Notion Template For Tasks & Time Management and Project Planning

Related: Productivity

Task Management System is Your Bro

According to Miller's Law human's brain can hold about 5-9 items in the working memory at a time.

When dealing with day-to-day tasks we use a combination of long and short-term memory. Eventhough, long-term memory has a significantly larger capacity, keeping all tasks, priorities and deadlines in memory can be overwhelming. Especially if involved in multiple projects.

Imagine the constant mental strain of trying not to forget anything—it's exhausting!

Fortunately, there's an alternative: offload everything into a task management system and free up your brain.

Designing Task Management System Might Be Challenging

However, finding the perfect task management app can be as challenging as finding a soulmate. Sometimes, an app isn't flexible enough, or its workflow doesn't match yours. Other times, the effort required to maintain the tasks is so high that the habit doesn’t stick.

It's a classic chicken-and-egg problem: you never know which app would fit your task management workflow if you don't have a task management workflow.

Building up your own workflow in Notion can be a helpful exercise if you're unsure about your task management workflow yet. Once you understand your workflow, you can either stick with Notion or find an alternative app that fits perfectly.

That's exactly what I did.

Implementation Details

Dashboard Overview

My task management dashboard in Notion consists of several sections:

Goals Management

I treat goals like long-term beacons.

Every time it catches my eye, it reminds me of itself and probably makes me adjust my current direction using tasks.

Each goal has tags and due dates and is usually related to some project. Usually, it's something long-term but may also be a shorter one.

For the due dates I have:

Most of the time I use year and quarter goals. Shorter ones bring more of a maintenance hassle than any profit for me.

Task Properties Overview

Every task has the following list of properties. Most of them have predefined values to make task creation and management faster and effortless:

Task's Project

Projects are not necessarily related to my work but can also include household, health, and any other activity.

I find it rather useful to create tasks for everything, even household stuff like "pay for utility bills" or "drive the to supermarket and buy soil for plants." Otherwise, I simply postpone those things endlessly until it becomes outdated and plants eventually die.

Task's Estimation

Estimation is mandatory for every task. It shouldn't be super accurate, but even a ballpark estimation is useful. It allows me to prioritize tasks and understand the workload.

To speed up the task creation process, it has predefined values like in scrum poker: 15m, 30m, 1h, 2h, 4h, 6h, 8h, 12h, and complex.

I'm thinking about limiting the max estimation to 4h or even to 2h.

Large task estimation usually means that it wasn't decomposed appropriately, and estimation error, in that case, is going to be unexpectedly large. Furthermore, large tasks are scary to start, so that large estimation may drive me to an extra procrastination circle.

Task's Due Date

Every task also requires a due date value, which has predefined values for 1 Day, 2 Days, Week, Month, Quarter, Year.

When the due value is picked, the due date exact date is automatically calculated concerning the task creation date using the following ugly Notion formula:

if(prop("Due") <b> "Day", dateAdd(prop("Created"), 1, "days"),
	if(prop("Due") </b> "2 Days", dateAdd(prop("Created"), 2, "days"),
		if(prop("Due") <b> "Week", dateAdd(prop("Created"), 1, "weeks"), 
			if(prop("Due") </b> "Month", dateAdd(prop("Created"), 1, "months"),
				if(prop("Due") <b> "Quarter", dateAdd(prop("Created"), 1, "quarters"), 				
						if(prop("Due") </b> "Year", dateAdd(prop("Created"), 1, "years"),
							dateAdd(prop("Created"), 2, "weeks")))))))

I'm thinking about limiting the maximum due date to a week or two because a distant deadline turns the task into something more like a goal.

There is also a high chance that a small task will be overflown by other ones and won't be relevant in a couple of months.

Due date is then used for calculation "days before due date" which is later used in tasks sorting:

dateBetween(prop("Due Date"), now(), "days")

Task's Estimations Evaluation

Estimated Hours is calculated based on selected estimation value with the help of the formula:

if(prop("Estimation") <b> "15m", 0.25, 
	if(prop("Estimation") </b> "30m", 0.5, 		 
		if(prop("Estimation") <b> "1h", 1.0,
			if(prop("Estimation") </b> "2h", 2.0, 			
				if(prop("Estimation") <b> "4h", 4.0, 
					if(prop("Estimation") </b> "6h", 6.0, 
						if(prop("Estimation") <b> "8h", 8.0, 
							if(prop("Estimation") </b> "12h", 12.0, 0.0))))))))

It is later used for sorting tasks.

Task's Priority

There are three possible values: high, low, and normal. By default, all tasks have normal priority unless something essential arises.

Due date with priority together allows building a kind of Eisenhower's matrix automatically.

Task's Status

Task life cycle is backlog -> in progress -> done or archived.

The most crucial thing is to never jump to new upcoming tasks immediately. Slow down, put a new task in the backlog. Then look through the backlog and schedule it on some free time range.

When getting under a heavy rain of tasks in a volatile environment with changing contexts, keeping up with that process is vital. It is a good way to reduce anxiety, tension, and the overall level of stress.

Task's Schedule Date

All tasks have a scheduled date but don't have an exact time because my timespan is a week, not a day. That's why the accurate time doesn't matter.

In my timetable, tasks are not rigidly fixed to the scheduled date, and they may easily drift back and forth. That's how I try to keep my schedule more or less flexible.

Scheduled date and task estimation allow filling the week with tasks and control planned workload. At least try to control.

Perhaps I could make the whole thing much more strict and schedule tasks to a specific time.

I could do it if tasks could be estimated more or less accurately. If it were like calls or meetings, but not software development.

Task Is on Time

"Is on time" property is calculated for "done" tasks taking into account their due date and last edited time. It assumes that the last update of any task is setting it into "done" state. But it also allows to mark a task as "isOnTimeManually" if for some reason it was edited later.

or(prop("isOnTimeManually"),
	or(smaller(now(), prop("Due Date")),  
   	and(prop("Status") == "Done 🙌", 
   			smaller(prop("Last Edited"),  prop("Due Date")))))

"Is on time" property can be later used for calculation statistics, like how much per cent of task were completed on time. At use this information in our estimation and scheduling of workload.

Task's Tags

I've also added tags to the tasks, but frankly, I don't almost use them. Perhaps it could be useful when syncing up scopes of work with team members in case of multi-user usage.

Tasks Management Overview

Tasks are managed and visualised with a help of

Kanban Boards

I have a Kanban board with a switch for every project and a global one that includes all tasks.

I find the Kanban-like board helpful for teams when visualizing the current process state, but frankly, I don't feel much profit from it for managing personal tasks.

Seems like I just habitually use it. Although, Kanban in Notion is quite helpful when used on the tasks' creation stage as it allows to quickly add tasks right to the backlog of the selected project.

Smart Tasks View Lists

I've got a separate table view for tasks with 3 listings:

Scheduled Tasks List

The core feature of scheduled task is its sorting principle, which makes the overall task management much more effortless. It works almost by itself.

Tasks are sorted by scheduled date, priority, days before the due date, estimation size, and project.

Such sorting method works the following way.

Scheduled date

Sorting relies much on scheduling dates, so it requires to be a little bit careful when scheduling.

The scheduled date does not include time, so tasks in the lists are simply batched into daily portions, sorted by date.

Priority

By default, all tasks have "normal" priority. But if some of them have high priority, it will immediately jump to the top of the scheduled date tasks portion.

I usually create all tasks early on Monday or on Sunday, and I use either 1 week or 2 weeks deadline.

That means that tasks in the same portion have very close due dates, but if one of them is urgent, it will jump to the top of the list for the day it was scheduled for.

Estimation size

It's much easier to get things done starting from smaller tasks.

Project

Usually, when scheduling tasks for the week, I try to avoid switching contexts by putting related tasks on the same day. Sorting by a project is the last soring key, and it works as a sanity check to reduce context switching throughout the day.

Outstanding Tasks List

Outstanding tasks are those that already have fucked up deadlines or scheduled dates. They are required to pay attention to.

Finished Tasks List

"Done recently" list is unexpectedly a list of tasks that were done recently. It's a dopamine reward for a good boy.

Workload Calendar

I use a high load calendar to have a helicopter view of my workload. It allows me to have a short glance at my schedule and see that there is definitely no place for new projects there.

Task Management Workflow Routine

Goals and Tasks Breakdown

The process is pretty straightforward and has something in common with GTD.

It all starts with goals. It's a continuos process that lasts for years. I usually revisit them 2-4 times a year to keep them relevant. Then there goes a tasks break down.

Tasks Refinement

I usually perform weekly tasks refinement on early Monday or Sunday.

I review outstanding tasks from the previous week and decide how to process them: cancel by moving to archive or keep them scheduled. Usually, I don't re-schedule them for another day because they are already on my lists.

What I do next is creating new tasks, add estimations for them, and set deadlines.

If the task estimation is too large, I break it down. I try to have tasks with an estimation of less than 2h.

I schedule new tasks taking into account the following week's capacity. If I have a lot of things on the "outstanding tasks" list, I slow down.

Urgencies Management

If something new arises during the week, I add it as a task. If it is something urgent, I can express it with due dates and priority and then schedule. It will appear on my lists in the right place.

Retrospective Analysis

It also makes sense to pay attention to the statistics of tasks that were done on time and use it to adjust the estimation and planning process.

Results and Conclusions

I've been using it for more than a year. Here is some thought on what worked and what didn't work as expected.

Still a Maintenance Cost

Although I tried to make my tasks dashboard effortless, the maintenance cost is enough to create noticeable friction, keeping me from using it. I have to force myself into what I don't like at all.

Probably, it's a Notion thing. It constantly stills a few seconds here and there while loading, which is quite annoying.

Hard to Stick to as a Habit

The hardest thing for me is to stick to a habit of plan-first-then-do approach by starting the day from the dashboard review.

Urgencies Destroy the Flow

My task management system works like a charm until I approach a deadline or something urgent comes up. It's a toggle switching my brain into a single-threaded reptile mode that doesn't care about queues and priorities.

Ideally, a task management system should defend from rushes by balancing workload and by scheduling urgencies properly.

But it doesn't work well for me.

Everything Else Worked

Everything else worked to the extent of how project management works in general. It's far from being perfect, but it adds at least a little bit of order into a complete mess of unpredictable reality.

The Template

Here is a link to the template. It's free of charge but you should sign up to see the link.