The first and biggest shortcoming is that Notion doesn't have one central place that notifies you of all upcoming deadlines. Create a dashboard and your preferred views Simply click that link and then click Duplicate in the upper-right corner to create your own copy and start customizing it to your own preferences.īelow, I'll walk you through my custom Notion task manager and how I've (mostly) successfully made up for each of Notion's biggest weaknesses. If you want to give my method a try, here's the link to my Notion to-do list template. In short, I want the granular control of Notion without losing the best qualities of a great to-do list app. And I'm proud to say that after (too many) hours of experimentation, I think I've arrived at the solution: my Notion task list. And I want different (and customizable) ways to visualize my goals, projects, and tasks in a way that makes sense to me. I also want the option to use different views, like Kanban, Gantt charts, and a calendar. But in my experience, these apps are seriously limited in other important ways.įor example, as a freelance writer, I want a robust database for my client and business projects.

The best to-do list apps are the ones that let you brain-dump your tasks, organize them to your heart's content, and see all of your upcoming to-dos across all of your projects, both work and personal. Why I keep returning to Notion as a to-do list I'll also give you a couple of ideas for integrating Notion into your task management process in other ways, if granular customization just isn't your thing. I've created my own to-do list in Notion that works pretty well for me (which I'll share below, in case you're a glutton for punishment like I am).īut I firmly believe that using Notion as a task manager isn't the right fit for everyone-and that's ok. I'll freely admit that I'm one of those people who keeps trying to turn Notion into my sole project management tool. Malcolm so eloquently put it, we've been so preoccupied with whether or not we could that we never stopped to think if we should. Sure, there are ways to make Notion work as a to-do list, but as the great Dr.

App to make to do list