirdly helpful for my productivity guilt.
The Template Button Trick
Oh and another thing, you gonna want a template button. This is where Notion actually shines. Inside your database, create a new entry and set it up exactly how you want each day to look. Mine has:
A checkbox section for my morning routine (yes I include “actually eat breakfast” because apparently I need reminding). Then I have three H2 headers: Priority Tasks, Time Blocks, and Brain Dump. The Brain Dump section is just blank space where I throw random thoughts so they stop bouncing around my head during actual work time.
Under Priority Tasks, I literally have three bullet points numbered 1, 2, 3. That’s it. I used to have like fifteen sections and subsections and never used half of them. My cat jumped on my keyboard while I was deleting all that extra stuff and honestly she was right, less is more.
Time Blocking Without Losing Your Mind
For Time Blocks, I don’t do the fancy timeline view thing because I never looked at it. Instead I just have a simple table I made with toggle lists:
- Morning Block (8-12)
- Afternoon Block (12-4)
- Evening Block (4-7)
Each toggle contains a few bullet points where I roughly sketch what I’m doing. Not minute-by-minute because I’m not a robot and also that stresses me out. Just like “morning: client calls and email” or “afternoon: deep work on that proposal thing.”
Wait I forgot to mention, you need to turn that template entry into an actual template. Click the little arrow next to “New” in your database view and select “New template” then copy everything from your sample entry. Delete the sample entry after. This took me embarrassingly long to figure out.
Gallery View vs Table View Drama
Okay so funny story, I switched between gallery view and table view like six times before settling on table view as my default. Gallery looks prettier with cover images and all that, but when you’re actually trying to find last Tuesday’s notes at 10pm, table view is faster.
I keep one gallery view saved as “This Week” though, filtered to show only the current week with Date is within this week as the filter. The cards show my Status and Energy Level properties, so I can quickly see if I’m having a rough week or actually getting stuff done.