How I Use Notion as a Personal Wiki
I use Notion as a one-stop shop for a lot of my life's work. Between planning camping trips and remembering to stop by the post office, I've learned I have to write things down or I simply will not remember to do them. Notion has helped me track these things in a very straightforward way. I start my workday on a single page from which I can view my week or month ahead, as well as the tasks I intend to accomplish in that time. I call this my Basecamp.
This Basecamp approach consists of two primary subsections: The Week Ahead and The Tasks Ahead.
The Week Ahead
The Week Ahead refers to my rolling seven day schedule of events. I alternate between a handful of views in my Primary Schedule, from which I derive a number of other relational databases (e.g. a retrospective view of the hikes I've gone on in that past year, or a forward-looking approach to trips I plan to take in the upcoming year). I call this a "category-driven" approach, where the Category is the crux by which I reference every item on my calendar.
Categories available in my Primary Schedule.
I like to keep a card view of my week in sight, but I find myself mostly alternating between this "Current Week" card view, and the all-encompassing "Calendar View", allowing me to look at all events ahead on a clear calendar.
What one of my weeks looks like, with its applied filters.
Relational Databases
A prime example of a relational database I derive from this Primary Schedule is the view I link to within my The Great Outdoors page, which is filtered using a defined Category of "Hiking":
2019 hikes, 'Card' view.
2019 hikes with applied filters.
Another example of a relational database I pull from the same Primary Schedule is my forward-looking annual planning view, where I plan out and account for upcoming travel and vacation hours spent in a given year. For example, by summing up the numeric total of my $Dog Sitter property in this view, I can determine how much money I intend to spend on dog sitters for the rest of the year:
My 2019 travel plans.
The Tasks Ahead
The Tasks Ahead is a much simpler subsection. I keep a minified to-do list, consisting of three columns: Backlog, Doing, and Done. I used to use a database for this, but I found it too heavy for smaller tasks (e.g. doing the laundry) and it was beginning to bog down my workspace's search functionality. Simplifying my approach to use only To Do blocks has improved my workspace's search performance significantly.
A look at my simple to-do list.
The Backlog is where I typically throw items I want to look into within the next few weeks, but aren't a pressing priority. Doing is where the higher priority items typically land, things I believe I can accomplish that day or week. Done only exists as a point of pride; it's nice to see all those checked-off items populating the far right column at the end of a long week. I always end up deleting the completed tasks, but it's nice to bask in your accomplishments for a day or two beforehand (I used to maintain an Archive, but I never revisited it).
In Conclusion
By looking at The Weeks and Tasks Ahead this way, I manage to track most of the things I need to do in my personal life within a week. Hopefully you can get some use out of a similar approach!
Templates
For inspiration or duplication: