Plan your higher education better using this App!
- imran ali
- Sep 25, 2022
- 3 min read
Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” – David Allen
David Allen, the writer of one of the best productivity books i.e. “Getting Things Done” has very well said about our minds. He emphasizes the use of mind in truly creative manner for which we need to have a trusted and secure place to store all of the information that floats around in our heads. Our action items, to-do lists, important creative thoughts, etc. should be captured somewhere externally. This trusted external place is referred to as a second brain.
Planning for higher studies is very demanding as student comes across a lot of information and being totally reliant on the brain is going to make the process very unproductive and chaotic. Therefore, students must use software to help ease the process. Tasks such as filtering and sorting information, writing letter of motivation, and getting deadline reminders are list of few of the important aspects of the process. Softwares that are commonly used to accomplish such tasks are Ms Excel, Word, Apple Notes, Google Docs, Reminders app and many more.
No doubt that these softwares are very powerful when used standalone. However, juggling around these apps make the entire process quite cumbersome.
Wait, Wait…….Don’t lose hope!
What if I tell you that there is one game-changing app, one workspace to address all of your problems? The app that will efficiently deal with all of the tasks of your application? Yes, you heard it right and this app is none other than “NOTION”.
What information should I store in Notion?
Well, this varies from student to student. Check out my first post to help you get started with the application and decide which parameters are needed to shortlist programs. Generally, you need to capture the following information for each program:
Name of the program
University Name
City and Country
Fees/semester
Scholarships
Application start and end date
Standard test requirement
Remarks → your comments after reading the description
Program intake → summer or winter
Ratings
Career prospects
The journey from capturing to shortlisting programs requires revisiting the university website and further scraping information to make a firm decision. However, there are times when you have to send queries to university regarding your eligibility in the program or information regarding funding or scholarships. Adding this information directly in notion helps save time and makes information readily available for further reference. Also, to successfully apply to shortlisted programs; you must set up reminders in the notion app directly.
Basics of Notion
On the surface level, the Notion app looks pretty simple but is very deep and can accomplish more than an average user thinks. Therefore, having sound knowledge of the basics of the app might help you get started. Here is the description of a few:
Blocks: A block in Notion includes many things like simple text, headings, images, videos, to-do lists, toggle lists, embedded links, quotes, databases and many more. You can simply access basic blocks by typing “/” inside a page.
Page: A page is simply a stacking of all the blocks.
Databases: A database in Notion is similar to a table in Excel. We can filter and sort data in the database. Each entry in the database has its own associated page where we can write specific information. Take a look at the following pictures.
Links: Linking blocks or pages are useful for making connections between different chunks of information. Pages can simply be linked by typing “[[”. Blocks on the other hand can be just mentioned or pasted as synced blocks.
A Glimpse of my Notion Workspace
Here is the link to my Application tracker. I am satisfied to use Notion as my second brain for this project and therefore recommend you to use it as well. I believe that this software has a lot to offer and everyone must invest time in learning this tool. Here is the list of free resources to learn Notion:
So to summarize, in this blog I discussed why to use software at all to handle the master's application, and what if we can replace all the traditional softwares with a single software that will manage all aspects of the project smoothly. Furthermore, I went through the basics of this powerful software and in the last, I mentioned some free resources that can help you dive deep into learning this powerful software.
This is really helpful 👍 Thank you!!