Notetaking Tools: Notion

Register

To begin, go to the Notion website and sign-up for an account with your email address.

You will receive a confirmation email letting you know your Notion is all set to start using it on the web-browser. 

Notion Desktop Application

Notion allows you to access your notes seamlessly from anywhere, including an application for your computer desktop. To download the desktop application, go to the Notion Desktop Download page and click the download button. This will automatically download the Notion Set-up to your computer. Follow the sets provided once you have downloaded and opened the set-up file. 

Notion Mobile App

Currently, Notion offers an iPhone and iPad app so you can prepare for your classes anywhere! Download the app here: Notion Mobile App.

Notion Web Clipper

Notion also offers a web clipper extension for Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Mobile browsing. To download it, go to the Notion Web Clipper site linked here. With the Notion web clipper linked to your web browser you can clip (save) anything from your browser and add it to Notion!

Taking Notes 

Create Page

When you want to start taking notes, you will need to create a new Notion page. This page can exist within another page, or can take the form of a task within a database, but it’s best to skip writing new notes in a page with old content. Otherwise, your notes can look cluttered.

You can create the page one of two ways, by creating a single page and typing away! Or by creating a page within a folder. The first can be done by clicking the little pencil writing icon next to your account name on the main side bar. 

The second option can be down by hovering over any folder title and clicking on the little plus sign icon. 

Starting Writing

Once your new page opens, you can give your page a title and start jotting down your thoughts. While creating the page, try to be descriptive with the page name. Include the keywords that you would use to find the content later. For example, if you are taking down notes for class session of Torts Law, name the page - Torts Class Notes - September 17th. It does not look too clean but the intent at the moment is not better aesthetics, it’s just to make it easy to find the page later on. You can always change the page name later and edit the content. For now, we are just keeping up with your professor in class!

Need some inspiration or structure? On desktop or web, select any of the options at the bottom of the page to get started. You can import from an app or file, use a template, create a table, and more — select an option you like, and your page will be formatted accordingly!

As you write, highlight any text on your page to bring up a menu of options. You can change the color or style of your text, add a comment or hyperlink, and more. Learn more about writing and editing basics here

Organizing your Notes

You now know how to quickly take notes in Notion and summarize them, but it's crucial to arrange them for easy retrieval later. The best way to organize your notes in Notion is by creating sun-pages. A subpage is a page inside a page. You can create any number of subpages for a page.

There are multiple ways to create a subpage:

• - Open a page (this will be the subpage’s parent page) and use the slash command /page.

• - Find your desired parent page in your sidebar and select plus sign icon next to it. This will create a subpage in that page. When you return to the parent page, you’ll see the subpage there.

Once your new page opens, you can give your page a title and start jotting down your thoughts.

Every page in Notion also functions as a folder, you can group all your content by creating a parent page and adding subpages under it. This way, you can group related content together. For example, students can create folders for Constitutional Law and subfolders for each week in the curriculum. This way, all your Constitutional law notes stay under one folder and thus are easy to find.

You can check what the folder-subfolder structure looks like in the left pane of your Notion screen (below Law School Folder) — as displayed in the below image.

Even after setting up the folder-subfolder structure and adhering to it, you will find that things get cluttered quickly. Another way to monitor the folders — the main pages — is by creating a Notion dashboard. A dashboard is essentially the super folder for all your main folders. For example, "Courses" is a sub-folder of "Law School," the parent folder, in the above photo. As you can see, the "Courses" folder has more sub-folders, Con Law, Torts, Contracts, etc., and within those sub-folders are your lecture notes, case briefs and assignments. 

Imagine trying to access important notes right before a class or a meeting but not being able to find them! A dashboard solves this issue by serving as a repository for all your parent folders. You can link on a single dashboard page for easy access.

Here’s an example of a law school dashboard. 

Each of the "Courses" link to their folders with all of the sub-folders.You can also embed external tools in your dashboard like Spotify, Calendars, PDFs, etc. to keep an eye on the related aspects of note-taking.

Using Templates

One of the easiest ways to get organized quickly is by starting with a template! Notion has a library of templates created by them and by other users that can be downloaded and implemented into your own Notion. Some are free but some require additional packages. In the images above, a "Law School" Template is being used. The user is able to simply go in and customize the pre-created folders, sub-folders, widgets, databases, all to fit their needs. 

This template can be downloaded by clicking here. There also additional "Class Notes" related templates that can be found here. If you are looking for a template to create a notion for something non-school related, feel free to search the template library for one that best first your needs by typing into the searchbar at the top of the page. 

This tutorial video walks through using templates, click here. 

Collaboration

The ability to share notes with peers is one of the key features of Notion for students. If at some point your friend did not make it to a lecture, or perhaps both of you want to swap notes and patch up any missing details, sharing your notes becomes indispensable.

To share your notes with your peers, go to the page that contains the notes and click on the "Share" button located at the top-right corner of the screen.

As you can see in the below screenshot, Notion pulls up a new view where you get to decide how much access you want to grant. You can even make the page public if you want to share it with a larger audience.

Slash Commands

The / command will quickly become your best friend in Notion.

• Typing / brings up a comprehensive menu of block types - all of your content options. Experiment with different block types - you'll find your own personal favorite combinations!

• Add any type of block by typing / and scrolling to the one you want or typing its name. For instance, /h1 creates a large heading, and /todo creates a checkbox.

Embedding 

You can embed virtually any online content within Notion pages — from video and audio players to Tweets, Canva designs, Spotify Playlists, and entire Youtube videos Enrich your Notion pages with other apps, PDFs, forms, and interactive maps.

To insert embed content click the plus sign icon that appears to the left when you hover over a new line within your page. Choose "Embed" or one of the common embed types listed in the drop down menu, then press enter. In the menu that appears, paste the content's URL or embed link.

You  can also use /embed to upload and display your own image, audio, video, or file. Just select "Upload" and choose the file from your computer.

While pretty much any online content can be embedded on a page, Notion also has preconfigured embed blocks for some of the commonly used media types (e.g., File, Image, PDF, Video) and apps (CodePen, Loom, Miro, Tweet).

These can be added specifically from the / menu or by clicking + in the left margin that appears when you hover over a new line. Try it out by typing /tweet to embed a Tweet, or /maps to embed an interactive Google Map.

A list of commonly used apps can be found here. 

Exporting

Need to share your content in PDF, CSV, or HTML format? Notion has you covered! You can export a Notion page, database, or entire workspace at any time. You can save any Notion page or database to your computer as a PDF file. This is one way to back up your information if you want to keep it in some form on your hard drive.

A guide on exporting from your desktop and your mobile app can be found here.