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Never Lose an Idea Again: How I Organize Information (+ Notion Build-Along!) | Better Creating | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Never Lose an Idea Again: How I Organize Information (+ Notion Build-Along!)
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Video Transcript
Hello. Are you drowning in information
but feeling starved for actual usable
knowledge? Every day we consume
countless articles, books, podcasts,
videos, but how much of that valuable
content actually sticks with you? Now,
research shows that our brains are just
not designed to store all the
information. They're meant for having
the ideas, but they just can't hold
everything we get in the modern world.
Welcome back to Better Creating. And in
today's video, I'll show you how and why
you should be using a personal knowledge
system and how to build one quickly as
part of say a digital second brain. A
bit like my notion life OS I go on
about. And I actually call mine a
knowledge hub. It's a personalized
knowledge management approach that
extends your thinking beyond the
limitations of memory. Now, here's the
problem. Information overload doesn't
just waste your time in the modern
world. It actively sabotages your
creativity and productivity. Think about
it. Those brilliant insights that you
had while reading an article last month,
where did they go? Or maybe that perfect
quote for the presentation is gone. And
that connection that you made between
two seemingly unrelated concepts, which
I should have written down when I went
to sleep, yeah, they're gone forever.
Well, I'm going to show you how you can
capture these valuable ideas
effortlessly, and have them at your
fingertips exactly when you need them.
Imagine having a system that not only
stores information but actually helps
you make those unexpected connections,
sparks creativity, and most importantly
transforms your work by making sure that
the value that goes in comes out the
other end. Yeah. Today you'll see how
this connects to the other elements I've
built in previous videos in my notion
build series. and you'll learn the core
principles first behind effective
knowledge capture, the exact tools I use
in my workflow, and a step-by-step demo
on how to build this system in notion.
So, by the end, you're going to have
everything you need to transform
information overload into your creative
superpower. Oh, and if you've ever lost
a great idea, I think you should hit
subscribe because there's a load more
and some great tools and tech on this
channel every week to help you get
organized. I should let you know you'll
also find my readymade notion templates
at bettercreating.com if that's more
your vibe and you just want to kind of
skip to the results. But before you do
that, you've got to hear this. The key
thinking behind a knowledge system that
you should
master. Before diving into the specific
tools and how to build this for yourself
fast, let's understand why traditional
note takingaking fails us in the digital
age. Unlike linear notebooks where
information gets buried and forgotten, a
digital second brain organizes knowledge
nonlinearly, allowing ideas to connect
across topics and projects. The magic
happens when you follow what's called
the code methodology. This is inspired
by Thiago Forte. Check him out. He's a
bit of a legend in the space. Number
one, capture. Selectively save valuable
ideas and insights that you encounter.
Number two, organize. structure
information in an accessible
actionorientated way. Number three is
distill. Extract and refine the most
valuable elements. And then finally
number four express use your knowledge
to create valuable output. So what makes
a great second brain system? Well, it
needs to be searchable across all
content types. It needs to be accessible
for all your devices. It needs to be
flexible enough to adapt to your
evolving needs. and it probably needs to
be capable of creating connections
between seemingly unrelated [Music]
[Music]
ideas. Now, I'll show you how to build
this for yourself in just a bit. But
first, we do need to talk about the best
apps and tools that you might want to
use to do this. And my system is really
built around two key components. The
core system is really two apps for me,
notion and read wise. Now, one is free
and the other is paid, but it's a free
one that's essential. But let's talk
about capture. I use and highly
recommend Readwise. I think I pay around
about $90 possibly a year to use it, but
it's well worth it. And as a central
hub, it works to sync all of your say
highlights from the books that you read,
notes, podcast clippings, everything
through that hub. And the great thing
about this is whilst it's paid, it's
seriously golden for how it can distill
everything back to where you need it.
I'll show you how you can make it the
center of your system in Notion in a
little bit. But my favorite thing about
it is the number of connections you can
make to other apps. And for me, yes,
Notion is my primary workspace and
storage. I love its flexibility, the
databases, and the fact that we have the
ability to truly customize it around our
specific needs. So, that's Readwise and
Notion at the center. But let's not
forget there are other popular options
for a central hub. And probably the two
big ones are Obsidian and Evernote with
a little honorable mention to going,
well, you could just do this in Apple
Notes. Obsidian is perfect if you prefer
local storage and powerful links between
notes and Evernote still excellent for
simple note organization and reliable
capture. I also realize though that
building a second brain like this takes
time and many people just don't have
that. But implementing one doesn't have
to. If you'd like to skip straight to
using rather than building, I've created
two options for you. My standalone
knowledge hub template that mirrors what
I'm going to show you in a minute or my
comprehensive life OS that integrates
knowledge management with tasks, goals,
habits, and a shedload of other things.
Link to both are in the description.
Now, I do want to address here that many
people don't think Notion's right for
them, mostly due to the lack of an
offline mode and more involved initial
learning curves and time that's needed
to build one out. But there's actually
good news on both of those objections.
Number one, we've seen Notion already
experimenting with offline mode, and I
hope we will see it released by the end
of 2025. And on the learning curve
question, I can help you there, too,
with the above mentioned templates and a
bunch of tutorials. Okay, finally, let's
check out a couple of great capture
tools that I really think that you need
to check out to add into a good
knowledge capture system. Snipped, which
is Snip D, is essentially for capturing
and syncing podcast highlights. It's
really brilliant. I use it every day
just to listen to fun stuff, but you can
triple click on your headphones or press
a little button and it will capture the
last 30 seconds that you listen to as a
quote, a bit like you would when you
highlight, say, on a Kindle. Really
brilliant. Flylighter is a quick web
highlighting tool that was invented by
another notion bod, Thomas Frank. Check
it out. It's kind of a grownup version
of the next tool which is called Save to
Notion. Now, I've been using this for
year and it's also a kind of Google
Chrome extension that gives you
one-click saving of web content directly
into your system, but I'll demo this a
little bit later in the build. Okay,
here's what most second brain tutorials
miss. The goal isn't to create a
beautiful complex system that you'll
never use. The real purpose is to
transform consumption into creation. to
build a cycle where what you read,
watch, and listen to becomes fuel for
what you create and share. Now, you
might be wondering, how do I actually
build a system in a way that works for
me? That's exactly what we're going to
do next. Terrible, but seriously, let's
do it. And hit the like button if that's
all been [Music]
[Music]
useful. All right, let's begin the
basics of a build. Now, the first thing
I want to do is just take you to here.
Now, you're going to have an option here
as to whether you want to build
something with Readwise in mind or
whether you just want to build from
scratch in notion. Uh, this is my notion
life OS. It's the full fleshed out
template. So, you don't have to build
it. You can just buy it. But the benefit
of building it, as we're going to do in
this, which is now essentially a model
that we'll put it into, uh, is that you
get to understand it. You don't have to
have built all of this. You can just
build it as a standalone. But the great
thing is for those that have maybe
followed this wider series of my notion
build along, you'll be able to integrate
it with the stuff we've already done.
And make sure you do check out the
previous videos in the series on how to
do all of this stuff if you're
interested. Now, when you create
readwise connections with notion, you'll
get a database like this. Uh, and so
we're going to start with that, but let
me just show you what we're going to
build. We're going to take a little look
in here. This is in my actual template
that's live at the moment, the knowledge
base I want to create. And I want a
quick capture function here, which is
where I can add new things. And then we
have inboxes for new references, meeting
notes, uh, and personal writing. And
then you have filtered views of notes
that might be created by you in the my
notes section. And then we've also got
here notes and references that you might
have clipped. And this is an example of
something that's been clipped from the
web from Thiago Forte's website there
and we're going to be building really
the resource area of par if you're
interested in that. Now you can do that
with a couple of things as I mentioned
earlier saved to notion. Then of course
there is Readwise and they have a full
guide in their system of how you can um
export your Kindle highlights and
various highlights in Readwise into a
notion database which ends up looking
like this one that I've modeled here.
Now, as you'll see in my better creating
workspace. This is literally where I
manage everything. I have a knowledge
and clippings hug. And this is the Read
Wise database. As you can see, podcast
videos, uh, articles and blogs, books.
I've updated it. Um, but I essentially
what you're seeing here is all of the
knowledge that I have captured. So, this
Derek Civers entry for example, if I
open it up, is summarized by Notion AI.
And then we have all of the clippings
and these you'll see are Readwise links
to Kindle highlights. So it's pulling in
all the stuff that I've highlighted. Now
the joy of this is that I can then link
these to output. So just to show you a
full version of what we're building
here. If I now go into my say content
manager, let's maybe take a look at my
this video here. What I can do here is
add linked knowledge and find that exact
reference and drop it in. Maybe I want
to do designing your life, whatever.
Now, now they're linked in. We can look
in the linked knowledge view and I can
see when I'm working on content, I'm
able to link the stuff that's feeding
into that writing and copy and use it.
So, this is the power of a knowledge
base. Okay, let's dive into the build.
Number one, I'm going to create the
database. Uh, and we're going to do that
by actually importing a fake Read Wise
database and then editing it to our
needs. So, you can do that too if you
want the Read Wise integration. There
would be the option to kind of use
whatever you've got existing. And then,
for example, within this view, I might
want to just create a new view here that
links to the Readwise database that I've
imported. And then, maybe I make some
other links within the system, maybe to
projects. because I'd link that Readwise
database to the project. So, this would
just help you be able to connect
everything up uh in a simpler way if you
didn't want to build everything. Okay,
first of all, let's do the database
setup. So, you would go to read wise and
I'm going to click on my dashboard and
we want to go to export. Now, mine's
already already set up, but essentially
you will want to find where you want to
send it. Now, these are some of the
other examples we talked about, right?
And you could actually set Read Wise up
to sync into any other system if you're
not a notion person like me. What you
would do is create the connection and
configure it. Um, and then you would
start your export to notion. Now, when
you configure it, it's going to create
this a Readwise database. And you'll see
all of your books highlights come in
through there. Now, if you want to see
the properties, let's just just say that
was our example post clipping. um you
would have all this information come in
that's probably things like you know
whatever you were tagging it on subjects
and you can just do things to like
improve it wrap things and the rest and
you can actually edit what they're
called. The one thing you don't want to
do is change the property type because
that will mess it up with read wise.
Either way, if we just go into my
sidebar and find this. There it is. I
want to get onto my LifeOS build page
and I'm going to drop this into
databases. So, I want to open this up,
find the Read Wise
page, click more. There it is. And I'm
going to drag it and drop it into here.
So, once you've set up your export to
Notion, you probably also want to set up
your imports in Read Wise if you're
going to use it. So, if you go to
connect and sync and go to import
highlights, you'll see suggestions of
things that you can do and it really is
simple. So, I have Kindle connected,
Twitter, a command reader. Um, there's
lots of things and I am actually using
snipped, but I haven't connected it. So,
let's give an example. This is my
podcast. So, I can click in here and it
will just give you the instructions. You
go through, you find the Read Wise
token, paste it into the thing, and work
your way through. The other great thing
about this, if we go back, is you can
also click explore and go and find the
thing and find out if it's for you. But
the stuff I'm really excited about with
Read Wise at the moment is this email
import. So, you can click import and
follow the instructions to bring in uh
email stuff if you want to send it. It's
really powerful. So yeah, I thoroughly
recommend getting this thing set up.
Now, if you're not using Read Wise, what
you're doing is just creating a new
database. And the way you would do that
is do forward slash database and drop it
in in line. Now, if you want this to
load faster, it could be better to keep
it as a full page because full page
databases are easier to use. So, this
would just go in and then you would
build the same thing out. And in fact,
you can build with AI in notion now. So,
I could say create me a knowledge and clippings
clippings
hub. I wonder if it would do that. Let's
see. Now, this is a great new feature.
Helps you do the basic leg work quicker.
Uh, so if you haven't seen this, it's
worth worth trying. Now, let's just see
what it comes out with. It might be
rubbish, but I I have found this to be
reasonably all right to get started.
Okay, it's not fantastic, but you get
the example types, tags, sources, URLs,
so on and so forth. This is not
important. You know, you could um change
things anyway. That would be an option
to get you started, but we're not going
to do that. I'm going to come back out
because I want to build it from the
Readwise database. So, there's our Read
Wise database. We can now go into it.
And what you can now do is change it.
Now, this won't mess up the connection.
You just need to remember what it's
called. You can change the logo, but
let's leave it as it is. So, what you'll
find is you've already got a lot of
things in here. So, the next step that
we're going to want to do is add a
couple of other extra things. Now, you
can rearrange it. I'm going to maybe
move URL down. So, to create new
properties, you just need to click on
here. I would love to add created time.
You can just put that in because you'll
just know when you clicked it. This will
give you when it was last highlighted
and synced. So, that's quite useful. And
I also want to have a last edited time
there. Now, if you work with other
people, you might also want to add a
last edited by so you can see who's been
updating the data. But this is just
useful because you could then sort by
last edited time and your most recent
clippings that you're looking at or
notes will always be at the top of that
view. Very nice. I would probably change
this to
system and then looking at books. Uh
let's just create a new
book. You can just design what
properties you want to see in your
views. So, we could go in here and we
might want to see the URL, the uh
category, maybe the summary below it.
Um, and if you wanted to, I would
propose the other nice thing to add into
this. We go back into system, click
another a property here. Um, I would
actually add if you have notion AI, an
AI summary. It's really nice and it will
just summarize pages that are in there.
Now, obviously, if we do this now, it
probably won't give us any information,
no content, right? But you know when
there is something it will do it. The
next property we want to add is a
relation. And we're going to want to
relate this to the places that we want
to see the information linked. This is
the thing about making connections. Now
for mine I want to add it to my areas
database. So I'm going to add that
relation. I want it to be a two-way
this and here we might call call this
areas. We're then going to add another
relation. And I want to link that to
projects. This is going to be a big
place where you want to bring in
knowledge. You could link to your tasks,
but personally, I think projects is the
one. I'm going to call this related
projects. I want a two-way relation, and
I'm going to call this related
knowledge. Now, it will be notes and
references. You can call it whatever you
want, but let's do that. There you go.
So, there are our relations. Now, the
most important new property we need to
add to this is a type property. And
we're going to do that. Another way to
do it is go up here,
properties, a new
property. And I want to do a select, not
a multi select, a select. And this is
going to be type. What are we doing
here? Let's add an option. I would like
this to either be
notes or references. Now, in my world, I
would say that references are anything
you clip and bring in. Notes are
anything that you um write yourself.
Yeah. And I'm just going to keep them
like that. You could have the option
here if you wanted to with type to go
further and sift by meeting notes
separately to notes, but that's up to
you. I don't do that in my life OS. Um,
you'll see if we go into what's this
doing? Uh, you'll see, you know, there's
references here and then under notes, I
just have a kind of meeting notes area.
So, that's up to you. I just do that by
a separate tag. But, you know what? I
don't think this is a bad idea. So, I'm
going to add one more type into there
for the fun on this one, but that is
very much your choice. And we'll
go meeting notes. And let's make that
dark gray. So, you kind of just see a
bit of a difference there. There we go.
Okay. So, there they go. Now, we're
going to come back and clean this up in
a minute, but there is one more uh that
you're going to want to add, one more
property, and that is going to be a
status property because we want to think
about how we're going to sort our
knowledge. So in the not not started
section I'm going to change this de
default to be uh new inbox so that
everything that comes in as a default is
just an inbox item. In the in progress
rather than it being in progress I'm
going to call this on reading list. So
this could be things that you haven't
read yet but you've added to the system.
I'm going to add another which is just
going to be live. You could just make it
all live if you wanted. It's up to you.
And I'm going to add another which I'm
going to call permanent. So that's stuff
that I'm not actively looking at but
it's just permanently saved. And in
complete well that becomes our archive
and we'll call that archived. Maybe
we'll make it brown. So there you go.
That's the views of status that you're
going to want to call. You could call
this knowledge status but I think that's
just fine like that. So let's just pull
that back over because you probably want
that over here. So let's leave the
database alone for a moment. I hopefully
if you're enjoying that, it probably
deserves a like. What we're now going to
do is jump over and build out the basics
of our knowledgebased dashboard and then
we'll create views in the database that
we've built and make them show up here.
So that's the next step. Let's do
it. Okay, so here we are on the LifeOS
build that we've created so far. Now, if
you're new to the channel, make sure
that you do get subscribed so that I can
show you uh more of the rest of this
build. Now, we're going to create
something that looks quite similar to
this projects dashboard. Um, but I've
built my dashboards down in the system
section. So, I'm just going to duplicate
the projects dashboard so that we can
work from that. Let's click into it and
let's call this knowledge hub. We can
delete the views that are in there
because we don't need those
views. We can change the logo. And just
to show you, we could start kind of as
I've done in mine, color coding things a
little bit. Now, I personally love
knowledge to be a
brain. There you go. There's your
knowledge hub. And what's great is the
synced menu that we created previously
now works. So, we can drop into here.
Again, if you haven't been on the
series, you're going to be wanting to
check that out potentially of how to
make this, but we're going to do
knowledge hub. And then it drops it into
the system. Done. What do we want to put
up here? Well, let's do a heading two.
And we'll call this inbox. And then
below it, we're going to drop down. And
let's do maybe we'll go a full width
down here. Just check that that is full
width. Yeah, there you go. Three dashes
as a line. So, let's just put in here a toggle
toggle
heading two. And we'll call this meeting
notes. We can then duplicate these written
written
notes, references and clippings. Yeah.
Uh you can call it whatever you want,
but I love the idea of notes and
clippings as a clear system. I like
doing that just to make it nice and
clean. There we go. That's all we're
going to do for now. We're also going to
want to put in here
toggle heading three. And we'll call
this quick capture. And that's where
your buttons are going to go, which you
could just start by reminding yourself
to do it by clicking forward/button. And
we will leave that uncompleted. But you
get the image now of how quickly you can
build a dashboard. And now what we want
to do essentially is put in uh linked
views to this. Now what we do have for
references and clippings is everything
that already exists from the read wise
database that was already filtered. I
should probably mention on that if we um
if I just go back to so here in my hub
books as you'll see has a filter where
we've just filtered by the category of
books something that was already put in.
So when you build your database make
sure you create uh categories that you
want to be able to search your clippings
by. But what we're also going to do is
add another filter to each of these. And
I want it to be my type being
references. So we only see references in
there. Yeah. So let's go
through and do that. You might want to
make these advanced filters, by the way.
So if you add these to an advanced
filter, it then means they become rules
and it's a bit cleaner. And while we're
there, let's also go to add a filter
status is not either inbox or completed.
So, this will only show us stuff that's
in progress or permanent. Now, it would
be worthwhile while you're setting this
up also setting up a quick new template
for new references. And in that, you
want to make sure that you know as you
organize this, it's linked to being a
reference and that the status is new or
inbox. And that will just make sure that
things come through as they need to. You
could add an icon, maybe it's a paper
clip, you know, you can clean up stuff
by hiding any properties that you need
to. We're only going to do the basics
today. So, there that is. And that means
that then everything that comes in
that's new can be that. Now, if you're
bringing stuff in through readise, you
could also consider setting up a new
trigger, which is, you know, where
something comes in with a tag already of
like book or whatever else. You could
then make sure that it's given the
status of something else, but I'm not
going to go into that today. Now, it's
worth saying another way to do this
could be it could be easier actually to
take an existing view, duplicate it, and
call it like my
books. Just a quick example, right? Find an
icon and then just come into the filters
for that. And then all you'd need to do
is only adjust the category to books and
you could delete the old view. It's just
just filtered views, right? You're not
deleting what's in the in the database.
The good thing about that is it's a lot
quicker then to get all of your rules
set up. So, it's up to you. Okay. So,
there we go. I've got all of mine in
there nice and ready to go. You may also
just want to add that filter by uh last
edited time. And you might want to add
another filter, another sort, sorry, by
status. Nice and clean. Lovely. And you
could even if you wanted to with these
views then group by
status and you have a nice clean setup
to see everything. That's up to you, but
you can add those kind of filters and
sorts in. Okay. So, you just need to
make sure essentially that each of these
has this rule so that you're all nice
and clean uh to see what you need to see
where you need to see it. I'm just going
to go through and make sure they all
look like that. So, you could pause the
video right now and make sure you keep
an eye on that. Now, once I've got
everything in place, we can now jump
back to our build. And in this
references and clippings, we can start
to drop in these elements. So we can do
forward slash and you want to find
linked view of database. When you do
that you'll see you get an option to
find your database. There it is. And
from that point I can pick which one I
want to show. So I'm going to do my
books. And there it is. There's the view
that we created previously listed into
the view with all the filters and sorts
as we set up. So you can just work your
way through now and do the same thing.
So you could, now this is a linked view.
If you just click table, it will give
you the option to find it again. And
then you can find whatever you want to
add. So we're going to do
do system, but rename it to be all
all
knowledge. You get the idea. I'm just
going to work my way through. Click my
database tweets. And I've formatted this
as a list. This is a a gallery. You
know, you can add them in as you need.
One more. The one we haven't got, I
think, if we show more is podcasts and
videos. Videos should really be Let's do a
a
gallery. Videos. I'm actually going to
change the layout of this one to be a
gallery because uh show page
cover size medium fit image that kind of
thing will probably do it and you can
adjust the views as you need. So there's
our references and clippings in. Now I
want to build out the notes section in
meeting notes and all of that and just
create some better views. So let's jump
to that next. Could be a moment to pause
[Music]
Now, as you can see in my better
creating section, I do have an all view
which I've grouped by its status. I
actually call it slightly different
things, but that's just me. This is a
good example of what the books view will
look like. I love that Read Wise brings
in the covers from uh Kindle. That is a
really good feature. You know, these are
all kind of working fine. This is a nice
layout. This is using lists. And then
you can see like author subject tags. So
there's lots of ways that you can just
kind of set the properties that you want
to show for each of the views. Um we've
got PDFs over here, videos. There's not
anything in that for some reason, but
you know, there you go. You get the
idea. But all knowledge podcasts. Now
what's great about this is an example
of, you know, I was listening to Will
Store. He's got a great new book out by
the way. This is through the Snipped
app. There's an air quote similar to
what I'm doing with snipped and it will
give you the timestamp of the episode
and my note. So I can go and listen to
that and see what it says. It's pretty
cool and you know you can drop lots and
lots of bits and bobs in that you've
selected as you go. So I really
recommend trying out snipped is
fantastic. I'm not affiliated with them
but I recommend it. So that is how I'm
clipping everything in. So, let's go and
build some of these views. Um, because
actually, if I go to my knowledge base
in here, we also have this notes view. I
might want to be able to see my own
thoughts, thoughts, thoughts within
there. Obviously, this is just a demo
version. All right. So, let's go back to
the database. And let's just duplicate
the system view like we did before and
call this all knowledge. And while we're
doing that, I would like to group by
status. And then we get that nice view.
That probably means that you could
actually hide that. But if it's all
knowledge, it's not unhelpful to have it
as an option. But maybe we just move it
over. But there you go. You can then see
all of that. And I actually think when
you do that with all knowledge, just in
case you miss anything under group, I
would make sure that you don't hide
empty groups. And then anything that
comes in will go in. And if anything
doesn't have a status, it will pop up
within that view as well. So that's a
very useful thing on all knowledge. All
right, let's now make our filter on that
complete with one thing which will be
type. You just want that to be
references. Okay, and I would say make
it a advanced filter. All right, notes.
All right, I've put an example book in
to show you that my cat wrote. There you
go. Let's see. I I quite like this view,
let's say, of stuff. And what's good is
that you can also drop things between
these views to change their status,
which is quite a nice thing to do. So,
I'm going to reuse that. So, I'm going
to now duplicate that. And we're going
to call this
live notes. We'll adjust this to a a
note like that. We will change the
filters so that this is now notes, not
references. That'll obviously clear
Peppa's book out. Uh, and you might want
to put in for category something that
just automatically is what relating it
to that or you can just leave that
blank. It's up to you because you don't
really need that to be there. So,
personally, I would actually just clear
that. So, you've got notes and sure it's
not inbox or archived. That's fantastic.
So, in fact, if you want it just to be
live, you could go the other way and go and
and
is live permanent. Why not? Let's just
call it that just in case you've got a
catch all. Good. Uh, and that's working.
Now, you can show whatever views you
want to put in there by obviously
showing which properties are there. It's
worth having the type probably there
just so you can see that these are
notes. Um, category isn't going to be
there, but I potentially um, AI summary
or summary is really useful to have in
there. Now, what we're doing here with
live notes is that we're putting notes
into the same database that was the Read
Wise database, but that's fine because
you just want to have everything in one
place to be searchable. There's live
notes. We could then duplicate that and
let's create maybe all notes just to
keep it super simple today. You get the
idea. You build what you want and we
just adjust the filters to make that
work. And this would become everything
for example. That's all I'm going to do
at the moment. But what I am going to do
is take live notes, duplicate it, and
call this meeting notes. I think this is
quite important. And we're going to
change this to be people. Lovely. Meeting
Meeting
notes. Again, change the filter to be
where notes is meeting notes. And let's
do a sort where the main thing that we
do is last edited because with meeting
notes, it's probably quite helpful.
That's all great. That's working. So
there are our meeting notes. Now we also
need to create our inboxes. So a place
where you can drop notes and references
as you get them. And to do that, what we
want to do is just duplicate these
versions. Yeah. So we're going to
duplicate live notes tray maybe. Yeah,
there you go. My notes inbox. And again,
just adjust the filters. It's really,
really simple. We're going to go west status
status
is only inbox. Great. Let's then
duplicate that again. And we'll call
this my meeting notes inbox. And you
guessed it. Go to the filters, adjust
the filters. This is correct. But now we
want to change this to meeting notes. It
seems like a lot of work now, but it's
great later on. So let's then duplicate
that one more time. And we'll call this
references inbox. change the filters and
this time you want to change that to
references. There we go. So, we've got
three inboxes created. I think that's
enough. Make sure with your inboxes that
you also ungroup them. So, we want to go
to group by status and then none because
you don't want groups on those inboxes.
So, you just want to work through group
by and do that. Let's now go and build
the views that we need on the main
homepage of your knowledge bank. This
gets really simple. We just want to find
a linked
database. Linked view of database. There
it is. We want to find our knowledge
base. And then you're going to see loads
more options. Show more. And it can get
a bit tricky, but I'm going to find
meeting notes inbox. There it is. I'm
going to ungroup it. Should have done
that before. Group by none if you don't
want that. And I'm going to in this view
hide database title. I'm going to create
another one. We're just going to work
inbox. And finally, same process, but
now we
box. So, we've got our references, our
meeting notes, and our notes in our
inbox. There you go. And that is all
good. So when I add something new to
that, you'll see that it automatically
says it's in the inbox. And you can link
this then to projects. For example, my
life must build project. And then you're
starting to see those options appear.
You know, all this stuff can go in. You
might want to create a new template for
meeting notes as well. So we could
create a new template and call it new
written notes. Set that up. Give it a
little icon like that.
then make
that our new written notes. And you
probably want to do
in meeting notes. Let's create a new
meeting note as an
example. Create a new template, new
meeting notes, and make sure the type is
meeting notes. Add your
icon and you're all set. So, we now have
clear logos going in. Now what I propose
you do with this as well is on the inbox
views you go in here and you set these
to default. So you can go in here and go
set as default only for references inbox
view. It's a really great trick so that
every time you add something it will
have the right setup. So you just go
through your inboxes and click into this
view here. Go to the templates you've
created. This is a meeting note. So
let's just move that up for clarity.
set as default only for meeting notes
inbox and my notes we want to new
written note set as default only for my
notes and there you go you've now got a
means that when you create a new note it
will automatically do the template in
inboxes I also prefer in
layout to have no card preview just so
it's a little bit more manageable I
think that's useful same in meeting
notes layout out card preview none. It's
a little bit cleaner. And then reference
notes will leave because you might get
some images coming through from uh
wherever it's coming from readwise if
you do that. All you'll need to do to
filter it from the inbox is either
create a button if you see the previous
videos or just change it to on reading
list and it disappears because of those
filters. Great. So that's inboxes. Let's
just fill out the rest of the homepage.
It's only going to take us a moment now
and we're basically there with the
build. And then what I'm going to do is
show you how we can start to import
stuff using a constructed save to notion
clipper in Chrome. So you've got a kind
of custom clipping system. We'll do that
a bit later
on. Here we go. Last little bit. In
meeting notes, you're going to want to
go forward/ linked database view. Find
it and find your meeting notes view that
you created. There's the view. You can
see them dropping in very nicely. Again,
I would probably hide the database
title. We're going to do the same for
written notes. Now, you could just have
all knowledge. You don't have to do it
like this. I just This is an example,
right? So, you could just have
everything down there. You don't have to
get too as complex as this, but it's a
nice way to just help your experience of
finding things quicker. This really does
help. Live notes.
Great. One more.
and you're going to want to find all
notes and then references and clippings
is ready. So there you go. Right, the
last bit is to create our little buttons
and let's just go into this button.
Going to click in. We're going to call
this new meeting note. You can of course
use your same coding. When the button is
clicked, it's a very simple automation.
this new action. I want you to add a
page to the knowledge database as a new
meeting note template. Very important.
And I would suggest that you it's up to
you. Do you want it to go into your
inbox? Potentially not. If you want to
change it, you can update anything
within this. So if you wanted it to be
linked to a certain area, let's say I
wanted it to fundamentally be linked
always to work life, I could set that
up. And it's another way just to start
setting things up cleanly. And you need
to add a second action which is open
page and select the page to be opened as
the one you've just created. Okay. Click
done. And that will mean if we watch our
meeting notes, it creates it. There it
is. You can see that it is linked to
work life that I can you know rearrange
this stuff and you can see the note is
added here and you can do things like
mention today so that it's gives you the
information. It's really nice. So all
you're going to want to do now is
duplicate your button and work through
and create your other button actions. So
this would be as a new written note with
this. I might not want to link it to
life areas. That's probably fine. I
personally prefer to set these to side
peak. So, if we just do that for each of
those, we just update this, rename it,
new, new note, change this icon side
peak. Now, the joy of that is when I
click new note, it pops up here, and
you're able to see what you're doing.
So, it all goes in there, information
goes in, and you've got what you need.
Now, in your templates, another great
little trick to try is go into, for
example, your meeting notes and edit it.
you're editing a template and then you
might want to put in like titles just so
it's kind of set up ready to go. You
could do for slashtod-o list and just
have it ready, right? Uh you might want
to have maybe want it to be a toggle
heading to and we'll call this one
session notes. Yeah. And you could even
if you wanted to if you have notion AI,
you could go AI block and you could
And you can kind of see the stuff it
will do, right? So, we can just clear
that out. You leave that in the
template. We might duplicate
this. Drop that above. Call this
summary. You've got your summary block
ready to go. Pretty good. And that means
that you're now you can now if I update
this as a meeting note, it will update
the template to have those elements in
it. This is the power of a notion
system. So that's my notes. That is my
clippings all set up and you have
created your buttons. You could put new
reference in here. I don't think there's
a need for it because you're drawing
everything in automatically. That's the
idea. Um but you may want to, for
example, copy these. go back onto your
main homepage and drop more drop them
into the homepage as well. So, that's
always something that you could do if
you want to um work this in. Now, what
we're missing finally on our main
homepage is a link to our knowledge hub.
And that's very simply done. We can just
drop down. We'll do one, two, three to
do that. And we'll go forward slash
toggle heading one. And we're going to
do at
knowledgehub. And there's the view that
you need. Now, if you wanted to put key
things in here, you could do that by
going into the knowledge hub now and
maybe just copying a view. So, maybe all
you really want is your live uh meeting
notes in that page view. Let's say
that's all that you really wanted. You
could duplicate this view, click move
to, and go to your LifeOS homepage. You
can then use your navigation to jump
back and we'll find it down the bottom
here. and we could just drop our meeting
notes into that toggle. So, whatever you
need in your toggle is ready for you to
use. That is pretty much the main build
points of a knowledge hub as you need
it. Now, to finish this build off, I
want to show you the cool parts that can
really take your system to the next
level before we finally look at how we
quick capture information into this. And
to do that, I want to show you what I've
been doing in LifeOS. You can create
really powerful reporting views like
this. So in here I can see resources
that are linked to my areas in projects.
You can see uh when things are reviewed,
when they were last tracked, if they're
due for review, you can mark them as
reviewed and update the reports. It's
properly powerful stuff. And in
knowledge, we can do other reports like
topics and resources, when it was
created, how many weeks old the item is.
Now the reason I say that is I actually
have a topics database. Now this is
something that is worth considering. The
way I look at it is it's a bit like your
areas for your life areas but topics is
purely for knowledge. You know this is a
great way to sort and make connections
between things. So, think of it like an
areas database, but then I can link
notes and references into say brand
strategy as a topic and I'm able to then
see those items listed within it and I
can even do things like link journal
entries in if you want to go much wider.
Now, of course, this is a complete
template, so it covers lots more ground
with contacts, notebooks, an archive
view of everything that's been dropped
in. So even my goals, my projects, task
bin, there's loads of stuff that can be
built out. So it is worth considering as
you build this. It's not going to be a
redundant exercise. You might find that
you do want other elements. I could
suggest to you that you could download a
template like this and then just link
your existing knowledge base into it or
even just use it as a great training
tool to then end up with the full
version. So, if later on down the line
you want more functionality like these
lovely report views, I do cover it
earlier in the series, but it could be
worth considering if you want to go
further with notion. And on that note, I
now want to show you how you can see
information pop up in a way that's
useful to you. And we're going to do
that by actually updating my content
manager template. So, let me show you
Okay, so this is where I make my
content, right? I mean, look, this is my
current video. If I go to content, I'm
planning it out. There's thumbnail ideas
within here, uh, and then all the
scripting and work. So, I want a place
where I can link knowledge. Now, the new
layouts feature allows us to view a
linked knowledge view. So, there's a
couple of ways that you can do this. It
used to be if we take my projects as an
example, I would link down here the
knowledge base so you're able to view it
within the page. But I want to show you
something much cooler that I'm going to
be doing for my templates and you should
do for your build today. We're going to
go into our projects and this is going
to be a super quick way for you to show
knowledge that's in there. We're going
to go into the project page and you'll
see related knowledge is listed here.
So, what's going to happen is I'm going
to go up to here and click on customize
layout. Very exciting. Now, what we can
do here is you can one thing I think is
worth doing is you can pin things to the
top which will make it much cleaner. So,
for example, if I pin status, it moves
it up into this nice clean line. I think
that's great. So, we're jumping to
projects from the previous build, right?
But we could do that. And maybe we want
to say the life area and probably the
timeline. Have I got a timeline? Start
and end date. There you go. That looks
great. Maybe swap it over and maybe mark
as reviewed. I think that looks really
clean. This could be hidden away. You
could completely hide this away. Or what
you can also do with this now is add
sections. So this could be
reports. You could add another one which
is actions. And for example, I could go
move it up. And then I'm going to add
one more which is system. We can just
add these down. Let's say like that. and
you can apply it to all pages and then
you get this much cleaner view of your
page. But it gets better. Let's work out
for example relating knowledge to a
project. What else we can do? Click into
customize layout and you'll also find
here simple and tabbed. So if we add a
tabbed view and add a new tab, we can
find related knowledge and drop it in.
And I would propose as you saw in my
previous example, we go to properties.
So if we hide all, you probably want to
show category type URL status maybe
something like that and the AI summary
and that will just give you the
information that you need on it. What's
more is if we go back out if you go to
layout and then make it gallery and wrap
all properties, you'll then get a really
clean link. So to add something to this,
let's apply that to all pages within
that database. And then if we simply add
related knowledge to our example like my
work meeting notes and go to related
knowledge, you'll see it within that
view. Now I think this is the cleanest
new way to add things. And what's more
is as a little bonus, I would actually
suggest that you do this again for
tasks. You add your related tasks and
you're very quickly going to find that
you have yourself a really useful task
list system. I mean, I'm not going to
get into too much depth here with this,
but as you can see, it very quickly
works. And you can do all the usual
stuff around filter filtering by status.
You can filter things out of it if you
want to. You know, as long as it's
automatically related to this project,
you know, it works. And there you go.
You've got apply that to all pages.
You've got a much cleaner system now to
show uh the related knowledge to your
projects. And you can have a little
setup here where you maybe even create a
relations section where you can link
anything to it. Fantastic stuff. So,
make sure you try out the new layouts
feature. I think it's super powerful.
And actually, while we're there, we may
as well do this in our knowledge system.
Go in here, customize the layout, and
just go to tabbed and just make sure
that we can show areas and projects. I'm
just going to leave it really simple.
And it just gives you an a way to show
what is related to what. A little
reminder to subscribe if you haven't
done that. It's the final part of the
video coming right up and it's time for
us to just quickly look at how you do
quick capture information into a system
like this because it really is quite
special when you use it. So, let's jump
over to the web. Let's take a little
look at save to notion in Chrome. And
I'm going to show you how it works by
clipping one of my videos into it. My
easy way to stay organized video. Let's
do it. [Music]
[Music]
Right. So, you could do this with Fly
Lighter or you could do this with Save
to Notion. I think both are great. If
you want to try this, it's far more
powerful, but Save to Notion is the
thing I've been using for a long time.
But either way, you just go to the
Chrome Web Store for whichever, and you
would click add to Chrome, right? I've
already got mine in there. Same here.
You click add to Chrome. you'll find it
and you can add it and it will tell you
information about what it does. Now,
when you do that, you have this little
view up here. Now, of course, this is
for Chrome, so you need to use Chrome.
This is just the notion web clipper,
which is, as you can see, quite simple.
You can pick a database, drop things
into it, and that's kind of it. Readwise
has its own clipper, which allows you to
jump to it quite quickly, which is quite
nice. When you've added it, you can come
into here, click in this little thing,
and make sure you pin. If I unpin fly
lighter, it disappears. Pin it so that
it turns up and you can move it along.
Let's say I wanted to clip my um Pareto
principles of the 8020 rule. Good thing
for you to know about. What we're going
to do is click on this and I'm going to
create a new form. But if you take a
look at my existing form, this is my
knowledge base. If I add it in, I can
add a content image. I can like select
an image. Say I don't. We're going to
just select that. You can select a
template that you want to use with it if
you wanted to. Um, I can select the
status of it as I go and I could
pre-format that. So maybe put it on my
reading list. I could link it to a
project, you know, let's say it was
parttime productivity.com. I can link it
to content that I'm working on. It's
that you can see all the stuff that was
there before like going to there and the
AI summary is just as it is. I then
click save page and you can jump
straight to it by opening the page in
notion. But I'm actually just going to
go find it. If we go back to my
workspace and go into knowledge and
clippings, we put it on the reading list
and there it is. If I open it up, you
will see all of the information is
clipped into the system. What's more,
because I could pre-do it, we also had
the option to add it and link it to a
project that we were working on. If I
just go and find that video using our
nice toggle. If we go to link knowledge,
we've then also got the Pareto principle
dropped in and I can access it within
it. This is how powerful using a
clipping tool really can be. So, if we
now jump back to the web clipper, let's
just quickly build you um a form to do
the same. So, you're going to go into
the form again. I want to add a new
form. Select your database. Obviously,
you'd have to kind of link this up to um
notion first, but you follow that
system. It's pretty self-explanatory.
There's our new knowledge demo. And then
name is page title, image, main image,
content. You can change this to webpage
content or just empty. I'm going to make
it clip everything. I want to select the
template. I want to select that as of
course a new reference. Very important.
And then if you add a new field, you'll
see all your other items can go in here
as well. So you want to select your type
within this to be references. And this
will just be pre-formatting the form,
right? We probably want to have an
option to add related projects. You can
leave empty as well, right? Uh and
areas. So as you find it, you'll be
wanting to add these things in. Maybe
you want to add the category. So it just
gives you the option to do those little
details and status. We could set our
status to be new inbox. That's another
option, right? You can then pick your
thing. I actually might make it articles
as preset. So, you've got the option
that needs to stay down the bottom
because we know that's going to happen.
And there you go. You can then save and
go back. And there is my system. So, I
can click into here. Now, we're looking
at the actual clipping empty or not. Or
you can do select on page and actually
just highlight the section you want to
pick, whatever. Right. confirm
selection. Then we save it and let's see
if it's worked. Let's go back to notion.
Go to our buildalong in our knowledge
hub and we should see in our inbox of
references the Pretto principle. And
there it is all clipped in just as we
wanted it to be. And it just allows me
then to while I'm there check it all.
And when I'm happy with it, I can just
send it through to be on my reading list
and it will turn up within the right
place under all knowledge or under
articles. You'll see it and you can, you
know, do things like wrap pages and all
the rest of it to make it look as you
want it. You've now got the foundation
for a powerful knowledge management
system. But here's the truth. Even the
most beautiful knowledge hub can't help
you if you're constantly overwhelmed by
tasks and never have enough time to
actually use the knowledge that you're
collecting. That's why I've created a
video specifically about the easiest
approaches that have actually worked for
me on task and time management. And you
can find that video right here. Click on
my face to get subscribed if you
haven't. Make sure you go check out that
to go further into this world. And I'll
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
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