Written by Shahzaib Ali
Notion Database Tips for Beginners
The first Notion database I ever built had 47 properties.
Forty-seven. For a reading list. I had a property for the book’s ISBN number, a property for the country of the author’s birth, a property for whether I’d seen a movie adaptation, and — I’m not making this up — a property called “Vibes” that I never once filled in.
It was a masterpiece of overengineering. It was also completely unusable. I stopped logging books in it after about two weeks because opening it felt like filing taxes.
That’s probably the most common Notion beginner story there is, just with different details. Someone discovers Notion, watches a few YouTube videos from people with immaculate workspaces and colour-coded everything, tries to build something equally impressive, and ends up with a complicated system they abandon within a month.
I’ve been using Notion seriously for about three years now. My setups are genuinely useful now — I track client projects, manage article ideas, handle invoices, and keep a reading list that I actually update. But getting here required making almost every mistake possible first. So let me save you some of that time.
What a Notion Database Actually Is (Without the Jargon)
Before tips, a quick mental model — because Notion’s terminology confused me for longer than I’d like to admit.
A Notion database is basically a table where every row is its own page. That’s it. Each row (Notion calls them “entries” or just “pages”) can hold properties — like a due date, a status tag, a number, a file — and when you click on a row, it opens into a full page where you can write notes, paste images, embed things, whatever you want.
The power comes from views. The same database can be displayed as a table, a kanban board, a calendar, a gallery, or a timeline — all showing the same underlying data, just arranged differently. You’re not creating multiple databases; you’re just looking at one database through different lenses.
Once that clicked for me, Notion databases started making sense. Before it clicked, I was duplicating databases for no reason and wondering why my data was always in the wrong place.
Tip 1: Start With One Database, Not Five
This was my biggest early mistake. I’d think “I need a project tracker” and build a projects database. Then I’d think “I need a tasks tracker” and build a separate tasks database. Then a contacts database. Then a notes database.
Four separate databases, no connections between them, and I’d spend more time deciding which database to put something in than actually doing work.
Here’s what I do now: I start with one database and add complexity only when I feel the pain of not having it.
For a project management setup, start with just a Projects database. Add a Status property, a Due Date property, and maybe a Priority property. That’s three properties. Use it for two weeks. Then, if you find yourself wishing you could see individual tasks within a project, that’s the moment to add a Tasks database and link them. Not before.
The pain of missing a feature is a much better guide than trying to anticipate everything upfront.
Tip 2: Learn These Five Property Types First, Ignore the Rest
Notion offers a lot of property types: text, number, select, multi-select, date, person, files, checkbox, URL, email, phone, formula, relation, rollup, created time, created by, and more. It’s overwhelming when you’re starting out.
For the first month, I’d suggest sticking to just five:
Select — for single-choice labels like Status (Not Started / In Progress / Done) or Priority (High / Medium / Low). Use this constantly.
Multi-select — for tags where multiple values apply at once, like topics on a blog post or skills on a project.
Date — for deadlines, publication dates, appointment dates. Notion’s date property also supports date ranges, which is useful for projects with a start and end.
Checkbox — for simple yes/no things. Reviewed? Published? Paid? Checkbox.
Relation — for connecting two databases together. This one’s slightly more advanced but worth learning early, because it’s what makes Notion databases feel like a real system rather than isolated lists.
Everything else — formulas, rollups, lookup properties — learn those later, when you have a specific problem they’d solve.
Tip 3: Views Are Free — Use Them Liberally
One thing that took me embarrassingly long to realise: creating a new view of a database costs you nothing. It doesn’t duplicate data, it doesn’t create complexity in the backend, it’s just a different way of looking at the same rows.
My project database has four views:
- Table view (my default) — shows everything in a spreadsheet-style layout, great for quick scanning and editing
- Board view filtered by Status — shows projects as kanban cards sorted by Not Started / In Progress / Done, which I use for weekly reviews
- Calendar view filtered by Due Date — so I can see what’s actually due this month without reading a list
- Table view filtered to “In Progress” only — a focused view I named “Active Projects” that I open when I just want to see what I’m currently working on
Same database. Four different views. Each one useful for a different moment or context.
To add a view: click the “+ Add a view” button at the top left of any database. Name it something descriptive so you know at a glance what it’s showing.
Tip 4: Filters Are More Useful Than More Databases
This connects to the point above. A lot of beginners — including past me — solve “I can’t see what I want” by creating a new database. The actual solution is usually a filtered view of an existing database.
Let’s say you have a Tasks database and you want to see only tasks due this week. Instead of creating a “This Week” database (please don’t), create a filtered view where Due Date is “within the next 7 days.” Done.
Or you want to see only high-priority items. Create a filtered view where Priority equals “High.”
Filters in Notion are found by clicking the “Filter” button in the top right of any database view. You can stack multiple filters — Priority is High AND Status is In Progress AND Due Date is before next Friday — and save that view so you don’t have to rebuild it every time.
I have a view of my tasks database called “Today’s Focus” that filters to: checkbox “Done” is unchecked, Due Date is on or before today, and Status is not “Someday.” I open that view every morning. It’s replaced three separate to-do apps I used to juggle.
Tip 5: Relations Are the Feature That Makes Everything Click
If you use Notion beyond simple lists, Relations will eventually become the most important feature in your setup. But they’re also where most beginners get confused, so I’ll walk through it practically.
A Relation property connects two databases so that entries in one database can be linked to entries in another.
Here’s a real example: I have a Clients database and a Projects database. Each project can be linked to a client. When I open a project page, I can see which client it belongs to. When I open a client page, I can see all their projects.
To set this up:
- Open your Projects database
- Click “+ Add a property”
- Choose “Relation” as the property type
- Select the database you want to link to (in this case, Clients)
- Turn on “Show on [Clients]” — this creates the reverse relationship automatically
Now when you open any project entry and click the Relation field, you can search and select the relevant client. The connection appears in both databases.
Once you have a Relation set up, you unlock Rollup properties — which let you pull data from the connected database back into the original. For example: once Projects is related to Clients, I can add a Rollup property in Clients that automatically counts how many active projects each client has. That kind of automatic calculation used to require a spreadsheet. Now it’s just two clicks.
Tip 6: Templates Inside Databases Are a Hidden Time-Saver
Every database in Notion supports entry templates — pre-formatted page layouts that appear whenever you create a new entry. Most beginners don’t find this feature for months.
Here’s how to set one up:
- In any database, click the dropdown arrow next to the blue “New” button
- Select “+ New template”
- Design the page layout — add headers, sections, checklists, whatever you want to pre-populate
- Close the template editor (it saves automatically)
Now whenever you click “New” while that template is set as default, every new entry opens with your pre-built structure.
My article ideas database has a template that includes sections for: the hook/angle, key points to cover, research links, word count target, and a checklist of publishing steps. Every new article idea I create automatically has that structure waiting. I never sit at a blank page inside Notion anymore.
Common Mistakes Worth Knowing About
Adding properties you might use someday. If you’re not actively using a property, delete it. A database with eight properties you actually use beats one with 30 properties where half are always empty.
Putting everything in one massive database. I know I said start with fewer databases — but there’s a balance. A single database with your books, your tasks, your clients, and your grocery list is also wrong. Use separate databases for genuinely different things; just don’t fragment one type of thing across multiple databases.
Forgetting to sort your views. An unsorted database is hard to use. Click “Sort” in the top right of any database and add at least one sort (Due Date ascending, or Status, or Priority). Sorted views feel more like real tools.
Syncing Notion across devices and expecting instant reliability. Notion’s mobile app has improved a lot, but I’ve still had moments where I added something on my phone and it took a few minutes to appear on my desktop. For time-sensitive stuff, don’t rely on Notion as your only record until you’ve tested how it syncs in your environment.
Trying to rebuild the templates you see on YouTube exactly. Those templates are end-states, not starting points. The person showing you their colour-coded, perfectly organised workspace built it over months. Start simple, and let your own habits shape what you actually need.
The Mindset That Actually Made Notion Useful for Me
The shift that helped most wasn’t a feature I discovered or a tutorial I watched. It was accepting that a good Notion database is built iteratively, not designed perfectly upfront.
I now start every new database with five or fewer properties and zero templates. I use it for a couple of weeks. Then I look at what I’m doing manually — writing the same thing every time I open a new page, wishing I could filter by something, finding myself confused about what “Status” means for this particular type of content — and I solve those specific problems.
The 47-property reading list is long gone. Its replacement has six properties, two views, and one template. I’ve updated it every week for over a year.
That’s the version of Notion that actually works.
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