Read Time: 4 Minutes

In this newsletter, you'll learn how to use Notion to create an efficient content creation workflow that saves you time and energy.

I promise, if you follow these steps you’ll be able to write 1 month of content in 1 day using simple Notion systems (yes, actually!).

Unfortunately, most people fumble through their content creation process and they eventually burn out or their content quality takes a nose dive.

Why You Struggle to Create Content

Listen, you're not alone. I’ve struggled to create content for many reasons.

Lack of time
Lack of inspiration
Lack of planning

Many people face these challenges on a regular basis.

But I got sick of it.

So I spent an entire month figuring out how to maximize my Notion system to combat all of these and cut my writing time in HALF.

How To Use Notion To Create an Efficient Content Creation Workflow

As long as you follow 3 simple steps, you’ll be able to churn out creative content like nobody’s business!

1 → Capture & Reference Ideas Easily

2 → Break Big Content into Little Content (Lots of it)

3 → Use AI to Create Instant Drafts

If you’re strategic with Notion, you can bust through those obstacles and create a TON of valuable content.

Here’s how 👇

Step #1 - Capture & Reference Ideas Easily

The first step to unleashing your content creation superpowers 🦸 with Notion is building a system that lets you effortlessly capture and reference your content ideas.

Here’s how I do it:

Build a Notion page (regular width) called “Inbox”
Drop an inline database in there (gallery view)
Turn on sub-items
- Call the parent item “Notebook”
- Call the child item “Notes”
Make Notebooks for whatever you want
Make one specifically for content ideas
Build buttons to instantly create ideas on-the-go
*Make sure to add a second step to the button to open the page

From there, I create and organize my ideas as I capture them.

Now here’s the juicy part 🍊

Create a Linked Database View and filter it by your content idea Notebook.

Then, later on, we’ll drop that linked view into our content templates so we can reference it any time we’re writing content.

Voila!

A simple, easy way to keep track of your content ideas that’s mobile-friendly.

But now that you know how to capture you’re ideas, how should you go about multiplying them?

(psst! if you want the full breakdown of how I built my inbox system you can check out my thread below. Or grab it for free here.)

Madison | A Simple Notion

@ASimpleNotion

I've been rebuilding my Notion workspace in silence for 3 weeks.
But now it's time to start my #buildinpublic journey.
So here's a look at my new Inbox System.
It helps me:
→ Capture ideas
→ Categorize ideas
→ Archive old ideas
And I can do it all from mobile.
The secret?

11:32 AM • May 16, 2023

Retweets

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Read 12 replies

Step #2 - Break Big Content into Little Content (Lots of It)

This is truly the secret sauce 🥫

There’s a reason the pros like Dan Koe and Justin Welsh rave about “content multiplication.”

It’s because it works.

Taking a big piece of content (cough like this newsletter cough) and breaking it out into at LEAST 10 different pieces of content not only saves you time but it also saves you energy.

Because once you get into the frame of mind that you need to be in to write a piece of content, if you can write 10, 20, or even 30 different pieces of content around that one topic, it’s SO much easier to think it through.

Here’s how I do this in Notion in 5 easy steps:

1 - Create a newsletter page template (can also be a thread template or any other long-form type of content you write).

2 - On the page template, drop a section for brainstorming

3 - Create a section for linked databases like your content ideas.

4 - Then make 2 columns. Put your content template on the right (more on this in a minute). Put a toggle on the left that you can use to write your draft

5 - Now, take your main idea and break it up into:

4-5 thread ideas
10-12 longer tweet/post ideas
3-5 one-liner ideas

I use my Content Matrix system to do this and write essentially 1 week’s worth of content on a single topic.

In my system, I link all of these “sub-ideas” to the main newsletter via a relation field so they’re all tied together.

Finally, I’ll mix and match content later so I’m not harping on a single topic all week long.

But, all of that content is a LOT to write, right?

Think again…

Step #3 - Use AI to Create Instant Drafts

Imagine having an AI-powered writing assistant right at your fingertips.

Well congrats, because if you have Notion AI that's all the assistance you need!

If you use Notion AI well, you can have a list of 100s (yes, 100s!) of ideas based on your main topic in literal seconds.

BUT that’s not even the half of it.

Using clever post templates based on top-performing content by other creators, I’m able to prompt AI to give me results on my topic that are 70-80% complete.

The voice is a little generic, and sometimes you can prompt your way out of that, but it will give you a workable outline in seconds.

It’s how I went from spending 60-90 minutes on a single newsletter to 20-30 minutes every time.

BONUS: Brainstorm in BULK

Let’s be honest:

Writer’s block is usually the reason we struggle to write content in bulk.

But AI has solved that problem for me.

Here’s how I use it to generate tons of ideas in the snap of a finger:

Identify your 3 core brand pillars (mine are Writing, Notion, and Productivity)
Take each brand pillar and prompt AI to brainstorm 20-30 newsletter/thread topics for you (be specific, it helps you get better results)
From there, give AI a list of post types (listicle, contrarian, question, etc.) and ask it to break each individual topic into each of those post styles

This will take some back-and-forth with the AI to get a refined list.

But in a single 60-minute brainstorming session I’m able to come up with 100-200 viable post ideas.

For reference, I post about 30 bits of content per week so that’s at least a month’s worth of content ideas in <1 hour. 🤯

My Writing Schedule

Content creation is as much a science as it is an art form.

If you know how to batch your tasks and set up systems in Notion to streamline them, you can create a LOT more content with a LOT less energy.

A typical writing schedule for me now looks like this:

Monday → 60-minute brainstorm
Tuesday → Write 4 newsletters in <2 hours
Wednesday → Write 3-6 threads in <2 hours
Thursday → Write 3-6 threads in <2 hours
Friday → Write 80-100 posts in <2 hours
Saturday → Edit and schedule posts in <90 minutes

In theory you could do this all in 1 day (if you’re a boss 😎).

But I like spacing it out because it keeps me in the content mindset every day.

Still, being able to punch out 1 month of content over the course of 8-10 hours is a HUGE improvement for me.

Creator Spotlight 🔎

Marlene Konu (@marlenekonu)

Marlene came onto the Notion scene with a BANG! and created some of the best content and templates I've seen.

There are 3 big things Marlene did right that helped her gain 1,600+ followers in <2 months:

She created captivating branding (not another black-and-white Notion profile pic)
She engaged a TON on other people's posts
She did 2 big giveaways that were targeted and strategic

Not only that, but her backend funnels are something else.

If you're looking for some awesome hook templates to use for your twitter posts, check out her 90 Plug-And-Play Twitter Hook database.

Or, check out my favorite thread from her below:

Marlene

@marlenekonu

2 months ago, I had no clue about Twitter and giveaways.
But last Thursday, I have done my third one.
The most successful one ⤵️
✅ 617 sales
✅ $141 in upsells
✅ DM down 4 times
✅ 170 5-star reviews
✅ 44.5k impressions
Here’re the 7 important steps I took to achieve it: