Here’s how creators use Notion, which I introduced on YouTube previously.
This time, we'll introduce digital creator Yuka's YouTube management techniques using Notion, including unreleased scenes that we couldn't fit into the video!
👩🏻🦰 Yuka Ohishi
A digital creator based in Brooklyn. On YouTube, she shares information on how to lead a more creative life using technology, primarily through gadget reviews, tutorials, and vlogs. She runs a web service called Notomo that can be used with Notion templates, which she develops with her husband.
🎥 YouTube：https://www.youtube.com/@yuka
🎬 Director：Rei
✍🏻 Writer：Minokurumi
1. Top page that brings all content together
Yuka introduced us to the "Launchpad" page, where content is managed by the team.
"At the top of the page, I have widgets displaying the time and weather in Brooklyn, where I currently live. The weather widget uses a service called 'Indify.' You can change the background color to any color you like, so I match the color with the clock widget and arrange them like a top bar."
Below the widgets is a calendar showing a list of planned content posts.
"This is a project list, and it contains all scheduled content posts, such as YouTube videos, Shorts, and podcasts."
The calendar can be switched between tabs, separating "Japanese content," "English content," and "vertical content" in addition to the overview.
"When the overview calendar gets cluttered and difficult to understand, I use these tabs to check by category."
Furthermore, Yuka had a particularこだわり (preference/special attention) for the tags used to categorize this content.
"I created a separate database just for tags and linked it to projects with a relation. It's similar to how Rei's brother uses it. I also put a little thought into the tag icons; I color-code them by genre, so green for English and orange for Japanese, which makes it easy to grasp at a glance on the calendar."
"Below the content calendar, I display the tasks linked to projects on a weekly basis. This is where I check what needs to be done this week."
🔗 Click here to see how my brother uses Notion!
2. Page content and how it's used by the team
Yuka shares this "Launchpad" with her creative team members and uses it together. She showed us how it's used, including pages for YouTube, podcasts, and meeting minutes.
2-1. YouTube Page
When you open each project in the calendar, there are pages for YouTube tasks and scriptwriting. A page template is used to automatically create the page structure.
"When I click the 'Add tasks' button, the tasks for uploading a YouTube video appear instantly. This uses the button function, and these tasks are linked to a separate 'Task Database.' I can also select who to assign the tasks to here, and of course, team members can access it, so we can all check on the progress."
Below the task management section, there were also fields for research notes and scripts.
"The research notes are where I gather information and make notes when reviewing products. I always write scripts while reading those notes."
Yuka often writes detailed scripts, and the project she showed me had meticulously written scripts.
"To ensure smooth communication with the editor, I often include where test clips should be placed and editing instructions."
This could be very helpful for teams that edit together!
2-2. Podcast page
"Here, I only display items tagged 'Podcast' from the calendar I mentioned earlier. Since podcasts have fixed days, I use a simple list view here."
The page contained sections for notes on interesting articles, scripts, and description text.
"Since I cover tech news in the podcast, I always talk while looking at this. I also usually write the description text here and then copy-paste it."
2-3. Meeting Minutes
Yuka holds a weekly team meeting, and the meeting minutes she uses contain many points worth imitating.
For the weekly meeting minutes, simply pressing the "Meeting Minutes Template" button would insert the template.
"I could make it a database, but during meetings, you want to see last week's minutes, right? It was a hassle to go back and forth with a database, so I ended up simply stacking them chronologically from the bottom."
Indeed, this way of writing allows for easy review of past meeting minutes! It's definitely a usage method worth emulating.
The template includes fields for analytical notes and for jotting down to-do items that arise during the meeting.
"During the meeting, we always confirm the content for the current week. So, I check the schedule for the week on the calendar above, and if anything comes up, I add it to the ToDo list."
2-4. [Unpublished] How to Use Discord
Yuka says that she usually communicates with her team members via chat (Discord).
"On Discord, we have a place to organize branding colors, a place to share thumbnail ideas and inspiration, and a place to discuss podcast and video editing."
She uses Discord for conversations and sharing reference materials, and Notion for project management.
Using Discord not only for conversation but also for sharing reference cases and organizing branding information is very insightful.
3. Yuka's favorite things about Notion
At the end of the interview, I asked Yuka what she likes about Notion!
"What I love about Notion is that even for a humanities-leaning geek like me, who's not an engineer, I can create app-like screens. I think the appeal of Notion is that I can quickly realize the pages I envision in my head with just a few clicks.
Another thing is that I can dump all the jumbled thoughts in my head into one simple 'database.' Being able to easily organize my thoughts and information, and change how I view it depending on the situation, is also one of my favorite things about Notion."
Even when used by a team, as Yuka does, well-organized information can smooth communication and help projects progress seamlessly.
4. In conclusion
That concludes our introduction to how Yuka's team utilizes it!
My interview with Yuka is also featured in the book "Notion Life Hacks." In the book, we discuss how Notion is used for personal finance, specifically a Notion household budget linked to a service called "Notomo."
"Notion has an API, a mechanism that allows you to pull data from the backend to another location. Utilizing that, my engineer husband and I developed a service called Notomo.
By simply inputting your expenses into the database, Notomo can show you how much money you spent on what this month, using graphs."
Get Notion Life Hacks here!
If you'd like to watch this interview in video form, be sure to check out our YouTube channel!
The ultimate task management template "Todotion" for Notion is here!
The two-hour "Notion Master Course" is now available, teaching Notion from scratch!
Our book "Notion Life Hacks," which introduces 36 ways to use Notion, is also now on sale!
