How I Manage Daily Tasks in Notion

I’ve been using Notion for about a year now and can honestly say it’s been the best thing for me in terms of keeping track of tasks, goal management, and so much more. The best way to describe Notion is by picturing Excel and Evernote merged together with a gorgeous user interface.

The first thing I wanted to do with Notion was to build a to-do list for organizing and managing my day job (🍎), business tasks (🏦), and personal to-do’s (👤), in one place. This post is going to cover my ⛰️ Daily Tasks exclusively since it’s so powerful and fundamental to my day-to-day activities. If all you want is a solid task manager this Notion page/database template works perfectly on its own since it doesn’t rely on any relational databases

See my Notion Resources page for templates, guides, resources and more.

⛰️ Daily Tasks

Keeping track of my tasks from multiple categories and being able to filter them using Notion has been a dream. It’s allowed me to always be able to switch back/forth between the All Tasks filter (stressful, but necessary) to the Today & Past Due filter, so I only see what needs to be done today. Every week I go through and move unfinished tasks ahead if possible so I can streamline my working time during the week, and note tasks that took me longer than expected

Exploring the fields inside the database

1. Name (untitled) – The name of your task.
2. Due Date – Every task should be given a due date when created (if viewing in the Today & Past Due filter, each new task will automatically add today for the due date).
3. Category –  Select an icon used for your type of task (I used 🍎 for my 9 to 5 job, 🏦 for my business, and 👤 for personal).
4. People Associated – Using @ I pull up names across many different databases (this avoids having relational databases and keeps the numbers of fields down).
5. Completed – Once checked, the item is removed from all of the filters except the ✅ Completed and ✅  Time Estimated.
6. Waiting Reply – When this has anything selected it shows up in the …Waiting Reply filter.
7. Link – If necessary, add a link (URL).
8. Time Est – Estimated time to complete the task.
9. Time Act – Actual time to complete the task; I only fill this out if it’s much different from Time Est.
10. Top Priority – Moves task to the top of the list, regardless of the due date.

The following are automatically generated…

• Days Remaining – Displays the number of days between today and the Due Date.
• Day – Automatically displays the Due Date’s day of the week.
• Last Edited – This fills itself out automatically, and is useful for determining when a task was completed. (When the Completed checkbox is checked the time automatically gets recorded).

Since integrating Google and Outlook calendars, my personal ⛰️ Daily Tasks now has a few more fields but the tradeoff is worth it. I made a tutorial on this which can be seen here in this video if you’re thinking of integrating calendar events into your task management system.

Exploring Filters

As you see, the variety of filters help you keep track of what you need to work on and what you’ve been completing over time. Everything can be added here for easy reference when sorting through your to-do’s and adding in tasks. Honestly, the filters make all the difference in workflow and relieving stress.

Instead of another field for type, I opted for a quick visual reference on tasks, which not only looks better but instantly identifies the type of task.

Exploring Page Templates and Filters in Action

If you found this post valuable, see my Notion Resources page for templates, guides, resources and more.