How I Organise My Uni Life with Notion

Week one was a circus. I lost a syllabus, missed a lab, and found a sad orange in my bag. I opened Notion out of panic, not hope. It looked like a toy for tidy people. I stuck with it anyway. Shock twist, it works on goblins too.

Set The Trap
My home page is a guard dog, not a mood board. Big calendar at the top that only shows the next two weeks. Under it, three lists: Today, This Week, Parking Lot. Quick links sit in a small row: Classes, Assignments, Notes, Readings, Money, Clubs. I keep an Inbox section for brain dumps, one line per idea, no grace. New tasks use a tiny form: title, due date, course tag, time estimate, priority. I pin a weekly widget that shows five tasks with the nearest due dates. Icons are plain. No glitter. If I want pretty, I look at the sky. Every morning I open the page and drag three tasks to Today. Every evening I clear Today or I move the leftovers. If it is not on the page, it does not exist. That rule keeps me honest when my brain tries to freestyle.

Build The Board

Each class gets one database entry, not a sprawling scrapbook. Fields I actually use: professor name, email, office hours, classroom, Zoom link, grade weight, key dates, and a link to the class drive. I relate Classes to Assignments and to Notes. That means when I open a class page, I see only its work and only its notes. Assignments live in one master table with fields for due date, type, status, priority, time estimate, and a checkbox called Tiny Win. If something takes under fifteen minutes, it is a Tiny Win and gets done first. I keep a calendar view for exams and a board view for status. Filters hide anything done or not due this week. Dates beat vibes. My memory thinks it is special. It is not. The board is the adult in the room.

Do The Work
Notes are one database. Template on new note: title, date, course relation, three toggles named Recall, Why, Next Step. After lecture I fill Recall with quiz style lines. Why gets one paragraph that says why the idea matters. Next Step is where I turn a study bit into a task with a due date. That link makes revision real. On Sundays I run a weekly reset. I scan the Assignments list, sort by date, slot work blocks in my calendar, and add dumb but key tasks like print lab sheet and charge laptop. On weeknights I use a Daily page with three parts: plan in, work log, plan out. It takes six minutes and saves hours. I set Notion reminders for deadlines and also set my phone, since I do not trust one tool with my life. Tiny updates beat perfect plans. I am not writing a novel. I am feeding a small machine.

Fix The Mess
Every two weeks I prune like a cold editor. Fields I never touch get cut. Views that looked clever but slow me down get tossed. I move any loose pages into the right database. I split big tasks into smaller ones with time tags, like 25 min or 50 min. I clip readings with the web clipper and tag by course and topic, then I add a one line summary at the top like a headline. Group projects get one shared page with tasks, owners, due dates, and a short recap after each meeting. No email storms, one source of truth. I export anything huge before finals, just in case the Wi Fi dies. If a page starts to look like a poster, I strip it back to text and tables. Simplicity wins on week five. Cute layouts rot when life gets loud.


Dodge The Traps

The first trap is design fever. Fonts, covers, quotes, all fluff. I fought the urge and kept it plain so I could move fast. The second trap is double entry. If I put a task in my phone, it also lives in Notion, or I delete one. The third trap is fake progress. Building a perfect page is not study. Reading a highlight is not recall. So I use toggles with questions. If I cannot answer, I am not done. The fourth trap is tool worship. I still carry a paper card for true emergencies. The fifth trap is team chaos. For group work, I lock dates and owners. A boring system that you use beats a fancy system you admire. That line saves me from my own taste.

The Week From Hell

One week I had a stats quiz, an econ essay, a lab, and a club event with free pizza that tried to ruin me. I dumped everything into the Assignments table, set due dates, linked each item to the right class, and tagged the effort. I split the essay into four tasks, each one a Tiny Win. I gave the lab a checklist, including pack goggles, book room, print sheet. I made a study stack from my Notes by filtering topics for the quiz, then I did recall toggles for 20 minutes a day. I scheduled two work sprints for the essay and one for the lab. I said no to one extra event and set a reminder to be mad about it later. The quiz went fine, the essay hit the inbox on time, the lab did not catch fire. The pizza still got me. Systems save you when willpower leaves the chat. That was the lesson I did not want, but needed.



Little Learnings

One hub beats ten tabs. Put the date in on day one. Link notes to tasks so review is not a wish. Use views to hide noise. Make a weekly reset and guard it like a pet. Share a single page for group work. Plain beats pretty. Boredom is a feature, not a bug.

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