Goal Tracking Using Notion

It’s that time of year again where people start to set themselves goals for the coming year. But how do people keep track of what their goals are?

This article will walk you through creating a basic kanban style board using Notion to keep track of the progress of your goals.

Note: This article assumes that you already have an account on Notion.

Contents

1. First Steps
2. Creating the Database
3. Creating the Tags
4. Adding Data
5. Creating the Kanban View
6. Conclusion

First Steps

The first step is to create an new empty page, give it a name, and pick an icon which suits the purpose; similar to that shown below.

New Page

Creating the Database

Notion offers what is known as a Table database. This is exactly what it sounds like, a table which acts like a database that can be filtered and searched.

To create one, click on the Type '/' for commands and start off by typing /table. Select the Table database - Full page.

Creating the Table

Blank Canvas

The image above is the starting block for creating the database. First off, we’re going to need to add more columns. The additional columns I’ll be adding will be:

The new columns can be added with the + button next to the Tags column.

Adding New Columns

Adding the Tags

Now that the shell of the database has been setup, it’s time to add some tags. To start with, we’ll add the status tags.

The gif below shows the process of doing this by adding the Pending, In Progress and Completed flags to show what state a goal is in.

Adding the Tags

The tags for the Tags column can be added at a later date once you have determined the category your goals will fit into.

Adding Data

In this section, we’re going to off by adding our goals and description to the table. This is as simple as clicking on the cell (like a spreadsheet), and typing.

Dummy Goals

With the goals in the database, we can now add the tags which will be used later when we create the kanban view.

Tagging the Goals

Creating the Kanban View

Views are different ways of displaying the data in Notion. To create the kanban view, we’ll first click on the + Add a view button at the top of the table, and select Board.

Creating the New View

Now we’re greeted with the kanban style view, and can simply move the goals into the necessary status column.

Moving Goals

Another thing we can do, is we can create a sub-group where we are able separate the goals out into their individual categories/tags.

Adding Sub-Groups

Conclusion

Notion is a nifty little tool that allows you to do so much. In this instance, keeping track of your goals for the year.

I’ve been using it for only a few months, and it’s already transformed the way I keep track of tasks that I need to get done, and the priority of said task. Armed with the knowledge in this article, you can start to explore a little more of what Notion has to offer. For example, you could create another board view, and only display goals with the career tag and nothing else.

I hope you found this useful. I may end up doing a more in-depth article about creating sub-tasks for goals in the future.