areas! breaking down my notion system for ADHD entrepreneurs
today we’re talking about my fav area of my entire Notion system.
my areas database is one of the main databases in the Holy Grail HQ Notion system. The Holy Grail HQ is a system for neurodivergent solo-preneurs that’s got interconnected databases and is customizable to your unique needs and ways of operation so that you can finally feel organized and get shit done in your business. 🪄 it’s big ass powerful magic according to my clients!
click the link above to learn more and get your own Holy Grail system today!
In this video I go over:
RAPTR productivity system
my simple areas
my fav area
filing cabinet analogy
PARA and what didn’t work
areas database set up in Notion
areas rollup in tasks database
in my top level productivity system in notion video i talk about my RAPTR which is the acronym i made up for my organization system. it’s cute, it stands for: R is just there for fun, then we have areas, projects, tasks, reference (second brain). you can check that video out if you wanna see the overview of how the entire system is set up.
today we’re looking at the very tippy top of the system; areas!
my simple areas
these are broad, ongoing, categories of your life. you can have as many areas as you want, i keep mine super simple with 3: business 🌈, personal 🦄, and home 🌇.
i also use a specific emoji to denote each area of my life to help make things easier for me & my ADHD brain across my whole Notion system. peep this video if you wanna learn how i use emojis to help me focus.
🌈 my business area encompasses anything related to Brigitte Marie Energy Design, my business.
🦄 my personal area includes: hobbies, fun, health, wellness, magic, friends
🌇 my home area is anything having to do with our house, my relationship with my partner & our extended families, and our kitties.
basically, anything in my life that i’d want to document in notion, fits into one of these 3 categories/areas for me.
i’ve seen other people break these areas up and have a specific health area, for example, but for me it makes sense to my brain to include it within personal.
my fav area is my business area. it’s the most robust & built out area of my system, and what i use most in my day to day. and i’m really proud of it.
how i picture it in my mind
the areas database is the gateway point into the rest of the system. i like to picture it like a cute little flowchart.
areas contain projects which are goals or things you want to accomplish/work towards.
projects contain tasks which are action items that help you move the needle & complete your projects & goals.
i also like to think of it as a filing cabinet. for example, i’d have a separate filing cabinet for my business, another one for my personal life, and another one for my home.
then within each cabinet are folders. these would be the projects. for example, a folder in my personal cabinet would be my health folder.
then within each folder are pieces of paper. these pieces of paper would be the tasks i need to do to complete my project. one task in my health folder would be going to my weekly therapy appointments.
what didn’t work for me - PARA
before i show you how it’s built out in my system, i wanna tell you what i tried that didn’t work. a lot of experimentation has gone into building my system.
when i first started out, i tried following other people’s systems (like PARA) which say that areas are ongoing and projects have completion dates. therefore, i should have a bunch of specific ongoing areas. that quickly got way too overwhelming and convoluted.
for example, instead of having one main business area, i’d have multiple areas like marketing, branding, finance, etc.
it got confusing when i started adding projects to each of these areas. i was working toward building up these areas of my business and i didn’t necessarily have projects that had strict completion dates.
to try to make PARA work, i created a marketing area with a marketing project inside of it. a branding area with a branding project. same for the rest. and it started getting real confusing, real fast.
it just didn’t make sense in my brain or for where i was in my business. it felt like there was too much clutter, which took away from my ability to actually focus on my work.
i felt like i had too many things spread out in too many places.
so i scrapped PARA’s rules and i simplified it. i made it work for me and my beautiful unique brain.
now i have one business area containing all my business projects. and i allow some of those projects to be ongoing like my marketing, branding, and finance.
let’s go see what this looks like within my business area.
how this is all set up in my system
areas is the title of a database. it lives on my holy grail hq which is my entire system dashboard. on here i’ve got a bunch of databases that are related; they’re interconnected aka they all work together. and i’ve got dashboards set up to help me to utilize these related databases in easy ways that make sense for my brain. the Holy Grail HQ is also a customizable template that you can learn more about and purchase to help yourself get more organized!
i never go to this database on the backend. i pretty much only use it as a organizational label inside other databases, like my projects database.
in this table view you can see the databases my areas database is related to.
and if i open up my business area page, you can see i’ve hidden all those databases that we just saw in the table (because i don’t need the visual clutter).
and i have a view of my projects database filtered to show me all projects related to my business area.
i also show my areas database as a rollup inside of my tasks.
that’s the areas section of my system. it helps to keep my projects & everything in my life better organized.
if this was helpful at all, i’d love to hear what you discovered & wanna try out. if you already have an areas section in your notion system, lmk what you’ve got it broken up into. i can’t wait to hear.
and if you’re interested in a customizable Notion system to help you feel more organized in your business, click the button below to check out the Holy Grail HQ!
thanks for being here.
i’ll see ya in the next one.
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