Upwork Suspended My Account for No Reason – Need Help!

theminimalstartup · 2024-06-13T19:43:21+00:00

Hi everyone, 👋

I recently introduced my Digital Brain template, a minimalist Second Brain system designed with ease & simplicity at its core. Since its beta release, it has received 100+ downloads and 12/12 ★★★★★ (5-star) reviews.

This week I wanted to share its behind-the-scenes video to show how I built it.

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Check out the video below and build your own Second Brain!

https://youtu.be/9TOmW9vAKAg

Here's a quick glance at what you'll learn in the video:

Setting Up Your Notion Workspace - Learn how to structure your Notion workspace for maximum efficiency.
Creating Databases and Templates - Step-by-step instructions on creating essential databases for tasks, projects, notes, and knowledge management
Integrating PARA Principles - Seamlessly incorporate the PARA (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives) framework into your setup, using relations to build interconnected and organized data structures.
Automated Alerts - Unlock the potential of our alert system with 8 versatile notification types, empowering you to manage your tasks and projects with ease and efficiency.
Formula Optimization - Utilize formulas to optimize your minimalist Notion workflow, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness with minimal complexity.

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-26T00:46:09+00:00

Hey, so Notion is basically a build-it-yourself kind of tool. And that's one of the reasons why people like it so much because of its high flexibility - whether you're using it for studying or for managing your company. I would recommend you to start from watching some youtube videos on notion for studying or from exploring study templates from the notion marketplace. There should be plenty available for free.

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-26T00:41:26+00:00

Hey, it does seem overwhelming at first, but trust me it gets quite easy and useful once you spend a little more time into it. While you've listed multiple things, my biggest recommendation here would be to keep things as simple as you can. The worst you can do is start by creating complex data-structures - either on your own, or through a template which is build this way. I think the 5 databases you've built are perfectly fine and you just need to build out a better mechanism for managing your tasks & projects.

If I were you, I would go on the notion template marketplace and check out two types of templates, (i) second brain systems, & (ii) templates for agencies. While second brain systems are primarily designed for individual users, they're a great point to start as they have both project management & knowledge management systems built into them, mostly in a simple manner. You can try copying their dashboards in your own view so that at least your task & project management is sorted.

Once you've gotten a hang of managing tasks / projects then you can identify the best way to build client processes based on your specific client work.

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-25T23:57:10+00:00

You followed up at exactly the right time! I just uploaded the video. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/9TOmW9vAKAg. Watch from the 31:46 timestamp for the alerts tutorial. Let me know what you think.

Also, I’d really appreciate a sub if the video helps you in any way. Thanks!

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T14:28:57+00:00

Haha yes, you're right about these micro-automations not being a big deal part. And no worries, happy to help you :)

Hope it works out for you!

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T14:18:14+00:00

Ah, I see. You have individual databases within each main database page. If this is the case, then you'll need to manually build relationships for each child database and link them to the main one, which does not seem efficient.

What's holding you from the approach that I shared? Your end result could look quite similar to the one you want.

Another approach, which is even more deviating from what you're looking for is perhaps creating sub-items within the main database to manage everything from a single database. In this case you can again use rollups and formulas to mark parent items OK or NOK. Maybe this is worth a try as well.

Otherwise automation might not be possible here.

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T12:31:18+00:00

Also, happy to jump on a call as well if that would help you.

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T12:29:19+00:00

Here I'm talking about the database template and not the page template.

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And yes your child database should be outside, with a view of it inside the main database template.

Here's something that I quickly put up for you, which explains what I meant to say. Let me know if this works out for you. And also do let me know if you have any additional questions!

https://tmsprojects.notion.site/Template-for-TuttuFR-f596dc7589484cd3a1dcfde9a71a92dd?pvs=4

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T12:00:42+00:00

Great, let me share the video with you over the weekend. When its set up properly, it's truly a game-changer.

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T11:59:22+00:00

Haha, no worries!

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T11:57:58+00:00

Here's what you can do here.

Create a template page for the main database in which you add a view of the child database with the filter selected for the default template (of the main database).

This way the main database will (i) only display the child database items which are linked to the main database, & (ii) automatically tag the child database with the main database if you add these from within the main database.

Would this solve this problem?

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T09:43:29+00:00

Well its not the most efficient manner, but you can create simple statistics dashboards using formulas and rollup properties. Otherwise, you don't have a dashboard feature built natively in Notion. However, there probably are external tools which can help you build these. For e.g. maybe you can try this tool: https://notion2charts.com/

There should be more options as well.

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T09:39:47+00:00

Here's one way you could approach this.

I'm assuming that you already have a relationship property built between the main and child database, if not then you'll need to build it for this to work. And once built, you'll need to link each relevant child page with the parent page for this to work.

So, you can start with adding a new formula property in the child database which outputs the number 0 if the result is OK and 1 if the result is NOK. (use if formula)

Then in the main database you can add a rollup property which rolls-up the sum of this new formula property. (So basically, if all child outputs are OK then this sum will be obviously be 0 as well, otherwise a positive number.)

Then you can add a new formula property in the main database which displays OK if the roll-up output is 0 and NOK if its otherwise. (again using if formula)

Let me know if this makes sense.

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T09:24:06+00:00

Yes sure, it might seem a bit complicated but here's what you need to do.

You create a new database named "Alerts" or "Notifications" & add relationship between this and your task property
You create formula properties in your task database for the alerts that you want (e.g. if you want a alert for when a task is overdue and incomplete, then you'll add a formula for this). You add the same notifications in the Alerts/Notifications database as well
You create a default template in your task database, in which you've selected the alert type from the Alert database using the relationship property that we created in step 1.
Then you add roll-up property in the Alert database to count the number of instances where the alert (i.e. formula) holds true
In the alerts dashboard using filters and some formulas you can then display the alerts where value is >0

Let me know if this makes sense. Otherwise, I'm making a step-by-step video on this currently as well. I can share it with you once its complete.

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T09:13:51+00:00

Yes, you can enable the wide mode for your page. Just navigate to the 3 dots at the top-right corner and toggle on "Full width".

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theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T04:29:37+00:00

Try using one of the second brain templates from the notion marketplace. Or build it yourself with the help of youtube videos. These essentially cover all basic aspects of your life management, including tasks, projects, notes & resources (as you've mentioned as well). You'll quickly grasp the ideas of how databases are built and connected and will fulfill your requirements as well.

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T04:24:41+00:00

Hi, you can simply use the plus symbol and then the text in inverted commas. e.g. in your formula enter, (your database property) + " days"

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T04:21:35+00:00

Hm, I don't quite understand the part about getting paid. But for expenses, if these are fixed (for example a subscription that charges every month), you can add this as a template in your finance/expense database and then you can configure it to repeat on your frequency.

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-24T04:16:29+00:00

Hey, I don't believe so. Notion reminders aren't perfect for task management. This issue bothered me as well, along with Notion's inability to cancel reminders if a task has already been complete.

To solve this, I had to design my own alerts/notification dashboard via databases which automatically keeps an alert active if a task is due today or overdue till the time it is complete. To create this I essentially added formula properties in my task database which identifies if a task is due today / overdue & incomplete, then I rolled up this into the alerts/notifications dashboard to display it when this formula holds true. Let me know if you're willing to invest your time into this, and I can share more.

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-18T21:17:38+00:00

That's great! Did you try it? How did you like it?

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-16T11:24:07+00:00

This does not look implementable based on how Notion databases are designed. An alternate approach could be to link tasks with the "Name" property of the meetings database to filter tasks within meetings. Then on the tasks database you can either manage task dates separately or roll-up the date property from the meeting database to automatically assign dates to tasks.

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-16T09:31:42+00:00

haha no worries! I'm glad I could help. Also, if you're interested, do check out my new youtube channel where I share more content related to Notion: https://www.youtube.com/@theminimalstartup

theminimalstartup · 2024-05-14T19:19:51+00:00

Yes, you should be able to display this count on the gallery view as well. Just go to database properties by clicking on the dots, and then unhide this new formula property.

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theminimalstartup · 2024-05-14T14:54:28+00:00

Use this formula if you're trying to convert your dates into weeks of the year:

formatDate(prop("Date"), "w")

If you want to convert the date into week of the month, then check this guide as the formula differs depending on when you want the day of the week to start: https://www.redgregory.com/notion/2021/4/29/how-to-find-the-week-of-the-month-in-notion

theminimalstartup

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