I use several tools every day to accomplish my work. Some of them are directly involved in writing articles like these, while others help with ideation, research, note-taking, tracking time, etc. While certain apps can do all of these tasks, I prefer using standalone services. It helps me organize my workflow more efficiently, since I know exactly which app to open for what purpose. This is one of the main reasons I stopped using Notion earlier this year. However, I was recently made aware of Notion's Calendar view feature, and I couldn't help but try it out myself. Safe to say, I've now gone back to Notion—not for managing my database or creating a personal knowledge management system, but solely as a calendar that can help me plan my content and keep track of my progress.

Up until now, I used Google Calendar to populate my day's work. That included professional and personal commitments, meetings, and activities. While it worked well, I missed out on power features like adding certain fields to a task. This is exactly where Notion's Calendar view shines. You can create a calendar that's perfectly suited to your needs and includes only the options you specifically want. Here's how I created my Calendar view in Notion to get a bird's eye view of my schedule.

Creating a Calendar view in Notion

All it takes is a keyboard shortcut

Let's begin by creating a Calendar view page inside an existing document or database in Notion. To do this, simply click on a text field and type '/calendar' to bring up the Calendar view option in the contextual menu. On a side note, I love how it's super easy to add elements to a Notion doc with the slash shortcut. More apps should implement it, since it saves a lot of time over using a mouse to navigate through different menus. Anyhow, coming back to the Calendar view template—adding it reveals yet another menu where you can choose a template if you wish to, or import data from a CSV file. If you don't want to use any of these, select the New empty database. You can also choose to link the calendar to an existing database by typing its name in the search bar.

Once the calendar has been created, you can start adding events to it. Click on the '+' sign that pops up when you hover your mouse over a certain date. Add all the relevant fields and save the event. I use this to add tasks that aren't time-sensitive, which means I include everything from personal schedules like my workout routine to professional tasks like ideating pitches around which I want to write articles. This helps with accountability. That said, these are basic events that don't necessarily need a lot of filters, progress fields, etc. If you want that, you can customize the Calendar view using templates.

Customize it as per your requirements

From workouts to blog posts, you can add them all

Head to the Templates section in the left pane and look for Blog Editorial Calendar. Add the template to the database of your choice. This is the template I use for my requirements, since I wanted a Calendar view page that could help me log all the articles I publish for all the different websites I write for. You can pick a different template depending on your type of work. Once you add the template, switch to the Calendar view tab. You'll see a similar calendar to the one we created in the previous section.

However, the major difference lies in the template used to create a task. I have added tags that are perfectly suited to my usage, like the status of an article, the audience it is drafted for, the publishing date, and the type of article. These details help me with invoicing and maintaining a record of my work. If I need to find a certain article, I can simply search for the title in Notion and find the corresponding details, like when I published it, which website it was published on, etc. You can also alter the different fields to suit your line of work. If you're a freelancer, this is an absolute godsend to maintain a repository of your work.

A clean overview of all your tasks

If there's one feature that's going to keep me on Notion, it's the Calendar view. The best part is that you can integrate the Calendar view with any database, and even add templates to it to improve functionality. You can also import items from a CSV file to add to your calendar, if you wish to. Notion also gives you a bunch of tailored suggestions, like creating a task tracker or a document hub inside the Calendar view. So now, I only use Google Calendar to schedule meetings or get notifications of shared events with my co-workers.