Notion Masterclass: Build a Task Manager from Scratch

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

IMPORTANT! If you're following this tutorial in 2022, use this page to find the correct formulas you can paste into your build: thomasfrank.notion.site/2020-KZbin-Task-Manager-Wiki-ed68e6a0f9a143b899e1bbbf9c984a56 The public Ultimate Tasks template has been updated with a LOT of new features since this guide was published - including more powerful recurring tasks, better sub-task sorting, and more. Get the template here: thomasjfrank.com/templates/task-and-project-notion-template/ I'm also working on publishing an updated version of this build guide soon! Notion itself has received many updates since this guide was published, so many parts of the UI look different these days.

[@samiksharajpal1173]

Please create a full master class from basics _/\_ please ... i just got to know about notion and found your channel to be awesome but since notion has upgraded and there are few things out of sync i am getting confused and since i am a newbee i am getting overwhelmed with all the stuff please do help. Love from India

[@therealjohnnyb2151]

NOW I see this...lol. Thanks Thomas. (maybe Tony can go back and insert a popup at the timestamp with a notice about the working code is in the comments? Just a thought. I'm sure this evergreen video will get lots of play yet.) This as a super teriffic tutorial.

[@chelseaanne9853]

Legend! This video was SUPER helpful to plan my last year of uni 🤩 Thanks for the free template! (Hi from Australia 🙂)

[@shivamthakur5708]

sir there is no colour comming in the check box

[@kentjensen4504]

Did you make the updated version? This ancient tutorial is really confusing. I ended up deleting everything and now I'm wondering if I should find another channel explaining this. Sorry.

[@lanvui]

The fact that I was able to follow your explanation and get to the end of the video without realizing I've been engaged for a full hour on learning something that is quite complicated for me, just blows my mind and proves how a great teacher you are. I have trouble concentrating with 10 minute videos and here I am. I still can't believe a full hour went by. Amazing job and thank you for your dedication.

[@manvendrasinghratiya9657]

exactly, true that

[@ChristieBailey]

.... yeahthis comment makes me want to watch this and as someone with ADHD that is saying something haha.

[@siddharthrajan616]

Power of a great teacher!!!!!!!

[@hadie1257]

My brain: OMG THE VIDEOS 58 MINUTES My brain: don’t watch this. We’ve procrastinated enough watching productivity videos My heart: Ya but let’s just watch it anyways My brain: here we go again

[@e_velog]

That’s me and I don’t like it 😂

[@HelmutGranda]

Your brain again: I know you never got to replicate it, can we just download the template now?

[@TheSheikha]

@@HelmutGranda indeed hahaha

[@vampirethespiderbatgod9740]

Comments like these are starting to feel like bots. Literally, social media is making human bots, us.

[@energyeternal]

Listen at 2x and you can procrastinate to twice as much content.

[@kaitlynk2145]

Just started and noticed this video is 58 minutes and I cant wait this is going to be so great!

[@erinw8509]

school: make a basic task list to keep track of your assignments me:

[@sheogorath579]

At this point I'm convinced Tom knows Notion better than its developers. Great video! I think it's really useful to understand how the template works, especially for people who want to make little tweaks to their copy.

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Ha, I probably don't know it that well - but I definitely love learning as much about it as I can!

[@LuJosef]

It's been 2 years since you uploaded this and I just found your video as I was trying to figure out how to use Notion. I really want to thank you for the time and effort you put in this video. 2 years later and it's still blessing people like me! Thanks again!!

[@danunach]

Just want to say a big THANK YOU to Thomas! I have been using Notion for a year now and was happy with my simple setup for our home staging business. Watching dutifully the whole video and repeating each step I have learned a great deal of Notion's true potential. I'm not managing my life with it and don't need fancy dashboards, but for business projects this task manager along with the knowledge of templates is priceless. Great educational and entertaining video.

[@sauravujjain95]

Thanks , Notion makes a lot more sense now, was introduced just a few days back. Worked alongside the tutorial to build the whole thing. Took me 8 odd hours to learn. absorb, assimilate, and build myself. Totally worth it!

[@therealchrisfink]

Any plans to do an updated version of this video? I know it's a big undertaking, but I love the updates you've made to your Ultimate Tasks Template, and me being me, I love starting from scratch when I build something like this so being able to see you build the most recent version of the template would be awesome. Thanks for all of the awesome content, man! Stay safe and healthy!

[@ar.goku1]

When I am planning on starting a series of videos to make Notion setups ― Thomas Frank comes in and makes an entire channel

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Don't let that stop you though!

[@ar.goku1]

@@ThomasFrankExplains not sure, my system ee too weak for that now, might take 1 more year for things to sort out things. Until then gonna watch you and develop myself

[@HelmutGranda]

@@ThomasFrankExplains that’s very nice of you to encourage other creators. I didn’t realize this is a whole separate channel. Great job!

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Hey all! I've seen a LOT of comments about "Property Not Found" errors in the formula property. Remember: You need to create the property that the formula is referencing before pasting in the formula - otherwise, the formula code will throw an error. For example, "Property not found: prop(Recur Interval (Days))" either means that you haven't yet created the Recur Interval (Days) property, or the name is spelled incorrectly. Hope that helps!

[@kristihemassatiti1517]

Hello Thomas why I can't paste the formulas it says "Too few arguments in function equal", I paste formulas if(empty(prop("Parent Task")), "", "➞") + if(prop("Done") == true and prop("Type") == "⏳One-Time", "😀", if(empty(prop("Due")), "⚪️", if(formatDate(prop("Due"), "L") == formatDate(now(), "L"), "🟢", if(prop("Due") < now(), "🔴", "🔵"))))

[@lanubedekinton]

for what i have tried is just an error of the page! you just refresh the page with f5 button and it will work

[@Taskade]

Awesome video as always :)

[@suroh7211]

@@kristihemassatiti1517 i had the same issue, since the code has been updated you have to add the Type code first then the state and then next due. that's how I solved it.

[@StuartAshing]

@@suroh7211 Thanks that worked!

[@MikeLisii]

Just started Notion recently and I will be honest it took me 3 tries until a lot of stuff clicked in my head. I still remember my feelings from watching the first time. I was like what the "forcing relations" what .... formula?" and I closed it :))) After a week I noticed that there arent as many detailed tutorials on how actually Notion works, there are a lot of workflows but not a detailed explanation why choose each setting so I came back to this video. Really big thank you!

[@SD-su8hg]

This video is better than all the hours and hours I've watched of other videos on Notion as a task manager

[@KirillRodionov]

58 minutes is NOTHING, NADA, ZERO. But this video IS best. There is no action movie compared to such a tutorial. THANX A LOT!

[@AndreaGonzalez-gq3jo]

You have no idea how helpful this has been. thank you sosososo much for making this available on yt

[@theverasilva]

I’ve made a simpler task management on my channel (with a free template) in case you’d like to get some more inspiration 😊

[@island-life8548]

I took a template from another youtuber but had zero clue what all the linked databases meant. This video answered everrryyyttthhiiiinnngggg! Thank you!

[@DrBasti]

Me: It's so sad that I don't have the time to watch this Me 2h after, while rewatching different parts of the video: My new upgraded Notion dashboard page is so amazing. 😍

[@amyhatch3761]

I loved this!!! I finally understand how Notion works and how I can use it in a way that works for me. I'm really glad that I build this from scratch so that I could understand how it works and build on top of it. Thank you so much for taking the time 🙌🏻

[@williamwu1441]

Can we just take a second and appreciate how well made this is. HOLY XSJSOMKZXOSOSK

[@magorzataburek6118]

I absolutely adored this video! Took me of course more than 58 minutes. More than a week to actually implement it and learnt it. And I think it was even better casuse now I can do it all by myself for my projects. Loving your content! 🥰 Thank you for doing that!

[@wnahmed]

I watched every second of this video! All my personal and work tasks are piling up and I was looking for some project management tools to help me organize my life. Honestly Notion is great but your tutorials make it so much better. I don't comment on a lot of things but I just felt compelled to say how great you are at what you do.

[@MichaelMoreaujr]

Thomas. Just circling back after using this since you released it. Absolute game-changer for me. Toodoist user for years, Notion for about a year now. Many attempts to run task management in Notion and it has been clunky, to say the least. This is it.! I can actually "manage" all my tasks. Forcing Functions..brilliant! Much appreciate sir. Gourmet Coffee on the way!

[@MitchKirkham]

Thomas, thank you for putting this together. I am just starting medical school and needed a system to keep me on top of things. Going from engineering to medicine is a complete workflow overhaul and this task manager is going to be excellent! Watching this video is a great tutorial to help me be aware of the potential notion has. Thank you for sharing the template!

[@caylasparks9545]

I am a little late to this party. Thank you.. I have been trying to find ways in Notion to sync tasks in a specific project page while having them appear in a task list with everything else. You have made me a very happy gal

[@freckledcaramel5536]

OMG! This is probably my most favourite Notion tutorial because of its versatile configuration. Thank you so much for showing us how to maximize the use of Notion and configuring it in such a way that there is so much flexibility that we could use it on our personal life and at work. Love the templates, tweaks and work arounds.

[@saldi21]

Hi!, I've learned a loooooot in these 3 hours!! 😅 thanks for the amazing video At minute @24:55 you didn't change "task" to "type", I realized when I was building my template and comparing it with yours You are awesome!!

[@jakelewis9543]

Wanted to confirm this. thanks

[@jeremiahchapman513]

Just downloaded the template and am loving it - my task lists had started to explode and I kept reworking with different attempts but really need a good subtask approach. This fits perfectly. Love the inbox approach. Thank you much Thomas! PS can't believe this is free.

[@AlexS0h]

Super helpful Tomas, even in 2023. Was able to self-adjust for recent notion updates/features. This helped me wrap my head around the functionality of Notion and get closer to completing my own dashboard. Thanks!

[@ambicabora6162]

I like how as the end approached you got goofier in your comments. Staring a doctorate and this is a perfect tutorial to get started! thanks for doing this !

[@jeroen1368]

Thank you so much for this in depth explanation! I like it when people show how they use something, but I love it when they show how they created the thing in the first place. You got a great setup for recording and explain everything very well. I followed along and recreated the whole thing. PS you can simplify the formula for State by just concatenating (with +) the arrow if/else for subtasks, with the formula for only the circles. I also simplified the due date formula by having a "last done" date. That makes the next due date simply the due date for non-recurring, and last done plus interval otherwise.

[@csardo]

This is exactly what I was needing for notion. I had a GTD Dashboard going, but it was never quite right. This is perfect! Thank you so much!! I can already see the potential for my productivity to soar

[@iragbag]

Had to watch this video for over 3hours. So much good content and so concise. Thanks Thomas!

[@frozen_tortus]

This video has more value to me than a hat full of gold. I was watching videos about how to use notions and organize things from multiple people on youtube. I found a few nice tips like Focus property being a really nice one, but Thomas you are next level. Thank you!

[@wangyifan2405]

The Forcing Function idea is so DOPE!! And the stage light indicator is so clever and useful! Thanks for sharing.

[@leoncz.522]

For anyone having problems with the type formula try this code: ifs(empty(Recur Intervall(Days)), "⏳One-time", not(empty(Recur Intervall(Days)), "🔁Reoccuring"). You have to rewrite the propertynames to make it work!

[@johanna4456]

thank you so much for this video. I use this now for my personal projects and tasks and I also created another one for my university study plan. I LOVE it !

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Awesome! So glad you found it useful :)

[@GiaBaoNguyen-jg6dp]

This is amazing!! I actually sit through the whole tutorial and created the most powerful task management system ever. I learned so much about Notion's useful functions, tips, and tricks. Love your content ❤❤❤

[@sachinbaheti9893]

Thomas, thanks for building out this system! This is exactly what I was looking to build for myself in Notion and your system has saved me a lot of time! I can't imagine the number of people who're benefiting from this. You're certainly making a positive impact in 1000s of people's lives! Just wanted to express my gratitude towards your work and reaffirm that it is indeed changing people's lives for good! Keep up the good work. Cheers! 🔥

[@emilykguardalabene]

This was so incredibly helpful. I did have a suggestion. It would be useful to see a complete workflow using this for a project from start to finish! I feel l understand the setup but am having trouble with applying it to my workflow.

[@ParadoxicalResearch]

*THOMAS CAN YOU PLEASE DO A VERY ENTRY LEVEL VIDEO ON HOW TO GET STARTED WITH NOTION!?? I KNOW THEY HAVE SOME VIDEOS ON THEIR CHANNEL BUT YOU DO SUCH A GOOD JOB!!!*

[@ingemlb]

I need this too :) Seems like Notion introduces a totally new language lol

[@kbaries]

Yes yes yes I second that!!!

[@jaiminiviles2635]

Agreed, this would also be very helpful!

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Yes! thomasjfrank.com/fundamentals/ - new lessons launching every few days 😀

[@karanchoudhry7666]

I duplicated your task manager. Took me some time. I am a newbie to Notion. I learnt that by duplicating your views the filters can't be copied . You would need to additionally feed in the requirements and settings which may be time taking. Anyways glad I could finish it . Your energy level remained constant none the less. Thank you once again!

[@mjhudson1224]

Thomas what a great presentation! From the moment I found Notion, I saw it as a one-stop solution for all of my task management, project management, and notetaking needs. Building this Task Manager from Scratch was super fun. Can't wait to personalize it and add more of my own projects and touches to suit my ideal productivity workflow system. Love your content! Keep doing your thing!

[@verridesign]

Thank you so much for this class and template! I could perfectly adapt it to manage my academic life. The big "differences" are: 1) The Project database is my Subject database, 2) The Parent Tasks are my Clases, 3) The Sub-tasks are every task related to Parent Task (Watch a Video, Read Book Chapter, Make Notes, and so on). I also changed the Project Template for a Subject Template that includes a template for class notes. So now I can easily overview my tasks, classes completion, and schedule reviews.

[@_Tennz]

I just followed this step by step and happy to say you do not have to duplicate the table view in order to create a board view! Go Notion!

[@nouvalikhsan9203]

I am new to notion, and this video really help me understand more about notion's advanced features. Thank you so much!

[@AnkitYadav-pg3ur]

It was worth the time ...I don't remember when was the last time I would have watched this long video on youtube. Thanks :) I have created my own System with this concept..... Appreciate it!

[@retest6658]

Thank you for the templates. Saves me hundreds of dollar per month with this gem. Won't look for any other tools to manage my numerous projects now. Subcribed! and looking forward for your other templates!

[@lanubedekinton]

One thousand thanks!!! i have been working a couple of hourd during 3 days until get my notion done with your tutorial, now looks awesome and it is thanks to you!!!

[@NumanSyed]

Awesome & amazing! Just a tutorial on Notion that is helping me understand all other notion tutorials!! And I am loving these tutorials, and you can't imagine how many times I got back to it and watched this hour long tutorial with out even realising I am still here! Hat's off to Tom!

[@otunolayinka4597]

Just signed up on Notion and its my first time seeing this video. It's interesting and at the same time overwhelming. Will definitely check out prior videos on this channel. However, this is a cool way of onboarding clients.

[@victorc777]

Very good! I followed along make some personal tweaks here and there for my needs, but this has been a tutorial! I have been using Notion for a year, but never got into Formulas and "Forced Functions", and grouped filters like you did. I really want to learn more about making custom formulas. It seems like there is so much untapped potential I have been leaving on the table until I saw this video. Thanks again!

[@cyscaine]

This was one of the best (if not the best) tutorial videos I've watched all the way through on KZbin. Thank you so much. I'd love to see a companion video in which you explain the logic in the more involved nested formulas that are simply copy/pasted in this tutorial.

[@skubydubydu]

Every minute of the video was valuable. You're an inspiration.

[@radhikarandad9]

Hello Frank, Thankyou very much for this. Had been looking to learn this but was unable to find the right video. Glad I landed here. You are doing amazing, Thankyou

[@rinidawg5248]

Thomas, thank you for this, I'm planning on redesigning my tasks template in notion and this definitely help me. I hope you make more content like this in the future!

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Absolutely!

[@theverasilva]

I’ve made a different task management on my channel (with a free template) in case you’d like to get some more inspiration 😊

[@HadassahJacobs]

This was a very helpful video - One hour but it took me probably 10 hours to work through it. And finally its created almost :-) exactly like yours! And now I think I know NOTION much better and can begin to organize my projects inside of it! Thank you!

[@ricardorabell7472]

I already watched and followed the entire video and I´m surprised that I can follow and understand each concept and technique without searching for other explanations! Excelent explanation, beautiful template and unbelievable work It´s extremely useful I hope this video can reach more people, you deserve it Thank you!

[@joshuakimble7333]

Im still having trouble with the formulas. Can anyone help?

[@clayshippy2652]

Yes, long video, but worth it. I wonder what it does to the KZbin algorithm if I watch it a second time. Thank goodness I can hit pause. Thanks.

[@extrakuhar]

When you forgot to add those sort parameters and had to go through and add them one by one, everyone who followed along did the same thing. There are about 105,000 views on this video as I write this, and if it cost all of us 30 seconds, it accounted for almost 875 hours of lost time. There's probably some economist somewhere scratching their head trying to figure out why there was a sudden blip in the global GDP after that. Also, super stoked to start using this thing. Thanks for the great tutorial.

[@k.a.3877]

I see Thomas Frank, I hit the like button, I subscribe to every channel that he has, I download all his templates, I subscribe to his E-Mail list 😎

[@abegailcorpuz2767]

🥳 I followed you through this video and boom i have recreated the ultimate task in notion. Also, learned alot of tricks as a first timer! thank you so much!!!

[@Evanescence4ever100]

another template idea would be a goal/habit tracker for health, like if you have an illness and need to track some things you have to do or set goals with milestones

[@nplant147]

Fantastic Thomas, Been looking or this type of thing for ages. Great job.

[@pixellmedia9953]

You help me a lot please make more masterclases, we need this. Thank you

[@theverasilva]

I’ve made a simpler task management on my channel (with a free template) in case you’d like to get some more inspiration 😊

[@bonjbonc]

Been studying and doing hands on this tutorial almost a week now, again and again. Thank you so much.

[@theverasilva]

I’ve made a simpler task management on my channel (with a free template) in case you’d like to get some more inspiration 😊

[@TaisukeHD]

I just recently got into productivity videos. It was going well....Up until I discovered thomas frank. His videos and content are just endless and addicting. I got no work done for my actual school stuff LOL

[@russellgoffe-wood8979]

Thanks for making the full tutorial. Lots of useful tips along the way!

[@brownedirt]

You’re a monster! Thanks for the tutorial. Learned a lot about how to make notion function!

[@AbdelrahmanAnany]

I implemented the idea of the daily srcatchpad and I find it very helpful as I often like to think on paper, I think of that daily srcatchpad as the paper I would have written

[@Magda_live]

Thank you so much! I'm learning Notion with your tutorials and template and they are so helpful.

[@qwertyuiopasdfg25783]

I use this template and it's the best. I would pay money for this version with a journal aspect integrated into it all. I would also love if in the journal portion there was a daily reflection where you rank things like productivity levels, happiness, reading times/books and then a formula that would calculate weekly/monthly/annual averages. It is too complicated for me to figure it out but would gladly pay you to do it!

[@sabagolshahi]

It was an awesome tutorial Thomas. Indeed the best one up to now through which I could not only learn many stuff about Notion but also could come up with sth I really need as a base for my system. Thanks!

[@Ninja_Mittens]

Thanks so much for posting this. Was able to implement a lot of the ideas (in a slightly more updated/condensed way). Really looking forward to an update if you have one coming (and maybe a walkthrough of the GTD dashboard in ultimate brain?)

[@vitaliy.sergeev1]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! I have tried different managing systems from Marie Poulin's one to all the other ones and this is the one that brought nothing but solace to my nervous (or should I say nerdous) system! Definitely gonna take part in your Notion courses!

[@theverasilva]

I’ve made a simpler task management on my channel (with a free template) in case you’d like to get some more inspiration 😊

[@vitaliy.sergeev1]

@@theverasilva Boom, lady. Checking this out

[@wilmerzuna6288]

Thomas! Thank you for this content. I went through your entire video and found it really interesting. I re-created the Ultimate Task & Project Manager and it feels fulfilling. I hope to see more content like this! Thank you once again

[@whipsyofficial]

Amazing, I can't stress enough how this video was helpful to me. This was exactly what I needed to organize multiple projects that I manage at the moment. Thank you so much, Thomas!

[@BruceJFriedman]

Great video! Got this newbie up and running in an afternoon!

[@frasersingh8106]

Turning this off to get my latest lecture notes written up :D , but can't wait to start implementing it into my setup!

[@Luis-Torres]

Thank you so much for this tutorial! I was able to take what I learned and extend this system to create another Task Management system for Work! this system is linked to the All Tasks database so that I can access it from there too as well as tasks that are due today, the next 7 days, etc. This was very helpful!!

[@sacdaabdurhman]

“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” Never give up. Take small steps to achieve your goals.loved the video 💜

[@Schwobbs]

That was actually mad. Huge work to put this together and even to teach it. Nice job and appreciated someone else doing the thinking. I was really interested in Notion but the UI confused me. This opened what was possible in a very easy way. Shot bo

[@chloezhang3376]

thank you very much !Even I just known a little english,I still love to hear what you talking

[@iamachs]

Thanks a lot mate, that was super useful, I especially like the Daily Task it is amazing to have a clean slate each day and have it already populate for me, give me a place to decide of what to do first, also love the view with tags such an amazing tip, all the best to you, and stay strong!

[@fabiolemos1750]

Very good; It takes me 3 days to undestand and create my own, but it worth, ty.

[@deansomers1934]

I learned A LOT from this, thank you very much for putting so much effort into this free tutorial.

[@DrigoBrito]

Thanks a lot for showing what Notion can do! I'd been looking for a platform in which I could organize personal and professional life and Notion is great for that. Now I just need to dig further and learn more about how to make it work for me. Thanks again!

[@willowmarmon6799]

I have been using ultimate tasks to manage all my assignments in school for a while now, but I wanted to be able to tightly integrate the task management to my class pages. I had everything set up with a class `select` cell, and filters on the linked databases, but I couldn't add tasks from my class views, and I couldn't use projects at all. Now my classes for the upcoming school year are all in a database, with an association for the class cell, and I can use projects because of the forcing functions (also understanding how they work probably helps too.) There were also a ton of features I never used in ultimate tasks because I didn't understand them, but having built it from scratch now, I understand how to use it. All this came a little late as I am a senior in high school now, but it will make my senior year loads easier, and I will be building something similar with the knowledge I have gained for our school newspaper to manage all the tasks there. Thank you so much for making this video.

[@sarahhoward1004]

You’ve just helped me solve a problem that has been making my brain hurt for a week, thank you 😊

[@mihowbogucki4928]

This is so powerful. Thank you so much. Learnt a ton

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Glad it was helpful!

[@neekeyNi]

thank you for this amazing video! the project template and the "linked database" feature is just the little thing I couldnt figure out for my project setup!

[@Migdalis]

This is the most complete tutorial I have found. Thanks for all the info. ✨

[@philicobacter9237]

Best Notion Video on YT! Thank you!!

[@ScottSTEPHEN]

Thomas, thank you for the video. There is a solution for using a date "period" in formulas. You can use the start() or end() functions. For example, to read the end date of a date period, for a column called "Period", you could use end(prop("Period")). Hope that helps. Cheers!

[@ScottSTEPHEN]

A simple "Status" column, based on a "Period" column could look like this. if(empty(prop("Period")), "NO DATE", if(dateBetween(now(), start(prop("Period")), "days") < 0, "FUTURE", if(dateBetween(now(), end(prop("Period")), "days") > 0, "LATE", "IN PROGRESS")))

[@ChangeIWant2C]

Well, Mr. Frank, that was truly edifying. Thank you.

[@jonathanpincus3119]

Thank you Thomas, the video and template are both super helpful!

[@dlcastillor9221]

Thank you so much for this explanation. I've set my Task Manager and it's amazing. Brilliant

[@billmungaven506]

Great video. I'm just learning Notion and this was helpful. A bit over my head right now but I'm catching on.

[@denizcelebicom]

notion is so addictive

[@cesarhbk]

Soy un poco nuevo usando Notion y logré recrear toda la plantilla en español, gran tutorial, muchas gracias por tu tiempo y tus conocimientos.