March Review: Embracing Notion
![March Review: Embracing Notion](/content/images/size/w1200/cover/notion-quotes-1.png)
Since July 2019, I have written monthly about how I am going with sticking to my simple habit tracking system. I think from this month onwards I will try something a little different, where I will write more generally about anything that I would like to reflect upon for the past month, and what I am planning to do for the next.
I haven't quite figured out if I will use a set format for this, or just see how things go on a month by month basis. I will still talk about my habits since that is an important aspect of every month I would like to reflect upon.
As I outlined in my original post, I adopted a paper based system for tracking my habits and getting a quick overview of how I am tracking, such as captured in the image of my habits tracking sheet from last month.
![](https://legacy-cdn.pureleap.com/static/spearoflight-media/2020/03/img_3038.jpg?w=1024)
Habit Tracking for February
For March, I tried to start tracking the habits in Notion. For this I created a database where each habit is a checkbox
property. I then created one entry in the database for every day of the months, and set the respective checkbox
property to checked.
![](https://legacy-cdn.pureleap.com/static/spearoflight-media/2020/04/notion-habits.png?w=1024)
Habit Tracking on Notion
I for now opted to create a new database for every month so I can easily add or remove habits. I have also exported the database for March as CSV to get a more colourful overview of the month as I usually got through my paper based system:
![](https://legacy-cdn.pureleap.com/static/spearoflight-media/2020/04/habits-march.png?w=945)
Habits Overview March
So I think that gives a good enough overview of how successful I was in sticking to the habits. As can be seen, I was not very successful in sticking to my habits, since in the beginning of the month we travelled to Tasmania and didn't really get to doing my usual routine.
![](https://legacy-cdn.pureleap.com/static/spearoflight-media/2020/04/13074587-9fc7-406c-a2cf-1e44b8333eed.jpg?w=1024)
It was getting a bit cold in Tasmania, so we had to get the fireplace going
During the second half of March, I managed to follow the habits somewhat successfully. Like everywhere else we are currently in Coronavirus lock-down. Here my notes for the individual habits:
- Exercise and Stretching: Went running a lot after our return but then got the usual problem of getting too sore for that. For April, I will try something new; I have come up with a few exercises that only target specific muscle groups and will see if I can rotate these, in addition to going running.
- Meditation: Did not do well on this again. I really wonder why it is so difficult for me to bring myself to do this! But I am not giving up yet!
- Touch Typing: Continued my usual exercise of writing JavaScript code. Also started doing some exercises on keybr.com. Looking at the all time statistics there, things don't look too great.
![](https://legacy-cdn.pureleap.com/static/spearoflight-media/2020/04/keybr.png?w=1024)
All time statistics from keybr.com - not doing so great when more keys are added...
- Email: Of course there were a lot of emails piled up after our return from travels but I managed to get on top of that quite quickly.
- Upright Go: I changed my habit 'Posture' to 'Upright Go'. I will now consider this habit done when I wore my Upright Go device anytime during the day.
I continued in March in my epic project to get my highlights and quotes organises. In February, I was able to import all quotes into a database. I explored various frameworks that I could use to provide an easy UI to work with the quotes. However, I eventually gave up since it seemed like a lot of work, especially considering that there are other things I would organise as well - which would require different UI elements and coding. I eventually decided to give Notion a second look (I explored it a few month ago). I found that it can do most of the things I would like to do with the highlights/quotes, especially being able to tag them. Thus I exported the database I created and imported it to Notion. There I have now started tagging. I think I have more than 2000 quotes/highlights to tag.
![](https://legacy-cdn.pureleap.com/static/spearoflight-media/2020/04/notion-quotes.png?w=1024)
My quotes database imported to Notion
I have long been on the quest to develop a system to develop my personal knowledge. Starting with a hand-crafted solution for interconnected PowerPoint slides, to a Java Swing application, Linnk, I developed.
![](https://legacy-cdn.pureleap.com/static/spearoflight-media/2020/04/imageitem.png?w=750)
Linnk application (see linnk.de)
I think Notion has all the main features that I need to organise my knowledge. I will see how I will go with using Notion over the next few months.