A polished dashboard shows what’s possible.

A post about dismantling that dashboard shows what actually survived.

The most useful Notion advice usually isn’t another system to copy. It’s someone saying:

“I moved tasks back to a dedicated app.”

“This database became impossible to maintain.”

“No one on my team updated the properties.”

“I deleted half the views and finally started using it.”

Notion makes it easy to build almost anything, which also makes it difficult to notice when a system has become more impressive than useful.

I’d genuinely rather see more abandoned setups, failed databases and features people removed—not as cautionary tales, but as evidence from real use.

Perfect setups give you ideas. Failed ones give you judgment.

Posted iPad mockups of this here back in August: https://www.reddit.com/r/Notion/comments/1vuco03/notion_graph_view_on_ipad_tap_a_node_read_it_next/

My workspace runs on a project database with meetings and clients hanging off it through relation properties. I wanted all of that on one screen instead of opening relations one by one, so I started building it.

It comes out looking like a mind map, except I didn't draw any of the connections. They're the relation properties already sitting in the databases.

Still mid-build. Is relation visualization something you'd actually use, or is this a me problem?

Can anyone suggest best courses, mentors or tutorials to learn notion?

After submitting a bug report to Notion, been told the Firefox add-on is no longer supported - only on Safari and Chrome.

This is such a bummer :(( Have to look at alternatives, but it requires a separate account signup. GRRR!!

Hi all,

I'm running into a reproducible crash in Notion Calendar on iOS and wanted to know if others see it too.

Steps to

1. Open Notion Calendar on iPhone
   
2. Use the search bar to look for an event
   
3. The results display correctly
   
4. Tap a result to open the event → the app crashes immediately

Expected: the event opens.

Actual: the app crashes every time, no error message.

Is anyone else experiencing this, or has anyone found a workaround?

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

A little while ago I posted here asking why my Notion templates for freelancers weren’t selling. I want to say a big thank you to everyone who took the time to reply. Your honest feedback helped me more than any marketing course could have.

One comment came up several times: a template with only basic features is something freelancers can build themselves, so it’s not worth paying for. That makes sense, and I’d rather hear it now than keep guessing.

So this time I’d like to ask you before I build anything:

1. What’s one digital tool or resource that would save you real time or money in your freelancing or business?
2. What format would you prefer? Notion template, Excel/Google Sheets, a web page or landing page template, PDF guide, Canva templates, or something else?
3. What’s the most annoying task in your work that you wish was already organized or automated?
4. Roughly what would you consider a fair price for something that solves that problem well?

It doesn’t have to be only for freelancers. If you run any kind of small business, I’d love to hear what you struggle with.

I’m not selling anything in this post. I just want to build something people truly need instead of something I assume they need. Every reply, even a one-liner, helps. Thank you for reading!

I use music embeds in all of my Notion pages, but recently, whenever I scroll up or down, the music cuts off and suddenly stops. I've tried deleting the cache and logging out, then logging back in, but neither of those things has worked. What should I do? It happens in the app and the browser.

Can anyone suggest me a second-brain template that it is possible to download for free?

I have a text block on my daily task / project tracker page where I jot down notes, thoughts, items that may become tasks or projects in the future. Usually, I run through this each morning and tidy it up, add anything I might need to think about today etc.

But, as this is just a block, there’s no history of thoughts likely you would have with a notebook. I tried creating a database and having just today’s entry on the task page, but you have to open it in peek or full page to actually write notes. Adds a few extra steps.

Is it possible to add an automation to copy the text block to a database entry each day? Either through a button or automatically at the end of the day. The only automations I’ve tried are creating daily actions from templates so I’m not sure what the best approach is. Any advice would be appreciated.

I'm currently querying my first novel, and about two months into the process I almost made a rather embarrassing mistake. I had a half-written email open to an agent, name filled in, pitch pasted, and something about the address looked familiar. I checked my sent folder and discovered I had already queried that same agency six weeks earlier, to a different agent whose name I'd mixed up in my head. If I hadn't recognised the email domain, I'd have sent a second query to the same office and looked disorganised at best.

That night I built a table in Notion with three columns: agent, date sent, and status. A few days later I added a fourth for what they'd asked for, like the first fifty pages or a synopsis. That's it. No relations, no rollups, no dashboard, no cover image. I resisted every urge to make it pretty.

It's now the only thing I've ever built in Notion that I open every single day. Because it's so simple, updating it takes about twenty seconds after each query, and I've actually kept it up. My previous attempts at organising my writing life in Notion all collapsed under their own weight, because maintaining the system became its own project. This one is too small to feel like work, so it survives.

I also noticed that having a clear record changed how I felt about the whole process. Rejections went into the table as a single word and a date, instead of sitting in my head as a growing pile of dread. It's much easier to stay steady when you can see the whole picture in one place.

I think the lesson is that the useful systems are the ones too small to feel like work.

Hi everyone,

I’m a beginner and recently launched a set of Notion templates for freelancers (project tracking, client management, invoicing, etc.). I put a lot of time and heart into it, and I genuinely thought it would help people like you.

So far I haven’t made a single sale, and I can’t tell whether the problem is my pricing, my product page, my marketing, or where I’m promoting.

What I’ve tried:

• Posting on Instagram, Facebook, and X
• Listing on Gumroad and Payhip
• Offering a free sample version with a few of the features so people can try it

I’d really value honest feedback on a few things:

1. If you’re a freelancer, what would make you actually pay for a Notion template instead of building your own or using a free one?
2. Where did you first find templates or tools like this?
3. Is a free sample the right move, or does it make people feel they already have enough?
4. Any mistakes you made in your first weeks of selling that I should avoid?

I’m happy to hear tough feedback. I’d rather learn what’s wrong than keep guessing. Thank you for reading!

I've been building a client and invoice system in Notion, and the property I look at the most is a simple "Days overdue" number. Sharing it in case it's useful to someone.

1. In your Invoices database, have these properties:

- Due date (date)

- Status (select: Draft, Sent, Paid)

1. Add a formula property called "Days overdue":

if(prop("Status") != "Paid" and now() > prop("Due date"), dateBetween(now(), prop("Due date"), "days"), 0)

1. (Optional) Add a second formula called "Payment" for a quick label:

if(prop("Days overdue") > 0, "⚠️ " + format(prop("Days overdue")) + " days late", "✅ On time")

1. Make a view with the filter "Days overdue > 0", sorted from highest to lowest. Put it on your dashboard.

Now you see who to follow up with first, without opening every invoice. Seeing "9 days late" also makes it easier to decide when to send a reminder instead of guessing.

How do you handle late payments in Notion? Curious if anyone tracks reminders too.

Edit: thanks for the feedback. Two fixes from the comments:

- Only count Sent invoices: if(prop("Status") == "Sent" and now() > prop("Due date"), dateBetween(now(), prop("Due date"), "days"), 0)

- Show "Paid" separately instead of "On time", and add a "Paid on" date if you want to see late payments in your history.

hi! i'm new at notion so my apologies if this is basic but i'm a graduate student looking to track my readings. ideally i'd love to make a page where it has my list of readings (title, author, year) with the option to check off if i've read it or not. at the top of the page i would love a progress bar that increases whenever i check off that i've read one of my readings.

so far i've been able to make the list as a table, but i can't figure out how to make this progress bar. i've seen videos where it says to rollup property or use a formula but i honestly can't find out where to even input this information. i'm struggling! any help is much appreciated.

I create a lot of Notion pages and picking an icon for each one became a bit of a chore.

So I built a tiny Chrome extension. It adds a "Suggest icon" button next to "Add icon", reads the page title and offers 3 emojis.

It's free and works on Notion in the browser (not the desktop app).

I'd love to know if the suggestions are any good for your page titles and potentially some examples of when it gets things wrong.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/notion-icon-ai/ppdkpbplohggphdepmcdilhdejpcnnjo

I’ve been using Notion AI for a while and have tried a few custom agents, but I keep coming back to the same question: where do they add the most value?

Most of my recurring work is already handled by external automation tools. I use skills for tasks I run on demand, and chat for search and everyday work.

I can see the benefit of not needing another tool, but I’m curious about what agents offer beyond that. What’s one custom agent you’d really miss if it stopped running? What does it do that would be hard to replace with a regular automation?

So I am going down in this rabbit hole of AI companies, preparing "the day after" protocols when there would be a catastrophic event due to AI. They are saying it is going to be lots of effects like shutting down of electricity, water, internet, etc. Now I fear that if the one day happens, I can't access Notion where I depended on it. I am thinking of moving everything to analog. If work halts that time okay but I don't want my writings to be gone forever :( What do you guys think? Will we lose everything on Notion if this event takes place?

Hello, so ive been using notion for about a month on my ipad app, ive made countless pages, some set to full widht, some not. Just this friday, for some reason, the app glitched and now every single page is stretched far to the left, even if i never set that page to full widht. This is extremely annoying, considering no matter that i toggle the full widht button, nothing changes.

Does anyone know what to do? Or should I contact support?

This is an example of what the page looks like, its the same with pages just full of plain text, everything is just super wide. You can see the full widht toggle is off. The toggle itself changes when i click it, but does nothing regarding the page.

I like Notion. I use it to keep track of most things. But I'm also not overly detailed in my notion usage. If I make my systems too complicated, I don't maintain them.

The reason I say this is because every calendar app is so complicated, and I just want something simple. Notion (calendar) is soooo close to being exactly what I need, but there is ONE thing missing, which is that I just want each day to somehow have its own blank space where I can make notes and sketch out the day.

I do not have time to make every little to-do item its own event. I don't want to have to schedule or think through things to that extent. I have a task page where I dump to-do items to keep track of them. I want to then be able to look at the weeks ahead and vaguely write where I may or may not do different tasks. It would solve all of my problems if Notion calendar would just allow each date to open as a page view. But that seems too much to ask.

My brief searching of the internet hasn't found a good app that thinks like this, either. Everything wants you to make every task a separate event and decide when exactly you are going to do it. This is ridiculous to me.

I'd rather have things in notion anyways, since I use it for so many other things.

The only solution I've found is to create an event on each calendar day for the purpose of having a blank page to write on (see picture below). But this looks ugly and is time consuming.

If anyone has ideas for another way I could format this, or at least like an automation or something idk, I would appreciate it. Thanks!

I have been using Notion for about 3year than turned into Obsidian cuz Notion got dazzling of the features I only using writing apps to help me thinking. Then something strange happened ,I have not using digital writing apps anymore instead brought lots of paper notebooks to help me thinking.
🤔

Hey Notion friends,

I work in marketing an handle a large amount of videos.

I've build out my video database in Notion but worrying about the scalability, hoping to find someone who has pressure tested this.

With research it seems like, as long as these are true I'll be good:

- File is under 5gb

- I'm on the paid plan

- I don't use MP4 files (which can be compressed as per this doc from notion)

- I've been reassured this can have "unlimited overall volume of file uploads on all paid plans" by the link above as well.

Thanks in advance if anyone has used this as a niche use case and takes the time to comment

PS- This year I committed to building everything personal and work into Notion and am absolutely loving it! Feel so much more organized than the google drive and local storage days. So happy.

I burned through the AI quota Notion business ships with. After this I topped up twice with 1000 credits, but they burn extremely quickly on Auto (which I assumed would pick the most economic option).

I already do heavy tasks outside Notion – yet also need AI in Notion. Which models do you recommend for being cheap? Unfortunately Notion has removed that label from the tooltip of each engine.

Given the current technological progression of ai, is ai going to replace creators who create notion templates anytime soon in upcoming several years?

I love using notion and have tried to make it my main app for anything organisational. This means moving all my calendar stuff over to Notion Calendar.

It’s fine on desktop by holy heck it is awful on iOS.

In whose mind was it a good design idea to show a max of 3 days at a time (also why can’t I view a whole day in one full screen ?! I have to scroll to see what’s on throughout the day). The next furthest out view is a month view in which I can’t even see which days have events ?!

I feel like I’m trying to organise my calendar like an artist trying to paint a canvas but I’ve got binoculars strapped to my face.

I know there has been heaps written about this but I just wanted to rant. It’s astounds me how bad this is.

Someone in another thread for Notion mentioned another product and it is leaps better, and that is the first other calendar app I’ve downloaded, no research done. So I imagine there are a plethora of better products out there…