When I first began my freelancing career this spring, I realised how much admin there is. Invoices, timesheets, contracts, knowledge banks, meeting notes. I started stressing, wondering how I would manage everything alongside doing all of my new freelancer tasks. Then I remembered that Notion exists, and my anxiety vanished.
Notion is a powerful productivity tool. In a nutshell, you use ‘blocks’ to piece together your own pages. Blocks come in a range of types, from text-only to imported files from tools like Figma and Miro. I’d been using Notion as a product designer for a couple of years so it seemed only natural to keep using it during my freelance projects.
After reading some Reddit posts and how-to guides, I’ve found a system that suits me and my work style. These are hints for my work as a designer but I’m sure these tips are helpful for many other industries and roles.
Create a page for each project
When I first started out, I tried to make a single database for everything so I could automate it and be clever with filters and formulae. But this quickly got out of hand. I got too ambitious when I should have focused on keeping things manageable and simple.
If you’re juggling multiple projects and teams, it’s important to think about how you want to organise your files…
