Hello there… long time no see!

A while back, I migrated to Notion as my content and writing hub. I have been extensively using it for note taking, studying, web-archiving and content writing. I would like to share a few comments on this and potential use cases that may be useful for you. I had two main goals:

1. Have a private vault where I can store, categorise, consult and perpetuate online articles (regardless where they are coming from).
2. A private reading hub tracker.

Notion solved both. There are many other options and tools for implementing this. I chose Notion as I prioritised stability, track record in the market, community size and feature-rich options.

Web archiving

One of the features I love the most is the web-clipper. It allows you to directly capture web articles and store them in your Notion, archiving them in your personal space. We extensively rely on online information from many different sources and sites. This information is valuable and insightful, we can’t just blindly assume it will be online and available forever. Also, we deal with so many inputs from different sources that being able to organise, tag and categorise them becomes imperative. I am not talking about a complicated workflow, I just wanted to have a single private place where I can store and persist (even if they disappear later) web articles and online information. Notion perfectly fits this purpose. Using the web-clipper and Notion’s native database capabilities, you can quickly build an article database with tags, categories, labels and indexes. It becomes quite powerful as you can add in your personal notes and links right away, as well as perform advanced searches, queries, AI comprehension summaries and questions. You can integrate this with any of your existing tools and feeds. Regardless of what sources you are using for consuming news and articles (newsletters, RSS readers, reading hubs, social media, channels, etc) you will be able to archive these articles in Notion. Additionally, Notion offers seamless ways for backing up and exporting data, which was a must for me.

Reading hub

As an avid reader, my other goal was to keep a book tracker. There are of course many ways of achieving this and even dedicated online platforms for this purpose (such as Goodreads). I wanted something simple and private, but highly customisable and scalable at the same time. I wanted to be able to create my own book reports and cross-references. At the end of each book, I enjoy performing a final recap, copying my notes, checking on interesting names, historical references and documenting my favourite quotes. And I like to keep this as a manual process, as it forces me to really go deep into the details. As I was already invested in Notion, it was an obvious choice for me. Here is where the power of templates shines. Within Notion, you can find pre-created community templates for a vast amount of use cases and scenarios. Book tracking is no exception, with several options (free and paid) available. I opted for the Book Tracker template from Notion Architect. You can use it as a starting point and then customise it at will. There is not much more to say about this, it depends on what you exactly want to track. In my case, I love documenting all the interesting quotes, thoughts and passages and being able to re-search them and revive them later.

Reading is an intense and intimate habit. An act of rebellion which will slowly but unstoppably expand the limits of your mind.

P.