Notion Masterclass: Build a Task Manager from Scratch

In this in-depth guide, you'll learn how to create a full-featured task and project manager inside of Notion that features a project area, recurring tasks, subtasks, and more.

😎 CREATOR'S COMPANION (My mega-template for content creators):

🔧 FREE TEMPLATES (task manager, note-taking, and more):

📑 COMPANION ARTICLE:

💪GET STARTED WITH NOTION:

🐦Connect with me:

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Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro
00:49 - Tutorial start
02:30 - Master Task Database
10:00 - Sub-tasks Relation
12:49 - Add the Formulas
16:00 - Create the Projects Database
17:05 - Create the Project Template
19:15 - Set up the Filters
25:15 - Add More Database Views
27:31 - Hide Properties
30:15 - Create an Example Project
31:20 - Daily Tasks Scratchpad
32:29 - Two-Column Trick
35:25 - Daily Tasks Archive
36:20 - Inbox View
45:05 - Today View
46:15 - Next 7 Days View
48:20 - Priority View
50:54 - Create Sub-tasks
56:13 - Final touches

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Can you build a task / project manager inside of Notion? From the start, Notion has billed itself as an all-in-one workspace app. But can you actually use it to replace tools like Todoist, Asana, ClickUp, or Trello?

I believe the answer is yes. In this tutorial, I'll take you step-by-step through the process of building this type of task manager from scratch. We'll start from a blank page, and end up with a copy of my Ultimate Tasks template, which includes project management templates, sub-tasks, recurring tasks, filters that automatically set properties like due dates and task priorities, and more.

[ThomasFrankExplains]

IMPORTANT!



I'm also working on publishing an updated version of this build guide soon! Notion itself has received many updates since this guide was published, so many parts of the UI look different these days.

[lanvui]

The fact that I was able to follow your explanation and get to the end of the video without realizing I've been engaged for a full hour on learning something that is quite complicated for me, just blows my mind and proves how a great teacher you are. I have trouble concentrating with 10 minute videos and here I am. I still can't believe a full hour went by. Amazing job and thank you for your dedication.

[hadie]

My brain: OMG THE VIDEOS 58 MINUTES
My brain: don’t watch this. We’ve procrastinated enough watching productivity videos
My heart: Ya but let’s just watch it anyways
My brain: here we go again

[erinw]

school: make a basic task list to keep track of your assignments
me:

[DrBasti]

Me: It's so sad that I don't have the time to watch this
Me 2h after, while rewatching different parts of the video: My new upgraded Notion dashboard page is so amazing.
😍

[sheogorath]

At this point I'm convinced Tom knows Notion better than its developers. Great video! I think it's really useful to understand how the template works, especially for people who want to make little tweaks to their copy.

[danunach]

Just want to say a big THANK YOU to Thomas! I have been using Notion for a year now and was happy with my simple setup for our home staging business. Watching dutifully the whole video and repeating each step I have learned a great deal of Notion's true potential. I'm not managing my life with it and don't need fancy dashboards, but for business projects this task manager along with the knowledge of templates is priceless. Great educational and entertaining video.

[kaitlynk]

Just started and noticed this video is 58 minutes and I cant wait this is going to be so great!

[LuJosef]

It's been 2 years since you uploaded this and I just found your video as I was trying to figure out how to use Notion. I really want to thank you for the time and effort you put in this video. 2 years later and it's still blessing people like me! Thanks again!!

[leoncz.]

For anyone having problems with the type formula try this code: ifs(empty(Recur Intervall(Days)), "⏳One-time", not(empty(Recur Intervall(Days)), "🔁Reoccuring"). You have to rewrite the propertynames to make it work!

[sauravujjain]

Thanks, Notion makes a lot more sense now, was introduced just a few days back. Worked alongside the tutorial to build the whole thing. Took me 8 odd hours to learn. absorb, assimilate, and build myself. Totally worth it!

[therealchrisfink]

Any plans to do an updated version of this video? I know it's a big undertaking, but I love the updates you've made to your Ultimate Tasks Template, and me being me, I love starting from scratch when I build something like this so being able to see you build the most recent version of the template would be awesome. Thanks for all of the awesome content, man! Stay safe and healthy!

[amyhatch]

I loved this!!! I finally understand how Notion works and how I can use it in a way that works for me. I'm really glad that I build this from scratch so that I could understand how it works and build on top of it. Thank you so much for taking the time 🙌🏻

[wnahmed]

I watched every second of this video! All my personal and work tasks are piling up and I was looking for some project management tools to help me organize my life. Honestly Notion is great but your tutorials make it so much better. I don't comment on a lot of things but I just felt compelled to say how great you are at what you do.

[gokulkuttikod]

When I am planning on starting a series of videos to make Notion setups ― Thomas Frank comes in and makes an entire channel

[ThomasFrankExplains]

Hey all!

I've seen a LOT of comments about "Property Not Found" errors in the formula property. Remember: You need to create the property that the formula is referencing before pasting in the formula - otherwise, the formula code will throw an error.

For example, "Property not found: prop(Recur Interval (Days))" either means that you haven't yet created the Recur Interval (Days) property, or the name is spelled incorrectly.

Hope that helps!

[magorzataburek]

I absolutely adored this video! Took me of course more than 58 minutes. More than a week to actually implement it and learnt it. And I think it was even better casuse now I can do it all by myself for my projects. Loving your content! 🥰 Thank you for doing that!

[MitchKirkham]

Thomas, thank you for putting this together. I am just starting medical school and needed a system to keep me on top of things. Going from engineering to medicine is a complete workflow overhaul and this task manager is going to be excellent! Watching this video is a great tutorial to help me be aware of the potential notion has. Thank you for sharing the template!

[saldi]

Hi!, I've learned a in these 3 hours!! 😅 thanks for the amazing video
At minute @24:55 you didn't change "task" to "type", I realized when I was building my template and comparing it with yours
You are awesome!!

[AndreaGonzalez-gqjo]

You have no idea how helpful this has been. thank you sosososo much for making this available on yt