I've always loved note-taking. Writing things down helps me absorb and retain information better since school. I loved keeping physical notebooks, jotting down highlights from important conversations and meetings. But these notes were often temporary, unorganized, and rarely revisited.

The Challenge of Managing Notes

When I started my first job as a designer at Blizzard, I was constantly taking notes during interviews, summarizing them, creating sketches in Figma, and updating PRDs in Wikis. Despite having a personal wiki to link them all, I lacked a centralized place to organize all my work, projects, research notes etc. I had a notebook for all my meeting notes, but they never made it to any living document. I needed a sustainable system to capture all my notes and keep them accessible. The annual review process at Blizzard pushed me to track my work more often. My manager wanted to check on my professional goals every month and I needed a space to continually update and share my process.

Enter Notion,

Then I discovered Notion. The power of its databases was exactly what I needed to keep my work and life in order. I quickly adopted it as my digital notebook for storing references, links, notes, recipes, and everything else. I used it extensively as a Pinterest board to bookmark everything related to design. It soon became my go-to tool for managing my digital life.

Why Designers Need to log more?

A month into my first job as a designer, I came across a podcast episode featuring Tanner Christensen, where he discussed how he logs his work and notes using Notion. Inspired by his process, I built a Notion workspace for logging and managing my day-to-day work. I realized that as I progressed in my design career, maintaining and updating a portfolio would be time-consuming. However, keeping a log of my work in progress and meeting notes in one place would be invaluable later when the time came.

Here’s how I structure my Notion space each year:

Project Journal

This is a space for all the projects and initiatives I’m working on, even those that don’t directly influence the business. Whether I'm cleaning up design files or researching a new design system, I document everything here, tagging them accordingly.

• Project and Personal Goals: Clear objectives for each project.

• Meeting Notes: Detailed notes from all relevant meetings.

• General Conversations: Important discussions that might impact projects.

• Reflections: Personal insights and takeaways from each project.

Work Journal

I wanted to develop a working portfolio log to track my work for both posterity and annual reviews. This journal includes:

• Recurring 1:1 Templates: Structured templates for regular check-ins. I also have a template within each meeting with my manager to help me prep before the meeting. I came across this ritual from Shishir Mehrotra, the CEO of Coda, to create partnership agreements with my manager that helped both of us communicate better and set expectations right for our meetings.

• General Meetings: Notes from various meetings such as classes, reviews, design crits, conferences, all hands, offsites etc. This makes it easy for me to find any notes/meetings that I am looking for by searching for it, or filtering by the person

Goals

I struggle with setting goals, even though I've read numerous books on goal setting and the various frameworks people use to make it work for them. Recently, I was inspired by Tim Ferris’s "4-Hour Workweek" to set personal and professional goals, especially the goal-setting exercises such as fear-setting and dreamlining. Hunter Walk’s tombstone test has also been helpful in this process. As Walk puts it, “Sometimes I’ll say it directly: I want you to care enough about this company, and ultimately be proud enough of the outcome, that you want to put it on your tombstone, not just your resume.”

I have a dedicated Goals Tracker space on my notion for each year where I set personal and professional goals. I use the SMART goals approach to set them, and with the help of LLM's now I am able to make it even more specific. Professional goals are tied to competencies that come from the design org’s career ladder. For the targeted activities, I brainstorm them with my mentors and leads. If I finish an activity and log it as a project or task, I update it and link with with my notes or meetings.

Todo List

I use a day-to-day task list and the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize my work effectively. This is the most straightforward framework to write to-dos. However, I’ve tweaked it (slightly) for my way of working.

• If a task is important AND urgent = I do it immediately.

• If a task is important BUT NOT urgent = I schedule it on my calendar.

Reflections

I keep a reflections journal and I write about my weeks in general at work, this is my personal diary, and helps me pen down my thoughts that I can choose to share with my manager in our 1:1.

Last but not the least, a handy Notebook

With all this, I still keep a handy notebook with me for my and daily stuff. I make checklists, doodle, sketch designs, and take notes on the go.

TL;DR

• Project Journal: A living case study for ongoing projects.

• Work Journal: For daily notes and observations.

• Goals Tracker: To monitor yearly goals.

• Monthly Reflections: For journaling feelings and experiences at work.

• Portable Physical Notebook: To capture all of the above on the go.

Here are my Templates for you. <3