A Topic-centric Approach To Organizing Content using Notion

When I create content, I start off with a topic. Then, I create different content pieces revolving around that topic targeting different platforms like Hashnode, Dev.to, or Twitter.

In fact, I recently Tweeted about this, that content creation nowadays is about creating content once and distributing it everywhere.

When I started using Notion, my first idea was to apply this approach to my workspace. Here's how I did it.

The Databases

The first things I created in Notion are 2 databases:

Topics
Content

Topic Database

This is the database that will contain all of my topics & ideas. In this database, I only have one 1 template and it looks like this: 1 Topic Template.PNG

The 2 major fields in this template are:

Tags - a multi-valued field that I can further use to classify my ideas
Related to Content Calendar (Topic) - this is an auto-generated field because of a Relation field added in the templates under the Content database. We'll discuss this further later.

This database is using a Table view and it looks like this: 1.1 Topics - Data.PNG

Content Database

This database will contain all of my actual content pieces.

I created 2 templates under this:

Tweet - for posting on, well, Twitter
Article - for posting on blogging platforms

Both templates have this structure: 2 Content Template - Article.PNG

The major fields for these templates are:

Type - this is the type of content piece (Article or Tweet). Though, this is already predefined by the templates.
Topic - this is the Relation field I mentioned earlier. This allows me to define which topic this piece of content is related to.
Status - specifies the state of this content piece. It has the following possible values:
Publication Date & URL - to allow me to specify the publication info once the content piece is published.

Lastly, the main body content of the template will be where I write the actual content.

Assets Sub-page

As you may have noticed, there's a default sub-page in these templates named Assets. This sub-page allows me to upload the assets that I'll embed in the content piece.

Based on its parent template, this sub-page will have a different default value under it.

For Tweets, it'll look like this:
For Articles:

Board View

For this template, I used a Board view so I can easily track the individual status of my content pieces: 8 Content Calendar - Data.PNG

Wrapping Up

So, this is how I manage my content in Notion! This approach really helped me become more organized.

Now, every time I think of an idea, I first log it in the Topics database. With Notion's mobile apps, I can even do this while on the go.

Then, I'll create the related content pieces depending on which platforms I'm targeting.

I'm also planning to create more Content templates to handle different platforms like Facebook or even YouTube.

Do you have any suggestions or comments on how I can improve this? I would love to hear your thoughts so leave them in the comments section below!

Hey, you! Follow me on Twitter!

A Topic-centric Approach To Organizing Content using Notion

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