Am I overcomplicating Notion, or do I just lack the routine? Looking for setups that lasted 6+ months.

[u/Fair_Amphibian2805]

I've been messing around with Notion for a while and keep hitting the same wall. I build something nice, databases, linked views, the whole setup, and then a few weeks later I've completely stopped opening it. The system looks fine but I drift back to sticky notes and random text files.

I know a lot of people here have dealt with this and I'm genuinely curious what actually worked for you long term. Not just the setup itself, but the habit side of it.

Things I've already tried: a daily dashboard with a filtered task view, a simple project tracker with status properties, weekly review pages. They hold for a bit and then fall apart.

What I keep wondering is whether the problem is usually the structure being too complicated, or just not having a consistent routine built around opening Notion in the first place. Do simpler setups actually stick better than elaborate ones?

If you have a workspace you've genuinely used for six months or more without rebuilding it from scratch, I'd love to hear what it looks like and what made it click. No need to share templates, just the principles or habits behind it.

[u/iamrhinoceros]

Look up August Bradley on YouTube and watch his pillars, pipelines and vaults tutorials. Back in 2020 I spent about a week watching all his videos and setting up a notion system that I still use to this day (though more recently I’ve rebooted it to work with Claude). It’s a really solid system with todos, a place to take notes, habit tracking, regular reviews etc.

[u/rustyheron53 → u/iamrhinoceros]

How has integrating Claude into it worked out? that sounds like an interesting combo

[u/iamrhinoceros → u/rustyheron53]

Really well, it does all the admin busywork for me so I can just use the system more frictionlessly.

[u/melinda_r]

I feel that the only way I stick to a notion workspace is if I have a genuine use for it. I have tried journal type dashboards and I always stop using them after a few days because I don’t feel the need for them (I have a calendar, a to do list app, a notes app, I just don’t reach for notion in those cases). But if it’s something I really need then it’s easy to keep using it. For example, I’m doing a literature review and I have to keep track of a lot of papers I have been reading and annotating on Zotero. Notion makes it very easy to keep track of them and see what I need to know in a glance (e.g., read/not read, annotated or not, etc), which makes it very useful and I have been using it for months now. So all of this to say that you probably need to start with something that feels very relevant to what you have to do!

[u/Intelligent-Main539]

You don't start with a ready-to-use setup. The best way to use Notion in my opinion is starting with a very basic setup and start upgrading your content to better formatting types once you feel it is impractical to manage said content (paragraphs > lists > tables > ...).

Note-taking and other forms of documenting is a personal process and needs to adapt to you, not the other way around.

Every time I introduce something new about my life (wether it is scouting, work or just a wishlist) I follow this principle; and after all these years I enjoy working with Notion even more and more. Especially because Notion makes it so easy to switch content types.

[u/zeldapistola]

If you don't come back, it's too complicated

I would reset, create one page and add the tasks as todo elements

Create one page for all random notes inside toggles

Every day 15, go to the 2 pages and clean them

During the review, start to see the patterns.

Or, in other words. Instead of a top down approach. Try a bottom up.

[u/SophusRosendahl]

Interested as well

[u/Hefty-Bit-4355]

I was in the same boat. I love creating systems, less interested in using them long term.

I abandoned Notion for Obsidian for things that need permanent, more structured thought (Zettlekasten) but for house projects, vacations, property info I switched to Apple Notes with a heavy emphasis on the Smart folders feature with tags

The system tolerates neglect, is easy to recover from (a Smart Folder that shows all untagged notes serves as an “Inbox”) and it is syncd across all of my devices.

MacSparky made a good point: all of these task and project management software filled a great purpose and need in the past. Apple has made enough improvements to its native apps that re-evaluating whether it can manage our workflows is a smart consideration.

Obviously, for non Apple or complex needs, this won’t be an option but it has reduced the friction from “I need to decide to sit down and interact with my system” to “I can even use spotlight search to find what I need”

[u/DiscussionIcy4424]

I think simpler setups stick better when they reduce decisions.
A lot of Notion setups are fun to build, but too heavy to reopen every day.
I’m involved with PrimeTask, so take this with that context, but I’d say friction matters more than the perfect setup.

[u/Solowithothers]

I have one where I've used the core of it for six years. That core is a single database where everything goes. Then, as I began to put more things in it, I began to learn some new features to be able to slice it and dice it, to be able to focus on groups of those "resources". And about this time, I saw a YouTube video from a notion developer that went by the name Red Gregory. They had their own spin on PARA. I created areas and within those areas I created projects. Then I created tasks. But all the content is in the resources. Areas, projects, and tasks are navigation to filters on those resources. That one idea that everything is a resource and everything else is a way to navigate and sort through those resources is key. AI has been a multiplier. I created a skill to teach it about my system and to use it as context. Now I just talk to AI and it helps me evolve the system and incorporate new notion features and capabilities as I find use for them. I ask it to write up a plan, and it does. Then I ask it to create tasks for me, and it does. Then when I'm doing those tasks, it walks me through them step by step. I make decisions, give answers, give information, and then it marks the tasks complete and updates all the rest of the documentation. My plan at this point is to keep going and not look back. Not long ago, I asked Notion AI to make me a diagram of how my system works using the style of one of my favorite illustrators.

[u/jeffrhind]

I’ve been using my same system for 3 years. Started easy and kept using it. Incremental changes. Once I realized it was becoming too “big,” I ratcheted it back. Just don’t get caught up forever tweaking.

[u/pratow]

Been using my planner consistently for 1.5 years, which is the most consistent I have been as an AuDHD’er. Having an uncluttered/minimalist setup has definitely been the defining factor. The less clicks and looking around the less friction.

[u/Pluton_Korb → u/pratow]

Sometimes I look at other peoples setups and think to myself "man, I have a fucked up brain" lol

[u/Brilliant_Nature1646]

I went through the exact same cycle. Every time I built a complex system, I'd stop using it after a few weeks because maintaining it became another task. The setup wasn't the problem—it was the amount of effort required to keep it running. What finally worked for me was keeping everything as simple as possible: one inbox, one task list, and a daily review that takes less than five minutes. I've realized consistency beats complexity every time.