Pre-pandemic, I worked as a social media manager at a marketing and design firm. That was also the last time I regularly used a project management system. Then came the next five years of adjusting to motherhood, caring for two little people, and figuring out how to keep everyone, including myself, alive, fed, and somewhat functional.
Now I’m back in graduate school, and suddenly I’m juggling school, motherhood, our home, my own well-being, and the creative work I still want to make time for. Clearly, my brain needs backup.
Enter Notion: project management for the busy mom (and much more).
The system I previously used for project management was Asana, but after revisiting, it appears to be better suited for a team vs. an individual, so I decided to go with Notion.
First, I needed to make a note of everything that I’d need to plan weekly, starting with our meals. I set up a recurring task to use Sundays to plan the meals for the week. I’ll be keeping breakfast and lunch simple and easy. Rotating between a protein-filled breakfast, a porridge, or some yogurt and granola variety. For lunches, they’ll primarily include leftovers or some kind of quesadilla, burrito, or a sandwich. The dinners will be the meals I put the most effort into. On Sundays I’ll take inventory of what I have as inspiration for the 5 dinners Monday through Friday. I’ll batch a soup in the slow cooker overnight on Friday to eat over the weekend and with room for takeout if that’s the weekend vibe. I’ll include recipes I’m interested in trying without any specific dates to cook them because I want this to serve more as a “family rhythm” than a strict meal schedule. I believe that planning at the beginning of the week will definitely help save time throughout the week, help us actually eat the food we buy, and prevent unnecessary eating out overall.
With school, a syllabus tells me when something is due. It doesn’t necessarily tell me when I should read the chapter, brainstorm the topic, gather my sources, write the first draft, revise it, and actually submit the thing. That’s where I tend to get myself into trouble, so I’m breaking up my syllabus due dates into working parts.
Notion will help me in viewing the due dates for my classes in one timeline view so that I can organize myself to meet all deadlines methodically. For my creative pursuits, I want to track process instead of output. For example, I’d track dedicating 2 hours in the studio on Monday instead of “finished a painting” because I don’t want to lose the fun in my creative work by adding rigid parameters and turning my creative practice into a productivity metric.
As a Type B personality, using a project management system to organize my life is going to be an adjustment. I’m not naturally someone who wants to know what I’m doing the last Tuesday of the month, but I’m curious whether giving all of these little responsibilities somewhere to live will make more room in my brain for the things I actually want to think about. I’m hoping managing projects with Notion will lead to less mental clutter, more intentional rhythms, and hopefully overwhelming moments into the new year.
