Every Monday morning, you'll get a digest of the latest Notion updates, summaries of YouTube videos worth watching and interesting odds and ends, all about Notion.
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π§π»ββοΈ Spells for Systems - Issue # 6
Published 8 months agoΒ β’Β 4 min read
SPELLS FOR SYSTEMS
Your weekly digest of all things Notion
Issue # 6 - Week of November 11, 2024
Who's this? You are receiving this newsletter from me because you signed up for the newsletter a while back or you bought a template from me, your friendly Systems Wizard. This includes free downloads via Gumroad.
Hello Reader,
We had a huge rainstorm this weekend. 60+ mm of rain in about 6 hours π±
This means our internet at home is now broken.
Oh, how I wish Notion offline features were already up and running. That won't be until next year though.
Until then I just have to find a nice cafe to work from. And apologise for sending this a tad bit later than usual.
I'm sending this a few hours laters than usual. Here's my apology chicken (I do have chickens roaming my backyard, in real life)
Let's get to it. Here's what happened during the week of November 11, 2024:
π£ The week's Notion updates
No new "official " updates this week. But last week I forgot to tell you about a change in the colours and highlighter options so that the display is more compact:
This video is packed with useful tips. Super simple, but big-impact tips like:
Putting notes for recurring meetings in a toggle
Use the "find" function, even if the toggles are all closed
Setting naming conventions to find things faster
Using AI to make the most of the info already in your workspace and specific to your preferences
Three ways to user buttons (update status, create page and recurring tasks)
And more...
It does feel a bit all over the place (one tip doesn't always lead to the next naturally), but there's some good stuff in there. It's short. Just watch it.
All about layouts and how to use every single function to make your databases look even better than before. A little trick I learned that makes the side pannel work better is using Command + Shift to open and close them.
There are plenty of beginner tutorials, but because of the speed at which Notion changes, it's worth looking at recently made ones. This one includes AI features as well as sharing to the web (with the settings for Notion Sites).
The holidays are fast approaching. Or, as we call it here in Australia, "the silly season". I loved seeing how Akiflow can help to time-block and about half-way through, Caitlin demos how she builds a Notion database to track gift buying.
This is a great inside look at the community-building efforts at Notion. Francisco Cruz Mendoza (who onboarded me as an Ambassador) talks about his journey at Notion. My favourite quote when asked what he does:
I support a bunch of Notion nerds which is the best.
Remember, you can catch all past episodes I've shared via this newsletter on this playlist.
Part "here's the story of Notion", part "here's how Ivan Zaho thinks". This article shows the thinking (or philosophy, as the title says) behind the building and growth of Notion.
A thing I learned that I don't think I could deal with, with the same amount of zen, is the countless notifications he chooses to receive about every single ticket that comes through. It makes sense when he explains it and shows his dedication to building a tool with the best customer service possible.
Curious to understand how much information Notion has to manage every single day to keep our data secure (and to gear up for an offline mode)? This explains the very backend of Notion, and woah, it's a lot!
A weekly digest of all things Notion, curated by Marie-Pier Rochon
Every Monday morning, you'll get a digest of the latest Notion updates, summaries of YouTube videos worth watching and interesting odds and ends, all about Notion.
ποΈ 6 Months of Spells for Systems I can't believe this newsletter has been going on for over 6 months. And there are well over 1000 of you reading this most weeks. Thank you for being here. Over the last 6 months, here are a few things I've noticed: The speed at which Notion releases new updates has changed. Instead of an update or two per week, there seems to be a specific focus each month. In April, it was all about Notion Mail. In May, Notion AI is the big focus. The surge of AI is making...
π€ Making the most of Notion AI (Official News) Following last week's big launch of Notion Mail, it's a quiet week. There are no new features, but they are starting to release weekly lessons on how to make the most of Notion AI. Find all the new Notion AI lessons here Two things I hadn't realised you can do with Notion AI include: Translating properties in a database (so you can have multiple languages in one database - useful for those who work on projects with multiple languages) Ask the AI...
π You've got mail... This week's big announcement has been a long time coming. It was first announced in October at Make With Notion, has been slowly released to some users since then, and is now available to all those with a Gmail address.To keep it brief because it's a fairly big piece of the productivity puzzle being released, and maybe like me, you've had a few too many chocolate eggs or hot cross buns this weekend, and you need an easy way to get back in the routine, this whole issue...
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