~dashboard~ | Notion

<aside> 🎨 Hey there! If you're reading this, welcome! You've stumbled upon the main dashboard of WebStraw's Notion project. If you're looking to step up your organization of school and personal life, you've come to the right place. This guide is meant to act as a brief tutorial on how to use, interact with, and modify the various elements on the dashboard to suit your own personal needs. Whether you are someone who's never heard of Notion before, or a seasoned Notion veteran, hopefully by reading through this small guide you'll be able to not only effectively implement various aspects of this dashboard into your own organizational framework, but also be inspired to maybe even create your own dashboard from the ground up. This guide will be divided into various sections, each one focused on a different aspect of the dashboard, and will go over how to use, create, and modify those elements.

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"Those who fail to plan, plan to fail." - Someone, somewhere.

Organization of Pages and Headings 🔖

First and foremost, Notion is a platform used to organize the various spaces that comprise your life — academics, work, extracurriculars, and so much more. As students, we have to juggle different responsibilities associated with each one, while making sure we achieve our goals and set aside time for personal growth. Page organization on this dashboard alleviates some of the burden by visualizing the various tasks we have to do and keeping track so we have something we can always refer back to when we need it.

The "command center" and "course pages" sections on the left help address this problem. These sections contain links to various subpages created under the dashboard which help store all our information: a weekly to-do list, an expense tracker, even a page for job hunting and our resumes. Of course, we've already made some pages for you to start, but if you ever decide you want to incorporate your own, you can always use the "/page" function to embed a new page, and drag the link using the 6 dots on the right of the link to move it under a specific section.

The "course pages" section is geared towards your average student. Students can create and modify course pages designed specifically around their current schedule and what courses they have at the moment. These pages can contain important information such as the syllabus, various links or contact information, notes from the class, or important related sites, such as those needed for homework and assignment submission. Having dedicated course pages can be extremely useful when you want to look up a detail found in the syllabus, or need to hand in homework. It also helps with general organization: being able to have a backup of your notes is always useful, just in case the worst happens!

Other important headings include the daily targets and milestones, which are designed to get you to think about what it is your goals are, and how you can achieve them. The first step into becoming more efficient with your time is to set clear goals. "What is it that I want to get done today? This week? How should I plan to be successful by the end of the month? Where do I want to see myself at the end of the year, and how do I get there?" Your daily targets help balance out the short-term, while milestones get you thinking about the mid and long-term. Clear goals also contribute to various other aspects of your life such as becoming more independent, and help you forge a clear path to where you want to be. To add new entries under these lists, use the "/todo" function, which allows you to add a goal with a checkbox beside it, so you can check it off when you complete it.

Aesthetics 🖌️

The aesthetics of the dashboard are an important yet often overlooked area of a Notion dashboard. After all, if you're going to be spending a lot of time on your dashboard, it should at least be organized and personalizable to you. It's like working in a messy room — while it works, it could be so much better.

The theme for this dashboard was "winter." As it is getting colder, we liked the idea of having more lighter-blues, as it works well with the natural white of the page. Furthermore, the blue isn't too visually striking to the point of potential distraction. However, we understand that everyone has their own preference, and that what works for some, might not work for others.

[ ] To change the colors on any of the headings, highlight the entire heading, right-click and navigate to the "color" dropdown, and choose what color background and text you'd like.
[ ] To change the banner, hover over the bottom-right corner to the "change cover" option, and you can choose between any of the default covers, or upload your own photo (Hint: If you use the "link" option, you can use a GIF as a banner by copying the image address). Once you have a picture you like, you can use the "reposition" option to reposition the picture to show a certain part of the picture/GIF.
The icon and animated GIF function similarly to the banner.
- [ ] To change the icon, click on it and simply choose an emoji, or upload your own image/GIF.
- [ ] For the animated GIF, you can use the "/embed" function anywhere on the page and input the image address of any GIF you'd like. Drag the GIF using the 6 dots on the left to reposition it to wherever you'd like.

Technical Features (Databases) 🧠

Some of the more technical features of Notion may seem daunting at first as a beginner, as it can be hard to really set these features up on your own without any background knowledge. However, don't let that deter you! Utilizing these very aspects of Notion allows you to optimize your workspace and increase productivity, by creating a faster way to retrieve important information quickly.

A lot of these features center around the "database" category of Notion, which focus around various media for storing and listing lots of categorical information; this can range from the basic table that no doubt many of us have seen before in Excel or Google Sheets, to more specialized features such as a Kanban board, media gallery, or a timeline.

[ ] Use the "/database" feature in order to show a drop-up menu of all these possible pages — they can be created in-line, meaning integrated on whichever page you're currently on, or created as a full, separate subpage as a part of your current page.

One particularly useful page we'd like to highlight is the basic full page table, which can be repurposed as a deadline tracker by renaming the various columns. While a calendar can perform a similar function, a table allows you to "check-off" assignments and tasks as you complete them. To see our example of this tracker, click on the "Deadlines" page.

Deadlines

Here, it's possible to create a linked database, meaning that whichever database page you'd like to feature (table, calendar, etc.) can actually be shown on multiple different pages, and whenever you modify the database on one page, the action is saved and reflected in every single database. For example, if you happen to check off a completed task in the database in your main dashboard page, these same changes are applied in the original database!

[ ] Try it out yourself — click the checkbox for any of the tasks on the main dashboard under the deadlines header, then navigate to the separate "deadlines" page!
[ ] To integrate this feature into your own pages, ensure that you already have a separate database page available that you want to link. You can use the "/database" function, and make sure to select the "Full Page" option. Once that is set up, go to whichever page you'd like to link that database to — this could be your main dashboard, etc. and use the "/Create linked database" function, choosing the database you want.
This feature is not limited to only databases in your personal workspace — you can link databases from other shared/collaborative workspaces in your own Notion pages!

Once complete, you can modify the view of the database using the three dots near the blue "New" button. For example in a table,

you can filter out which entries you want to see by adding a filter, which is similar to a "rule" that is applied to the database. In our dashboard, we have two different views of the same table — one that is filtered to show assignments due within the next week, and one for the next month.

Functionality with Widgets 🤖

Widgets are a great way to not only customize your workspace and personalize it to reflect your tastes, but to also add functionality in small forms, similar to the widgets available on our smartphones. Widgets are super simple and easy to use in Notion, as you only really need to use the "/embed" function along with the link for your particular widget, and you're good to go!

The particular calendar widget used can be found at WidgetBox. It allows you to customize the calendar however you prefer!
Spotify's music widget can be used by right-clicking whichever playlist you prefer, using the "share" dropdown to the "Embed Playlist" option. This gives you the link, which can then be used alongside the "/embed" function.
The "countdown" and "digital clock" widgets can both be found at Indify.

These widgets and so many more can be found if you know where to look — the possibilities for widgets are endless!

daily targets 🎯

command center 🧭

course pages 🏫

milestones 🏁

deadlines ✅

within the week

within the month

articles📚

study jams 🎵

~Dashboard Use and Customization~

Organization of Pages and Headings 🔖

Aesthetics 🖌️

Technical Features (Databases) 🧠

Functionality with Widgets 🤖