Productive Design: A Simple Guide to Making Notion Work Better for You

Have you ever opened an app and felt instantly lost or distracted? Productive Design. The way something is designed isn’t just about making it look cool. It actually has a huge effect on how well you can focus and get things done. This is the battle between aesthetics (what looks good) and function (what works best).

The secret is to find a balance. Let’s learn how to design your Notion workspace to be both nice to look at and super helpful for your productivity.

What Is Productive Design?

Productive design means creating a space that helps you focus and work efficiently, not just one that looks nice.

Why Your Brain Loves a Simple Screen

Imagine your brain has a limited amount of focus fuel. A cluttered, busy screen with too many colors, pictures, and buttons uses up that fuel quickly. Your brain is so busy looking at everything that it has no energy left for your actual work.

This is why the general rule is: Minimalistic layouts are less distracting and help you focus. A clean, simple design saves your brain’s energy for what matters.

5 Key Rules for a Productive Design

You can apply these rules to almost any app, especially Notion.

1. Keep It Simple, But Not Too Hidden.
It’s smart to be organized and put things away. But if you hide important information behind too many pages, you’ll waste time clicking around and get lost. The goal is to make things easy to find, not to make them disappear.

2. Use Dark Mode to Save Your Eyes.
For people who work long hours, dark mode is a game-changer. By turning the bright white background to a darker color, it reduces the strain on your eyes. Less strain means you can focus for a longer time without getting tired.

3. Use Clear Contrast (But Don’t Go Crazy).
High contrast means using colors that are very different from each other, like black text on a white background. This makes words easy to read. However, you shouldn’t use too many bright, clashing colors everywhere. That is just as distracting as a cluttered screen! Stick to a simple color scheme.

4. Make Sure It Works on Your Phone.
You might build the perfect page on your computer, but what happens when you open it on your phone? A good design translates to mobile. If it looks messy on a small screen, you won’t be able to use it on the go.

5. Hide the Mess with Toggles.
This is one of the best tricks for Notion. Instead of creating a whole new page for extra notes or details, hide it under a toggle list. This keeps your main page clean and simple, but the information is still just one click away. It’s the perfect way to “hide the unnecessary” without losing it.

Building Your Super-Productive Notion Dashboard

Your Notion dashboard is like the main control center. Its main job is to save you time. Here’s how to build one.

The Golden Rule: Shorten the clicks. Make everything you need easy to reach.

• Buttons: Create buttons for actions you do all the time, like “Start New Essay” or “Log My Hours.”
• Internal Links: Use these as shortcuts to your most important pages. You can even make a “Back to Top” link for long pages.
• Table of Contents: A table of contents at the top of a long page lets you jump to any section instantly.

Your Notion setup sucks if you do this…
byu/thibs-notions inNotion

Picking the Perfect Notion View for the Job

Notion lets you look at your information in different ways, called “views.” Picking the right view helps you understand your information faster and reduces how much you have to think about it.

• Table View: Best for inputting lots of organized information, like a list of all your class assignments and their due dates.
• Board View: Perfect for visualizing tasks and projects (like To Do, Doing, Done). It reduces information overload. Pro Tip: Set it to “Page View” so you don’t lose sight of your main dashboard.
• Calendar View: Helps you see all your deadlines and time allocation in one glance. You’ll instantly know what’s due and when.
• List View: Great for simple list checking, like a weekly chore list or a packing checklist.
• Gallery View: Awesome for organizing visual information, like project inspiration, book covers, or mood boards. It improves how fast you can recognize something. Pro Tip: Just like with the Board view, set this to “Page View” to keep your front page as the main focus.

Brutal Truth about beautiful templates.

Posts from the productivity
community on Reddit

Conclusion: Build a Workspace That Works for You

Designing for productivity isn’t about creating a boring, blank page. It’s about being smart and making your tools work for you. By using a simple design, helpful features like dark mode, and Notion’s clever tricks like toggles and page views, you can build a workspace that looks great and helps you do your best work.

Stop fighting with a messy screen. Start building a Notion setup that boosts your focus and helps you get stuff done.

FAQs

References.

Inie, N. & Dalsgaard, P. (2020) ‘How interaction designers use tools to manage ideas’, ACM Transactions on Computer–Human Interaction, 27(2), pp. 1–26. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.08139

Smith, S. & Carette, J. (2021) ‘Long-Term Productivity Based on Science, not Preference’, Workshop on the Science of Scientific-Software Development and Use (U.S. Department of Energy). Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.12580

Smith, W. Spencer & Carette, J. (2020) ‘Long-term Productivity for Long-term Impact’, Computing and Software Department, McMaster University. June 29, 2020. Available at: https://collegeville.github.io/CW20/WorkshopResources/WhitePapers/smith-carette-redefining-productivity.pdf

Notion (n.d.) ‘Power your deep work using Research Mode in Notion’. Available at: https://www.notion.com/he/help/guides/power-your-deep-work-using-research-mode-in-notion

OneClickCopy (2025) ‘How to use a Notion Template: A comprehensive guide for optimizing productivity’. Available at: https://oneclickcopy.com/blog/how-to-use-a-notion-template-a-comprehensive-guide-for-optimizing-productivity