@FemaleFoundr nothing wrong with making money. not like he's scamming

@FemaleFoundr He's given away so much information for his Notion templates over the years. It takes A LOT of work! For the ones he is charging for, it's actually worth the investment if it's what will work for your team. And he has a 30day return policy. For people new to him they might not realize just how long he's gone without charging any of us for the templates he makes.

@@Somebodyelse141 11

facts! it is a scary tunnel and unless you do productivity for a living I suggest just checking in every couple of months to see if there are any little fixes you can make to enhance your workflow - other than that, just do you bro!

@@lailaalbuquerque5036 Thanks! Yeah, I had to take a step back and review things. I was following a lot of users who had high followings/subscribers but realised their way of working wasn't inline with my own thinking process. Found some more minimalistic approaches and now trying to build things out slowly in stages. Just setup my central tasks and projects databases and creating/updating them through a dashboards with linked versions filtered out for my main business (and separated dashboard pages for side projects). Next up is setting up a central resources database to insert linked filtered versions into their respective dashboards.

Welcome to productivity tools 🤣

Man, just use the damn thing. Just start actually using it for what you need. And don't worry if you start with something that's way simpler than anything shown in the videos. The beauty of Notion is that nothing goes to waste. Whatever information you put in you will be able to transform into anything you want later on when you get better with the tool. So don't worry, start using it on a simplest level, and let the growth come naturally.

Honestly! My head feels as though it’s going to implode. There is so much information to take in on the different ways to use Notion it’s insanity! It’s a great tool for daily situations, but Jesus take the wheel…

Working on that now!

Seconding the privacy question!

Here are the security policies that Notion has in place: www.notion.so/Security-6c56b4854b624b0d8f36711018647f68#2969e6f12d75478cb932e2070c97c3e7 And here's their statement about employee data access: "Notion employees are only able to access your data with your explicit consent via an inbound inquiry, and are legally bound to keeping your data entirely private" - twitter.com/notionhq/status/1301708391522336768 I'm not super-knowledgeable about technical security or privacy law, but I will note that Notion does not have end-to-end encryption. They do encrypt at rest and in transit: twitter.com/NotionHQ/status/1301708205311971329 My take on this: No system is perfectly secure, so you have to accept some amount of risk when you use any PKM tool. I see Notion as being the same acceptable-risk class as Slack, where there's a lot of security in place, but access to data by Slack employees is still only protected by legal agreements, not encryption (www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/24/21079275/slack-private-messages-privacy-law-enforcement-lawsuit). For me, that's an acceptable amount of privacy for most things - notes, tasks, company projects. If I were operating in a much higher-security industry, I'd probably need something with even higher security. But for most everything my team and I do, it's acceptable. However, I do make a few exceptions. The main one is passwords - I would never store passwords in Notion or any tool without strong end-to-end encryption. For that I use Dashlane, though any reputable password manager like BitWarden or LastPass would be acceptable as well. I also use my password manager to store certain secure notes. If you do want a tool with an even higher level of security, Obsidian offers true end-to-end encryption. Note that if you're using Obsidian Sync, you need to choose their end-to-end option, and be sure to never lose your encryption passphrase, as doing so would mean losing your data forever. If you choose their Managed Encryption option, your level of security falls to the same as that of Notion's - "While we store your encryption password on our servers, we only use it to offer a more convenient way to manage your vaults. Obsidian will never access your vault without your explicit consent." help.obsidian.md/Obsidian+Sync/Security+and+privacy It's also worth noting that even Google Drive, which does use end-to-end encryption, manages encryption keys as well: www.businessinsider.com/is-google-drive-secure Ultimately, if your level of acceptable risk is much lower, you'll want to consider a true end-to-end encrypted tool where you manage your keys. The main ones I know of are Obsidian and Standard Notes: standardnotes.com/ Hope this helps!

@@ThomasFrankExplains Far more helpful than I actually expected. Thank you so much!

@@ThomasFrankExplains Since you wrote this LastPass has been cracked and the crackers were able to download a great many vaults. Apparently they were not nearly as secure as their engineers thought they were.

Got a formula video in the works!

I'll add that to my video list! But for Page Icons, you can upload any image you like - just choose the Upload or Link tabs after clicking on a page's icon :)

I put them in a synced block so I could also see them on my dashboard, but I'm not 100% sure I'll keep it that way!

Good Question.. I use Zapier, and Google Drive. I like that I can control document access in GoogleDrive. If document access is not an issue.. You can drag and drop directly from your scan page to the Notion Page..

Ha, I've been using Notion for 4 years now! But most of my sidebar is just Favorites :)

It's definitely a feature that I'd like to see become more robust in the future. Currently you can at least set a reminder in the date property. Personally, I check over to-do's daily when planning my day, so for most things I don't need a reminder. I do occasionally use Apple Reminders + Siri to remind myself to do something though.

😂

I haven't experienced this, but I did hear from Notion's team that several bugs were fixed this week. Hopefully this was one of them!

Thank you, Thomas, will try again! ☺️

Glad to help! I love how many of those aesthetic dashboards look and often get a little jealous myself when I see them. But many times, I'll study them more closely and realize there are significant UX limitations that would limit the way I want to do things. There's always a trade-off between simplicity and power!

Yep, it's so I can also see them on my dashboard page. I'm experimenting with that setup right now; not totally sure if I'll keep it that way.

Been posting a lot over on the main channel - though I did put up a Short the other day here!

Working on that now actually! I've got a whole PARA template in the works.

@@ThomasFrankExplains 😍😍😍 excited and thank you! If I can help with anything (beta testing, etc) please let me know!

Make sure when you paste your links, you choose Link, not Mention. If you choose Mention, you'll get an inline link that doesn't show up in the sidebar. Hope this helps! 😀

I use a 2-database structure: A Tasks database and a Projects database, which are linked by a 2-way Relation. My databases video covers this using a task/project manager example - here's the section on Relations! ukposts.info/have/v-deo/pXF7g6aGbmmVmY0.html

@@ThomasFrankExplains Thank you for the reply. I watched your video on that and figured that was the best way to handle cross-referencing databases, but I wasn't 100% convinced :) I love Notion, but there are 1000 ways to do the same thing it seems!

Yeah I like having a full dashboard as well on desktop! I just think it's worth considering how to make it more usable on mobile. Toggles are great for that, as are individual pages. I like pages personally because I can launch them directly from my homescreen widget.

@@ThomasFrankExplains Yeah, I definitely see what you mean especially on the longer scrolling on mobile. I suppose another solution is make dedicated pages for mobile use though not sure how that will look like

Yep! I've got a whole video on linked databases planned as well :) PS - you might have noticed I had a linked database inside a synced block here - that's another useful trick for showing the same linked db view in multiple places. You can also copy and paste, but using the synced block means you only have to make changes in one place.

@@ThomasFrankExplains Yes, I saw it. But I don't quite understand what a synced Linked database offers more than a simple linked database. I mean can't you just link the same database on different pages and have the same result?

Yep, that's precisely it! I'm syncing a specific view of the database in multiple places. In Mistake 3 I show why - I have an "Inbox" view on both its own page (good for mobile) and on a large dashboard page (good for desktop). You could also copy and paste the linked db without using a synced block, but I'm using one for now while I design this productivity system template just in case I need to make changes.

​@@ThomasFrankExplains Got it! Thanks again!

hopefully notion will make a custom file format for exporting, so that in case notion went down, people could reverse engineer the format and no data would be lost.

VERY soon. The dashboard you saw in this video is part of a complete task/note/project system that uses PARA, and I'm nearly done designing it. Getting a good UX that doesn't become a mess once it's filled with a lot of content is a tough nut to crack

@@ThomasFrankExplains you sir are awesome!

Sure thing - I actually made a video on that a while back! ukposts.info/have/v-deo/qZpqfJuLZH-Spps.html I also just released a new template with an improved note-taking system. It also combines tasks, projects, and goals: thomasjfrank.com/brain/ Videos exploring this template are coming soon!

@@ThomasFrankExplains Great, thanks!

Hey Heath! I've created a beginner's series that goes in what I think is the most logical order: thomasjfrank.com/fundamentals/ However, what I'd personally recommend is to use it like you'd learn any other tool - try to accomplish something that interests you. I started out trying to use it to build a company wiki and a video project tracker. Since I was really keen on figuring out those workflows, I naturally learned what I needed as I ran into questions and sought answers. I've tried to accommodate that approach as well with my build guides. Here's a fairly simple one for building a habit tracker: ukposts.info/have/v-deo/rambZ4B7n3tpqXk.html Going a step further, my task manager build guide uses some of Notion's more advanced features, like linked databases, formulas, database templates, and more: ukposts.info/have/v-deo/a2KVgI6beWqg26c.html Hope this helps! 😀

I'm not sure right now; my calendar is chock-full of projects at the moment - including starting work on a more team-focused version of Creator's Companion! So I have currently have a lack of time for additional coaching. I am working on fleshing out a list of Notion-certified consultants who can help people who need more than a standardized template, though.

Notion doesn't have an official document about that.

It's nearly done - can't wait to release it!

I'm not what the actual limit is - there probably is one, but if so it's not well-documented. I know there are more strict limits for the API but there's probably some large upper limit for properties or number of relations per record in the main app too. However, I doubt you'll run into problems with your recipe database. In our Creator's Companion, we currently have 70 properties in our main content database, and over 900 rows. That db is related to other db's, including Channels, Sponsors, Keywords, Research, and Tasks. Within Channels, my main YT channel's record is related to over 400 records from the content database, and the whole thing runs speedily enough that we never have an issue using it for our work.

@@ThomasFrankExplains Thank you, that's exactly what I was looking for. Technically it'd have a limit somewhere but glad there's no realistic risk hitting it.

My Creator's Companion template is set up to do this: thomasjfrank.com/creators-companion/ I upload each video's thumbnail as the cover image, and Creator's Companion has a "thumbnail view" in the Channel template so you can see all your videos in a thumbnail grid. By default they're sorted by "video number" (a system I use), but you can easily change the sort criteria to Publish Date! After that, you can use Notion's grouping feature with the date or a simple formula to group by month if you want to.

Sadly it’s not possible. Quite an oversight IMO! I’ve mentioned it to the Notion team

Hey Cameron - did you make sure to paste the link as a Page Link, not a Mention? If you choose Mention, the link won't show in the sidebar.

@@ThomasFrankExplains Damn I thought I had done that properly , I had tried I thought as a link but I just redid it and made sure it was a Link and it worked perfect thank you mate , my bad , Thank you for the rapid fire response that i was not expecting knowing our time zones are way out of sync

It's coming 😉 - don't tell Tiago, but I might have an improved version of PARA at the theoretical level (enabled by Notion's database-centric approach)

@@ThomasFrankExplains amazing! I work as PM in a tech company, I am kind of becoming a notion consultor inside the company; this theory is going to help a lot! Appreciate

I’m not sure about power usage differences - I’ve asked the Notion team but haven’t heard back yet. I use the desktop apps exclusively, but admittedly I only have pretty high end computers.

Got a response from one of their engineers! He said if anything, the desktop apps should be a little faster on slower connections because they maintain an SQLite cache of each page you've visited, which also helps them to (sort of) work offline. But other than that, he said Notion doesn't use any more or less resources in any specific browser. Between browsers, it'd be down to the browser itself. I know Edge is current faster than nearly every other browser except Safari on MacOS, though I'm not sure what each browser's resource footprint is like.

I can't either... how do you add a toggle by pressing the greater than key?

Quick Find often works great! But there are many times when I can't remember the exact name of the page I'm looking for, so creating a direct link in Quick Links works best for me.

agreed

They can create Relations, but doing so won't create the reciprocal property in the restricted database. This is quite interesting actually - I don't believe there's any other way of doing this! I'll follow up with the Notion team about it - it would actually be quite a useful thing to be able to do purposefully.

Search self replicating filters

Actually, it looks like you can't! I think you used to be able to if I remember correctly, but I'm not able to now.

@@brendalg4 self-referential filters aren't quite the same thing. With those, you can have a database inside your template with a filter that references the Template's name. When you generate a page from your template, that filter will be updated to match the new page's name.

@@ThomasFrankExplains I did find one possible partial workaround. If you use forcing functions you can force the name of a newly created item, but I suppose you'd have to use a collection of views depending on which names you wanted to enter. Thanks for the follow-up! Always great content!

@@ThomasFrankExplains I think I read it wrong

I'll do these at some point - right now I'm working on Notion vs. Obsidian.

@@ThomasFrankExplains thanks! Keep up the great work!

There are two options when you paste a Notion link - Mention Page and Link to Page. You want Link to Page in order to create a sidebar link; it created an actual Page Link block that shows up in the sidebar. Mention Page creates what's called an Inline Link, which can be used in the middle of lines of text and inside other blocks. Inline Links are very versatile, but they won't show up in the sidebar. More detail on the difference here! ukposts.info/have/v-deo/kX9lfI-fp4hq23k.html

@@ThomasFrankExplains Ok, thanks - I totally missed that tidbit in the video. Thanks, I have it working now. Great video, lots of little nuggets in it.

It should be right at the top-right corner! If you're on a mobile device, it's in the three-dot menu that's also in the top right corner.

I'm actually using both! I have a linked database inside a synced block. The latter allows me to place that same linked database in more than one location. I'm not 100% sure if I'll keep it that way, but it's useful while I'm designing this dashboard template. If I need to make a change to how that linked db view works, I only have to make it once.

@@ThomasFrankExplains ok so the purpose in the beginning is so you don't have to add the filters to each linked databases manually

@@brendalg4 yep! I basically want to use the same linked database in multiple places, and have any changes sync while I'm designing this system.

@@ThomasFrankExplains awesome idea

Hey Emily! Not by default - though if you just keep typing, the menu goes away pretty quickly. If you want to fully disable the slash command, you can use the Notion Boost extension in Chrome, Firefox, or Edge: gourav.io/notion-boost

@@ThomasFrankExplains Awesome - thank you!

Hmm - do you have any other programs that are using that keyboard shortcut for something? Maybe an app launcher or text expander program? I've used the shortcut on three different Windows computers today, so I don't believe there's an issue on Notion's end...

@@ThomasFrankExplains thx for reaching out, it must be, the biggest question though is which app :( the command doesn't do anything for me so troubleshooting gets even trickier. I will try further

@@ecopsorn just to be thorough here - you're not pressing "+", correct?

@@ThomasFrankExplains yes, correct. Every other command works flawlessly within Notion, also the others with Ctrl+ such as Ctrl+P t open search. Just both [ ] commands won't work. I also verified that I do press the correct button ^^. I have tried to disable all active apps in the background as well, there's nothing left open that could interfere or use the same shortcut. It's really strange. And as I'm writing I just checked on my work laptop, same thing, Ctrl+[ and Ctrl+] don't work. I'm using Notion in Chrome but that shouldn't matter, all other shortcuts work

@@ecopsorn very odd - I use the desktop app, but I've just tried it here in Edge (also built on Chromium) and it works fine. Do you have a browser extension affecting Notion perhaps?