6 things I Will *Definitely* Be Fixing Once I Get My Hands on Your Notion System.
There are few things that get me more excited than getting to jump into someone’s Notion, see how they think and how they work, and then start sprucing everything up and making it even better. 🥹
And a lot of times, what we find isn’t a bunch of huge problems. It’s rarely that the entire system you built is a piece of shit and we need to throw the whole thing away.
Usually it’s a bunch of little things creating more clicks, more thinking, more decisions, more stuff to remember, and more work every time you try to use it.
And all of that piles up.
Eventually using the system starts to feel like more work than it should be. Certain pieces get completely neglected. You stop opening pages you thought you were going to use all the time. Or you keep using the system… but you’re doing way too much of the work yourself.
So here are six of the things I’m FOR SURE going to be changing, upgrading, and making a hell of a lot better as soon as I get my hands on your Notion system.
1. Dashboards that show you either everything… or basically nothing
This is probably the biggest one.
I see dashboards that try to show you absolutely everything:
Your habit tracker. Your fitness tracker. Your time tracker. Your hydration tracker. Your affirmations. Your vision board. Your goals. Your meal plan. Your clients. Your projects. Your journal.
Everything is packed onto one giant page.
It’s total information overload and, especially for an ADHD brain, it can be SO overstimulating that you don’t even know where the hell to look first.
And sometimes I see the complete opposite:
Everything is tucked away on separate pages. Your dashboard has a couple simple views of your task list or maybe a few links, but everything else is sitting in a list of pages or databases off to the side that you have to click into to see what’s even going on.
So your dashboard basically tells you absolutely nothing.
Neither one works.
Your dashboard should not show you every single thing that exists in your system (like a lot of Etsy templates do… cough cough)
But it also shouldn’t make it ridiculously hard to see the things you actually need.
A dashboard needs to be designed around a few questions:
What is the work you’re doing on a daily basis?
What information do you need to see every day so something important doesn’t get forgotten?
What do you need to be able to see or access very quickly while you’re working?
You do NOT need every single database you have staring at you all day. But that also doesn’t mean the things you only need occasionally should disappear into some random page you’ll never remember exists.
Those things should still come to you when you need to see them.
A simple example ⤵︎
Let’s say you have a contacts database in Notion with your friends, family, current and past clients, peers, and everyone else you want to keep track of.
That entire contacts database does not need to sit on your main dashboard every day.
But you might have a small insights section that says, “Hey, Jane Smith has a birthday coming up next week.”
The full database can live on its own page so you can access it whenever you want. The important information from that database should still come forward when it matters.
Your dashboard should not make you jump through a bunch of hoops to get what you need or see what you need to see.
But it also shouldn’t make you visually sort through 400 things on your screen just to figure out what the fresh hell you’re supposed to be doing right now.
2. Notion systems that are prettier than they are functional
Don’t get me wrong, I looove a pretty Notion system.
When I first found Notion, that was a huge part of what drew me in. I was constantly looking at all the aesthetic templates on Etsy because they were absolutely gorg in the screenshots.
And then I would actually try using them… 😮💨🥴
Once I got past what the system looked like from the outside and started trying to do real work inside of it, a lot of the visuals became waaay too much.
There were so many colors, images, widgets, icons, and decorative sections that they started distracting me from the information I actually needed to see.
My brain was doing extra work just trying to figure out where to look.
And the amount of WORK it took to keep them looking that way….!!
Every time I added a new project or a client, suddenly I needed to find a photo, make a graphic in Canva, upload a new cover image, pick the right icon, and do all this other stuff just to keep the system looking like the screenshots.
And I simply do not care enough to do all of that every single time I create a project.
The system is supposed to make the work easier. It should not create a second job where I’m constantly maintaining its aesthetic.
Over time, I simplified the aesthetics in my own system A TON.
I still want it to look good of course, but now that usually means nice colors, clean lines, good white space, clear sections, and enough visual structure that my brain can immediately tell where one thing ends and another begins.
Because the opposite problem exists too:
If you throw a bunch of plain database views onto a page with no callouts, dividers, headers, visual breaks, or structure at all, that also creates extra work for your brain.
Even if you aren’t a super colorful person and don’t want photos and graphics everywhere, there still needs to be something helping your eyes understand the page.
Good visual design should help you know where to look.
It should not give you even more to process.
Of course aesthetics are always subjective, but for me, a simple and tidy design beats something super elaborate every time.
Especially when the simple version is the one I’ll actually keep using.
3. Notion systems that are absolutely bloated with stuff
If you’ve spent any amount of time looking at Notion templates on Etsy…. you know exactly which ones I’m talking about LOL.
Habit tracker.
Mood tracker.
Hydration tracker.
Plant hydration tracker.
Morning routine.
Evening routine.
WEEKly routine.
MONTHLY ROUTINE.
Vision board.
Journal.
Reading tracker.
Workout tracker.
Budget.
Meal planner.
Finance tracker.
Book tracker.
Everything.
When you’re brand new to Notion, especially if you have ADHD, it is so easy to look at one of those templates and think, “Oh my GOD, this is it. This is FINALLY going to get my life together. Look at everything it DOES.”
Then you buy it, open it, start playing around with it, and after a while you’re just staring at the screen thinking, “What the f*ck am I supposed to do with this thing?”
And then you realize how much maintenance goes into actually using every piece of it.
You have to keep the habit tracker updated. Log your water. Update your mood. Fill out the journal. Maintain the routines. Track the workout. Update the budget… (and of course not a LICK of that is automated) or else the entire thing falls apart.
I remember trying to use one of these systems I bought on Etsy and thinking, do these people run a business, or do they just spend all of their time tracking everything they do in Notion???
It was insane.
I honestly think the combination of all the cutesy aesthetics and the completely bloated functionality is one of the biggest reasons people write off Notion before they’ve really tried it (Notion has been coined as a “Digital Bullet Journal” for this very reason… 🥴)
They either look at one of these systems and decide Notion is way too complicated, or they buy one, try to use it for a week, and decide Notion doesn’t work for them.
But Notion is only as good as what you build in it.
The problem is that you’re trying to use a system that is attempting to solve 5,000 different problems at once because that makes it easier to market it as being full of bells and whistles… not because it actually wants to help you make things EASIER.
I would rather build a Notion system that does five things incredibly well than one that technically does 500 things you’re never actually going to use.
Especially when all those extra features are just creating more stuff to maintain, more stuff to ignore, and more stuff to feel bad about not using.
4. Notion systems that lack automation and depend on you to keep everything running
This is one of those things I see in Notion systems that drives me up a WALLL.
Now, I will proudly admit that I’m a little boujee when it comes to how I build systems. If they can do something for me, they will. Period.
And if your Notion system can handle something for you and take it off your plate… it should. Full stop.
Adding New Clients and Projects ⤵︎
Let’s say your Notion system has a client database and a project database.
You’ve already created a client page template and a project page template. Amazing.
That gets a huge chunk of the setup out of the way. The page already has the right sections. Your task view can already be filtered to show the tasks related to that project or client… great!
(And if not, we definitely need to talk!)
But every time a client signs or you start a new project, you’re still going into Notion, clicking the little arrow next to the New button, choosing the right template, opening the page, typing in the client’s first and last name, their email address, their phone number, the project name, relating it to the client itself….and everything else.
When you could automate SO MUCH of that.
Every time a client signs an agreement in your CRM, Zapier can create the client and project pages in Notion for you and bring over all the information you already have.
Two seconds after they sign the agreement, while you are stuck in rush hour traffic coming home from Costco at 5 p.m. which was a very bad decision, your project and client pages could already be sitting in Notion with everything filled in, ready to go.
You didn’t have to remember to create them, you didn’t have to copy anything. You didn’t have to do anything at all.
Standard Project Tasks ⤵︎
Speaking of projects… if every new project starts with the same ten tasks, those should be created automatically too.
Stop recreating the same stuff.
You should not have to click around and manually create all ten tasks every time, even if you technically templated them somewhere.
When the project gets created, the standard tasks should be created and tied back to that project automatically.
Keeping the System Tidy⤵︎
Another thing I see a lot is a system with a client database, project database, and task database.
You add a task from inside a project page, so of course the task automatically relates itself to the project.
But the task does NOT automatically relate itself to the client that project belongs to.
Then you go to the client page later and none of their tasks are showing up.
And you’re like, “Oh. Right. I have to go back and manually relate all of those tasks to the client too….”
No.
Set up an automation so that when a task is created under a project, it grabs the client related to that project and relates the task to the client too.
These are tiny things, but they pile up everywhere.
And other boujee things ⤵︎
You are always going to move tasks around. Let’s be real.
Especially with ADHD, sometimes something is getting bumped to tomorrow. Sometimes it is going to next week. It happens.
I have tiny little arrow buttons on my tasks that let me move something to tomorrow, the next business day, or Monday of next week with one click.
Could I just click into the date field and change it myself?
Yes.
But why, when one quick button can do it for me??
I want your system handling as much of the repetitive clicking, deciding, copying, updating, and remembering as it possibly can.
Your brain should be focused on the parts of your work that actually require you.
5. Plain text sitting on a Notion page that should really be in a database instead
Let me explain, because this is something I see that a lot of people don’t usually think about.
I had a client once who had monthly themes she followed throughout the year.
There were goals, astrology-related information, and different things she wanted to focus on each month.
Every month, she had to go to a separate page where all of those themes were stored, find the current month, copy the text, go back to her dashboard, remove the previous month’s information, and paste in the new one.
In theory, it worked.
But when she showed it to me, she immediately mentioned that she never remembered to update it and it felt like a pain in the ass every month.
She said it quickly and kept moving, like it was just a matter-of-fact part of how the system worked. Like there was nothing else to do about it. It just sucked.
But there IS a fix. That information should have been in a database instead.
When something is just text sitting on a page, sure you can edit it, copy it, move it around. Its simple.
And that is totally fine for information that is just meant to sit there.
But when the information needs to change regularly or include dynamic words/sections, show up at a certain time, disappear at another time, or be used by automations, plain text starts to become really limiting.
So instead of keeping all her monthly themes listed as text on a separate page, we put them into a database.
The title field had the month or the name of that month’s theme.
The different pieces of information she wanted to display were stored in text fields.
Then we added a date field showing when each one should be active.
We also added a formula that checked a box when that item was relevant right now.
Then, on her main dashboard, we added a card view of that database and filtered it to only show the item where that formula box was checked.
So if it was March, her March themes were showing on the dashboard in a nicely formatted card.
As soon as the month changed, the March item disappeared and the April one showed up automatically.
She loaded everything in once… and now it changes when it is supposed to change whether she remembers to touch it or not.
And if she ever wants to edit the information, she can still go back to the database, change it once, and it will show the updated version whenever that month comes around again.
There are a lot of times when people put information in a text block or callout on a page even though they need something to happen with it.
Maybe it needs to change depending on the date.
Maybe it needs to be filtered.
Maybe it needs to appear only when it is relevant.
Maybe Zapier, Make, n8n, or AI needs to find it, read it, or modify it.
Once you put that information into a database, you give yourself SOO much more functionality.
And you stop depending on your brain to manually keep changing the page.
6. Systems that are technically good but still don’t work for your brain
And of course, this is the biggest thing I’m looking for once I’m inside your Notion.
Because a system can look good, and be well organized, and have clean databases, super smart automations, and all the right information in it.
….and you can still completely stop using it.
A lot of times, I’ll talk to someone and realize they’ve built their system around somebody else’s version of ADHD.
This happens constantly when the system started from a template.
The person who made the template built it around how they think, what they notice, what they remember, and what works for their brain.
Then you try to use it and assume you’re the problem when your brain does not respond to it the same way.
Other times, someone has built the system around how they think they should be functioning.
I see this immediately when I suggest making something easier or automating it and they say, “No, no…. it only takes two minutes. It’s not a big deal.”
It is a big deal.
That is one of the biggest signs that you’re designing around the person you think you should be instead of the person who is actually using the system.
Because maybe it only takes two minutes… (in theory, right?) but if you repeatedly avoid doing it, forget to do it, or leave it untouched for three months because your executive dysfunction throws a massive alarm every time you go to do it, the length of time was never the issue.
When I get into someone’s Notion, I’m not just looking at how it’s built.
I’m looking at what they actually use.
What has not been updated in three months?
What page did they spend hours building and then never open again?
Why is the task list full of overdue tasks?
What happens in their brain when they sit down and look at it?
Do they know where they left off?
Can they immediately see what matters?
Are they being asked to make too many decisions before they can start?
Does the system require them to remember to keep feeding it before it can help them?
Those are the things that tell me what needs to change.
If you keep ghosting one part of your system, I'm not going to tell you to try harder.
I'm going to get curious.
Because your brain is usually telling us exactly what needs to change.
Ready to get my hands on your Notion?
If you made it all the way through this article thinking "Ok..... yeah, my Notion definitely does some of this lol."
Let's fix it up!
And the 90-Minute Session is where it happens.
You + me in a Google Meet, digging into your Notion together, and spending 90 minutes making it easier for your brain to use.
We'll clean up all those little extra clicks, manual work, and "why the hell am I still doing this myself?" moments, build a few improvements live, answer all your random systems questions, and map out what I'd tackle next if I were you.
By the end of the call, you'll have a Notion system that's already working better than it was 90 minutes earlier... and a really clear plan for where to take it next.
