top level productivity system in Notion
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A peek into the top level system that I use to manage my small business as an ADHD solopreneur.
I named it my raptr lol
In this video I go over:
the organizational system I use to run my biz & life
acronym = dopamine hit
Areas
Projects
Tasks
Goals
Second Brain (Reference Library)
getting started, one step at a time
my method/system
The digital organizational system I use is similar to the PARA system by Tiago Forte - which stands for Projects Areas Reference Archive. I’m not gonna go super in depth into it, especially because my beautiful brain doesn’t 100% agree with the strict “rules,” so I’ve modified it to work for me.
Read more about PARA here.
What I’m gonna to today is show you how I utilize my similar system and how I have it set up inside Notion.
acronyms for a dopamine hit
and because my brain wanted some dopamine, i also wanted a fun acronym for my own system…
I started to call it:
APTS
areas - projects - tasks - second brain (reference)
but since “second brain” is already a coined term, maybe I should just stick to “reference” and have my acronym be
APTR
which obviously made me laugh and think “raptor” which is dope cuz dinosaurs are cool, so why don’t I just add another R at the beginning for fun and have it be
RAPTR
because I love living a ridiculous, silly life
and that’s a peek at how my beautiful adhd brain works 😉
let’s take a lil journey with my RAPTR!
I learned a lot of what I know about building my digital system from Michelle over at Holisticism. They’ve got some amazing Notion courses for beginners and I’d highly recommend you check those out if you’re new to Notion & systems. Especially if you have what they call a squiggly brain, which is a beautiful neurodivergent brain like mine.
use my code BRIGITTE at checkout to also get Notion for Babies class ($199) for FREE when you sign up for System Spells 🎉
holy grail hq notion template
Each of these main areas of my RAPTR live within my Holy Grail HQ - which is what I call my entire organizational headquarters - this is where it all lives!
And the Holy Grail HQ is now available as a Notion template - based off my system I’ve built & refined that you’re about to get a peek into. If you’re an intuitive business owner interested in a customizable system to help you get shit done, click here!
top level: areas
these are the broad, ongoing, categories of your life
mine are: personal, home, & business
I originally started out with more life areas and quickly found that was way too convoluted for me - didn’t make sense with my beautiful brain. So, I simplified it.
Personal encompasses anything related to my health, fun, hobbies, friends, etc.
Home is anything house related, relationship with my partner, pets.
And business is my business!
i pretty much never visit this database on the backend. i primarily use it for categorization and top level organization.
learn more about areas here.
areas are broken down into projects
projects have goals or things you want to accomplish/work towards.
Here’s where I disagree with PARA that says projects have a completion date, and if it’s something ongoing, that should be categorized as an Area.
A lot of this is also semantics. You can name these databases whatever you want - whatever is going to make sense for you and your beautiful brain.
For me, some projects have a completion date and some are ongoing. A lot of my projects are ongoing.
how i like to view projects:
business projects in a board view on my daily dash
personal projects: gallery view on my personal dash
i run the different areas of my life differently, therefore my projects inside my areas are set up differently. My house stuff is way different than my business stuff. However, they all have the same base foundation and functions.
projects are broken down into tasks
these are your action/to-do items that help you move the needle & complete your projects
how i organize/view my tasks:
mho kanban: to see the tasks i need to do this week
if you wanna check out a more in depth video on how i do my mho process - check out my mho vid here!
inside projects: I have a view of my tasks database related to that project so i can see which tasks make up that project. I can see what I’ve completed and what still needs to be accomplished.
i’m working on a video to show you my task management process more in depth so be sure to check that out soon for a lil deeper dive.
goals - nestled somewhere between projects & tasks
goals are specific outcomes that you’re working toward inside your projects.
fun benchmarks to keep you moving forward in your projects.
assign tasks to complete these goals.
this is currently the newest part of my system. goals haven’t made much sense to me my whole life, and they’re finally starting to.
second brain (reference library)
This is where I store anything to reference later.
encompasses journal, health dash, shopping list, content calendar, reading list, gratitude joy journal. inbox.
these don’t all live directly on my “second brain” page. but they all fall under this second brain/reference category. and i’ve set them up to live in places that make sense for my brain.
most of them live as a top level page inside my Holy Grail HQ.
i’ve got my content & shopping dashboards in my favs on my sidebar.
my health dash & journal are in my private pages in my sidebar. because i do share my HQ with other people and i like to keep some pages private.
i use my gratitude joy journal on my phone, so i’ve got that set up as a widget on my screen.
first starting out, one step at a time
now that i’ve gotten balls deep into how I use my system in Notion, I wanna tell ya how it started out. In hopes that this can offer some encouragement for you if you’re feeling overwhelmed by either not having any system & wanting to set one up, or trying to figure out how to refine your current system.
When I started out with building my Notion system, I started with one piece of it at a time. Once one piece clicked, I moved on to adding the next. Some of this system didn’t start making sense until about 2 years into it. And also because I didn’t necessarily need that part of the system yet. It’s been a steady work in progress and it’s been growing with me and my needs.
I started out with tasks. A list of all the things I wanted and needed to do.
Eventually, this got overwhelming because the tasks weren’t clearly defined or organized. What was my reason for doing these tasks? What was I working towards? They needed to be organized into specific Projects - working toward a something.
And how would I know I was making any progress in these projects? By setting up corresponding goals that fall within the projects. This is the sector of my system that’s most recently started making sense to me and is my current focus on building out.
Thanks for hanging out to hear about the top level organizational structure of my Notion system. Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve recently released a Notion template called the Holy Grail HQ which includes this system and many more interconnected databases and dashboards to help you run your intuitive business with more ease & joy.
I love building systems within Notion, especially for neurodivergent folx who need customization to work for their unique brains.
You can take the pieces of the system that makes sense and work for you and run wild with those. You don't have to use everything AND you can customize it to make it work even better for you. And then, when you're ready for those other pieces of the system, they'll be there waiting for you to support you in that part of your journey.
If you're interested in this Holy Grail HQ system, click the link below!
And let me know what other parts of my system, business, or life you’re curious about and would like a video on!
See ya next time!
If you’re looking for more support in setting up or refining your Notion systems to work with your beautiful brain, check out our current Notion offerings here:
More where that came from
If you’d like to see more posts about Notion, check out the others by clicking on an image below:
