Why you need a master task database in Notion

[@Businessfinance1349]

Thank goodness. you are the only one that made this title video. thank you !

[@chris.flores]

This is a game changer!. Once I implemented this system, I realized it's a no-ifs-ands-or-buts type of functionality. Pretty much the core of my task management system. Thanks for all you do, Marie :)

[@GustavoOcampoBecerra]

Marie you're the Best NOTION Guru in the World! You change the way I work in my company. THANK YOU! I love you.

[@shareepack5581]

Thanks so much for this video. I figured this out this morning, but not even all the things you showed. This video really helped me to know more about what grouping can do!

[@eb-aG]

Bruh, you really mastered Notion. This is actually Awesome! Thank You!!

[@JS-tn4il]

Thank you for the useful insights. Could you please explain how to transfer data entry from the master database to the archive?

[@ligatureD3siGn]

Wow! I just started notion, that’s just what I was looking for but I need more experience to figure that out. Thanks!

[@freespiritkaro3414]

Thank You Marie, could you make a video about archiving please ? Do you do that manually or automatically once you tick something off as complete ? And do you create folders/drawers to archive things into just like you would on a computer or do you file it away into databases ? Would really love to understand what options are there and how accurately one could pull info out once it’s been archived ? I haven’t found much info about this on KZbin.

[@BruceColthart]

😄 With 20 seconds to spare, you answered my nagging "how do you associate your individual tasks with projects?" question - thanks. 👍 Also really liked the examples that you create from scratch, right in front of us; very helpful. I like anything too, related to your use of [a modified] PARA seup.

[@PhotoNERDsUnite]

I'd love to see how you made your "weekly template"

[@MariePoulin]

Photonerds University funny you should ask, it’s already recorded and will come out on Wednesday :)

[@PhotoNERDsUnite]

@@MariePoulin You're my hero! Thank you. A recent promotion has turned up the heat on my tasks, to-do's, note-taking responsibilities (A complete Productivity System if you will). Notion will most likely solve the problem if I set it up right. Your videos are playing a huge role. Keep 'em coming.

[@deepalibarapatre7966]

Is there a video where you explain your weekly planning system?

[@seanbarnes719]

Thanks, Marie very helpful will look to implement a master task list in Notion. I currently have several and was wondering if I could do something like this as my current set-up could be more efficient.

[@codinginflow]

Looks pretty impressive. How do you handle recurring tasks?

[@MariePoulin]

Depends on the task... I reset dates when I've completed a task, or duplicate a task and set a new date. I also have a tag for "Recurring" so i can show that in its own list. I also just build them right into my weekly template. For example "Cardio Cabaret" is something i do every wednesday, so thats a static item in my weekly agenda, not my task list.

[@codinginflow]

@@MariePoulin Thanks, at the moment I'm resetting the dates manually which is fine

[@2009raunak]

Loved the video❤️ could you share the template 😊

[@LauraLopesG]

Exactly what I was looking for! Thank you!

[@AndreaBrandi]

Hello Marie. Thanks for sharing your approach, I really like your setup and I'm finding your videos very helpful trying to boost up my Notion. Right now I have a master 'Projects' database, where basically I think your 'Tasks' are my 'small projects' or 'sub-projects' living near 'big projects' into the same database. For every project I have 'to-do list' elements for even smaller steps. But I think your approach can help to be more focused on single tasks. Not sure if it's better to me to migrate to a master task DB, but surely i will experiment on that.

[@MariePoulin]

Andrea Brandi you can also batch move your tasks into the same database. I’m not sure how different our approaches are - many of my tasks have a number of details embedded within them as well. I think you to-dos are pretty much how I use tasks, no?

[@AlbertoMacaluso]

Interesting and clear video as usual

[@cruedriver]

Hi, and thank you so much for these videos on Notion. They're very helpful. I do have one question for you. Would you mind explaining how you grouped tasks by day of the week in the kanban view on your weekly agenda page? Do you individually enter day of the week (in addition to due date) for each task in a separate column, and then group by that "day" column, or is there functionality in Notion for extracting the day of week info from due date, and then grouping by it? Thanks again for the great content.

[@MariePoulin]

Kanban columns need a tag, select, or multi-select to group by. I have a property called "day" and have different options for the days of the week, and i set the kanban to "group by [day]". Then you can either drag items into the right day, or adjust their day individually by clicking on the entry. Does that make sense?

[@nikki-groom]

@@MariePoulin Hi Marie, that's actually also my question. I can't quite figure out how to do this, although I understand how to create a property called day, I'm not certain how I would go about setting the kanban to group in this way. New to Notion and just getting set up over here!

[@nikki-groom]

oh, never mind! Looks like you already created a video for this :)

[@CliffordFajardo]

At the end of the video 8:40, you mention that at the end of the week, you move your completed tasks into the archives. 1) Inside Archives, do you have another separate database for tasks in there too, whose sole purpose is completed or archived tasks?

[@MariePoulin]

Clifford Fajardo I’ve changed lots since this video but we actually archived our whole 2019 task list and started with a fresh one in 2020. we will batch send completed tasks into that archived task database every quarter or so :)

[@myafroisthecoolest]

Hi Marie, thanks so much for this video. I have a similar master tasks and projects set up for my business partner and I. I’d like to know your advice about keeping a master task list that has also my personal life and study projects/tasks included, from another workspace?(my personal workspace) sorry if that’s not so clear question. To summarise: how to work with a master task list across personal and business workspaces? Thanks in advance, Nathaniel

[@labulabuland]

8:42 How to move to archive? Just copy & paste to new database (named archive)?

[@bangsandbows]

Thanks for sharing! This is a really clever way of doing things and has changed how I look at using notion!

[@zelyx6271]

How do you do the thing with the little arrow (before tasks for example) pleaaaseeee TTwTT

[@Cclaudia228]

Can you show how you organize your archive? Is it like a mirror of your live pages, but just populated with old tasks?

[@MariePoulin]

Haha, no the archive is a dumping zone. I don't spend much time there at all, other than archiving projects and tasks. Only projects and tasks have a mirror database. I dont spend much time here at all!

[@jeromerobichez445]

Thanks a lot that's gonna be VERY helpful to me

[@flavio___lira]

Hi Marie! Thanks for your video, after watching it I started to build my master task database and really looking forward to reaping the productivity benefits! A question about this: is it possible to share only a subset of this database? Say I want to share my tasks related to project x to the people that are involved in project x, but not give them full access to the master task list? Thank you!

[@osafoca]

Hi Flavio, I have the same question! I posted it separately, before I saw your question. It really seems most notion users are individuals, or small teams without the need to set permissions on info. I'd really rather not have to create multiple unrelated database or even worse, workspaces, especially with the doubling up on pricing. We also need a way to auto fill the project x name when users in that project create a task in the filtered linked view.

[@ambaratzin6045]

I created a Table Database as a Habit Tracker with Date Property and so on, I duplicated the page to use the same format for the next month but it changes the original one, how can make an independent copy without altering the original?

[@thejasonresnick]

This is next-level stuff. Thank you so much for sharing an insight into this. Q: Those tasks that aren't linked up to a Project, aside from Due Date, how would you then categorize them? For example, I see you have at [0:30] MLC next steps launch numbers and Read that damn article. What are those tasks associated to?

[@MariePoulin]

The MLC next steps is associated with a client project, but because I added it via the weekly relational database, it defaults to having no additional info, and I just hadn't gone back and assigned it details yet. There are lots of fields in my table that are hidden from you, so you're only seeing a certain amount of them. Generally speaking, every task is always assigned a project. (Read that damn article was just something that got added in another demo video, haha)

[@thejasonresnick]

Marie Poulin somehow that's what I thought. Thanks for being so open in sharing

[@jamesbrownization]

Thanks for another amazing video on Notion. Is there a way to assign more than one day to a task? Let's say a task I want to work on on Monday, Tuesday and Friday for example?

[@CameronCox_1969]

To funny, been wandering around all the 'How to template' videos trying to Automate the Template settings for databases templates to create a Quick link and watched Marie's screen behaviour and it jumped out at me that you can just click New record then select the templates that appear in the body of the new record, I'm an idiot, LMAO, was noticing the templates appear in the new record scenes but no understanding the practical use for that, always pays to watch the #notionseperheros as they do their thing on-screen you can pick up so many tips we take for granted.

[@benecc]

Oh my, thanks for pointing that out I had the same issue than you haha. Hopefully they'll let us "export" the templates buttons one day though, would be so nice to simply click a button somewhere on any page to generate a new a row on a specific database

[@CameronCox_1969]

@@benecc totally agree that function should be able to be linked into a template button. Its interesting you can use the Move function and find the template pages in the search function within move but not when using the @mention function .

[@leroy9880]

Very helpful thank you! Would you be so kind and share the template so it's easy for others to use it?

[@HumbertoMoura]

Awesome! I appreciate it!

[@Shopgirl2000]

Can u manage or create recurring tasks in here?

[@aemuna]

Marie, Thanks for your amazing video. and I got a question. How to deal with lost property data when item moved to archived page? For example, when I moved last year project to archived page for viewing only current year project item, My last Objective's achivement lost there linked project value. Could you show me(or us) How to deal with lost connction problem when moving items to archived page?

[@MariePoulin]

Jihoon Lee unfortunately any relations are lost when you move items. Hopefully Notion will improve this in the future, but in the meantime; any data you want associated with the project (tasks, objectives) I would move into the project body, and then move the project into the archive. Not perfect by any means...

[@aemuna]

@@MariePoulin Thank you for your kindness asnwer. Like you said, there is limitation on notion, and I accept it. I'm not gonna move any data to archived page.

[@HiranVenugopalan]

Technically, it suggests having a master database, that contains all tasks and every week, you are creating a weekly filter with the template. Nice approach. My question is about permission/privacy. Suppose I have two clients - A and B, and if I create one master template and start creating weekly templates - how can I share it with clients?

[@MariePoulin]

You can't show filtered views of databases to clients; if you give client A access to your tasks, they can see ALL your tasks, even tasks assigned to Client B. Anything that is being shared with a client needs to be in a separate database. My clients each have their own Pages/Portals with their own master task databases, and I have a page that embeds ALL of my client databases. Now in terms of related databases... my husband and I share a master task database, and we have relations to our OWN weekly agendas... he can't see my weekly agenda because that's a private page that he doesn't have permission to view, so those just appear blank to him.

[@HiranVenugopalan]

@@MariePoulin It's more a filter, that master - child relation.

[@danyalakbar1821]

So do you add tasks to the master task database and it shows up wherever you need it to or do you add tasks to other task lists and it gets added to the master database?

[@MariePoulin]

I have the master task database showing up everywhere - all actions get added to that database!

[@danyalakbar1821]

@@MariePoulin Do you also add all of your tags for every aspect of your life and projects for these tasks? I am currently thinking about having a separate workspace for work, my business and personal

[@chrisfreeman2156]

This works when you work on your private projects but when you work with remote team and want to share information on "Need To Know" basis then there is no perfect solution that Notion provides. You will have to expose your master database in one way or another until and unless Notion comes up with view based sharing solution.

[@MariePoulin]

You can "unshare" any items from team members in the sharing settings for individual entries. Not ideal if you intend to have a ton of hidden items, but it's definitely doable, and that's how we handle it internally with our team.

[@jagmeetco]

Thank You for this!

[@thekreport3270]

It would be nice to see the steps used to create a weekly view of tasks. Thanks

[@MariePoulin]

you create a filter on the view that would say "is after exact date" and "is before exact date". You would have to update this on each new week.

[@ramandhalwani7817]

How do you create a "This Week" filter ? Its something Notion doesn't have so how did you create it ? Thanks Marie :)

[@MariePoulin]

that totally depends on what properties you have in your master task database! You can filter by date is on or after [specific date], or by week = [current week] if you have a "week" database. I just use dates, OR a more simplified view of today, next, later...

[@ramandhalwani7817]

@@MariePoulin I'm basically trying to replicate what you've done, I think its absolutely incredible! I have a Due Date field and also a day field (which is multi-select), but the main problem was that at any point I can only make it show tasks for the past week and next week. I've created a Journal, Week, Month and Year practically similar to your setup

[@pambmusic]

Thank You for this. How do you manage the master task list with projects that have checklists to track your step-by-step?

[@MariePoulin]

I would bake those step-by-steps into the project templates. we'll definitely elaborate on this in future office hours :)

[@freespiritkaro3414]

Hey Marie, thanks for this ! :) Can you export or TaskClone them to Todoist ? And can you have both of them synced so that you can sort them out according to priority, get done and then tick them off in Todoist and it would update and show in Notion ?? Does anyone have experience with integrating the 2 or do You just ultimately rely on Notion ??? Todoist is ultra-simple and helpful when it comes to not-overwhelming yourself with decision-making and life organisation & hierarchy of items when you are 'on the go. I'd love to hear from you all about it.

[@MariePoulin]

FreeSpirit Karolina hey - so I do all task management in Notion - you can’t integrate the two. I would suggest sticking with one or the other and making it work for you. There’s no wrong answer, but I think having tasks in two places is likely to be a nightmare!

[@stefanasseg]

Do you know of a way to do that across multiple workspaces? I have a personal Notion workspace and multiple workspaces for multiple businesses and I would like one single view with all my tasks across all businesses.

[@MariePoulin]

Not really - though Notion Calendar now gives you a way to view them all simultaneously via making the calendars all visible now, just like a google calendar

[@stefanasseg]

@@MariePoulin Thanks! That's what I feared. Notion Calendar is nice and I use it but it doesn't serve as my unified task view that I want. I hope Notion make that possible sometime soon. Thanks for responding so quickly, though!

[@TheDailySerenity]

I'm not going to lie, the idea of tasks across ALL areas of my life including business and life is overwhelming! Especially since I know that in my business there are tasks and subtasks within categories and projects. I can see how this is useful though...not sure where to start! Just dumping everything out of my brain into a table seems chaotic to me!

[@MariePoulin]

I don't look at them all at once! I use dashboards and views to only show what is most important in a given context! This has honestly been life changing!

[@TheDailySerenity]

@@MariePoulin I want to implement this! How do I keep track of tasks that aren't attached to a project with a due date yet? Like I'll have business tasks that I haven't scheduled yet!

[@olafwilloughby3495]

Hi Marie. Very informative. Thank you. I created a Master Task list and linked it to my Notion calendar. However it appears as a separate table under the calendar rather than actually pasting the information directly to the relevant date within the calendar. Is this as good as it gets? Or is there a way I can work around this? Thanks for our help. Best

[@MariePoulin]

Olaf Willoughby I think you might be misunderstanding... you would want to use a calendar view of your master task database. There isn’t really a way to have one central calendar view that contains all your databases inside. you would use your master task database as a calendar via the calendar “view” of that database. otherwise you can do what you’ve done but it will only create a relation, not pull the info in...

[@olafwilloughby3495]

@@MariePoulin Thanks Marie. That was the missing link. Duh! Your videos are much appreciated :)

[@osafoca]

Thank you, great video! This was my immediate area of investigation after trying notion. However, there are cases where some tasks should be private to certain individuals for various reasons be it sensitive information, or simply not a need-to-know (less noise). Do you have a good system to handle this? For example if I create a view in a subproject to filter to only tasks for that project, is there a way to ensure that users of that subproject cannot change the filter to view other tasks? On top of that - is it possible when creating tasks in the subproject (which is just a view to the master task table), to auto set the subproject name field? If you have time to answer, great! But thanks either way.

[@kishoremukherjee7800]

Where can I get your template???

[@daymiinschannel7662]

Hello, this might be a silly question. So do you create tasks in the master task database? I only ask because I heard that you rarely ever go into the master task list. Thank you!

[@MariePoulin]

EscoWorld i usually add them via my dashboard or weekly planner which has an embedded database that is filtered :)

[@daymiinschannel7662]

Marie Poulin ok awesome! Just FYI thank you, I’ve learned a lot from you and I’m trying to organize my life right now by using tech to be productive. (:

[@JohnOnorato]

on the Dashboard, how do you put more than one database on a page?

[@DanielHenrique-gr9vp]

How do you change the color of the dates in the databases???

[@MariePoulin]

Red is overdue. Blue is a date that has a reminder set.

[@DanielHenrique-gr9vp]

@@MariePoulin Yeah, but how do you change the color?

[@marcosmonteiro6703]

Hi Marie, this might be an easy one, but when you use a master database in a project with a client, what prevent that client from getting access to the master database and not just the customised view that you create with the information that is relevant to that client only? Thanks

[@MariePoulin]

Marcos Monteiro oh I will answer this in tomorrow’s office hours!

[@marcosmonteiro6703]

@@MariePoulin Thank you so much, Marie!!

[@MsHussainMD]

how do you take items from your master task database and then move them into your archive database?

[@MariePoulin]

I don't! i mark them as done, and they are hidden from view. (Filter only shows incomplete tasks). 1x year i'll clear out old tasks and move some to the archives, but generally speaking, they don't leave the actions database.

[@MsHussainMD]

@@MariePoulin Great, thanks. Love your videos. I posted another question on one of your other tutorials but basically I write down a lot of tasks. One week could easily involve 100-150. How much can these databases handle? Have you noticed them slowing down after a certain number?

[@Jurisabc]

Great tutorial, but I still have a question - when you create a new task, you add it to the master task database and apply all the properties to it so that it filters out to your weekly database? Put simpler - how do you add new tasks? :)

[@MariePoulin]

Juris Baltačs I almost never go to my master task database - that’s just the catch all. I work from My weekly agenda page or my Focus page, both of which have an embed of the master task database. I don’t use dates unless something has a deadline, and I add items to the Board view of my tasks which is filtered to show incomplete items assigned to me, and is organized by “day”. So if I want to add a new task I add it to the column I want it in (today, tomorrow, next, etc). I also use templates to quickly apply properties in one click.

[@Jurisabc]

@@MariePoulin Ok, thanks for the thorough reply. Will look into it. :)

[@rorilee9791]

Yep, ok. But how do you set this up to begin with? TIA!

[@MariePoulin]

see my other video: how to create a master task database from scratch

[@rorilee9791]

@@MariePoulin Ha! Thank you, I didn't see it until after I posted the comment. Sorry, mate :)

[@felx4222]

Thank you very much! This is good stuff. I'm using this to get organized in university :)

[@JayTailor45]

Thanks for sharing :D

[@chrysastoiloudi6462]

Thank you for all the amazing information! it's really helpful! I'm using your master task database from the notion templates. I have a question: when I copy the database and create a new week it's pulling all the tasks from the previous week. But when I move tasks around its changes in the other weeks too. So how do I see only tasks by a week or only by what I need to do this week? Thank you in advance! I appreciate your time and effort! The notion office hours are incredible

[@BankruptGreek]

Hey are you greek?

[@kiwiquent]

Marie! I can't check the checkbox from your "tasks" template that I downloaded 😭

[@MariePoulin]

Tamara it’s a formula based on status. You can change the done formula to a checkbox if you prefer.

[@bonniesimon14]

Why does the inline databases have horizontal scroll in my notion app?

[@MariePoulin]

Bonnie Simon because there are more fields running horizontally. You can either hide those properties, hide your sidebar, or use a different view (like gallery, or Kanban). It will show the scroll when there are more properties than are visible on the screen.

[@bonniesimon14]

@@MariePoulin Okke, I'll try them out. Thanks. And keep making more awesome videos! Also can you make a video on how to make that dashboard that has every other database. Or have you made one and that I can't find it on your channel, if so can you tell me the title of that video. once again, Thanks!

[@thebestclassicalmusic]

I can see a lot of great info here. I think I dont know enough about notion to follow along though :(

[@hammockmonk]

This is so helpful. I am using various views of the master task database to show, for instance, priority items, or items with the same context. My next task is putting together a weekly agenda. I'm happy to see some info about that here, and I've already watched a bit of your video on that subject. kzbin.info/www/bejne/lYrOZXWNm82bbLM Will be going back to it shortly. Thanks!

[@c9744052]

thank you !!!!

[@LoriBuzz]

I already have a master task database (probably from one of your earlier videos :) ) but I learned something here. Assigning tasks to the week via the relation property. Very handy.

[@bonniesimon14]

How do you do that? I specifically want that. I wanna take tasks from my monthly goals and put em on my weekly goals. Help me please

[@ProdByMeek]

it's super interesting to see what this app is capable of but all of this is beyond comprehensible. tried for hours to rebuild an "add personal event" button but no chance. thanks for the great video tho

[@MariePoulin]

Create a template button (click / then start typing template). Inside the template area, add a "to do". Make the block have a different background color by clicking on the dots on the lefthand side of the to-do and choosing color. You should probably join us for the "starting from scratch" office hours this friday: www.crowdcast.io/e/notion-from-scratch

[@cybermonkeyusa]

I am not finding the productivity here. I would use Asana (free) to do real project management. Notion is good just to do a brain dump, but I see it counter productive for project management.

[@MariePoulin]

That's because you're only looking at it through one lens: task management. For me its about integrating my task management to all other parts of my business. The amount of insight and control i have now is night and day to what I was doing with asana.

[@cybermonkeyusa]

@@MariePoulin Gotcha. The only reason I looked at it for task management is because most of the videos focus here. The big areas I see that are exhausting is having to create what is already out there. I tend to be a minimalist and like cut out digital noise. So, I always ask: why do I need this application? For some, this is great and glad it works for you, though. Keep me posted on how it progresses. I look forward to the followup.

[@MariePoulin]

​@@cybermonkeyusa Thank you for sparking a great convo - i'm definitely going to do a follow up video because you are not alone in this sentiment, and I think it's a great springboard convo. Stay tuned!

[@impulsesystems]

The title is 'How to set up a master task database in Notion'. What you show is not how to set up a database. You show how to create various views on your master database, to filter your projects. I was expecting information on the design and setup of the master database itself.

[@MariePoulin]

I'll follow up with a more specific tutorial, and perhaps change the title of this one, thanks!

[@MariePoulin]

Hey Lee, i elaborated on how to do that here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/maaof4OsnahjfZY

[@labulabuland]

✅w