New Notion Features, 2025 Planning, and More

November 8, 2024

Here are the things we published this week and last. You can also stay up-to-date by following us on Twitter and RSS.

Also, we have a weekly email newsletter that sums up all the new and cool things published to the site. If you like to stay up-to-date via email, then you should sign up here.

Notion’s Massive Updates »

If you are into Notion at all, you’ve probably heard about the latest round of Notion updates. If you are a power user, you are probably losing your mind, because these updates are insane. The release email and recap video made my day.

In this article, I am going to go over three of the biggest updates that Notion released, and mention a few others. The biggest updates (at least to me) are: Notion Layouts, Notion Forms, and updated Automations.

These updates really elevate Notion, making it an even more customizable app. If you fully incorporate these features, you might be able to ditch some of your other paid services and save some serious cash.

Next Week: How to Plan Your Year »

For me, as the pace of life changes during the holiday season, I find myself with more opportunities to think about what’s next for my life, my family, and my business. Sometimes it’s during a late-night dinner with family after we’ve opened another bottle of wine. Or perhaps during a Christmas-light-tour driving date night. Or just a lazy Saturday morning with a hot beverage and a fire going.

I’m one of those people whose brain just lives in the future. I’m always thinking ahead and thinking about what’s next. And so for me, having a head start on what matters most, helps me to slow down during this time.

But for those of you who are the opposite — those of you who hate planning and would rather not be reminded that it's almost 2025… well… this is for you, too.

RSVP HERE »

Morgen Adds Obsidian Integration for Time Blocking Your Plain Text Task List »

I’m a big believer in time-blocking. It’s the best way I know of to make sure that you protect time for the things that are truly important.

But as someone who manages their tasks primarily in Obsidian, there weren’t many options for getting those tasks to show up alongside my meetings and appointments on my digital calendar.

But recently, the team at Morgen released an integration with Obsidian which not only allows me to see my scheduled Obsidian tasks and block time for them on my calendar, but also syncs the completed task status back to Obsidian when I finish them.

Like peanut butter and jelly, it’s a match made in heaven.

We’ve Updated Our Review of The Best Time Tracking App »

The popularity of time tracking seems to have grown exponentially in recent years, and the number of options and resources for people who want a way to intentionally track their time on their Apple devices has kept pace. But of all the time tracking apps out there, the iOS app Timery is the best app on any platform.

It syncs seamlessly with the Toggl web service, has a simple interface for starting, stopping, and storing your timers, has arguably the best iOS widgets we’ve seen, and offers great support for Apple Shortcuts, which opens the door to a world of automation possibilities.

Before we dig in to the app itself, let’s consider the big question: why track your time in the first place?

New Notion Feature: Charts »

When I was a kid, I had quite an elaborate system to track all of my candy. I would get candy for Halloween, Christmas, and Easter and never finish all of it. But my greatest fear was that someone else would eat it.

I had a massive novelty pizza box that I kept on my wall, cause you know art, and I would tape all of my candy inside that pizza box. I then had a tracker to make sure that I could tell if anyone (specifically my siblings) broke into my candy vault and ate some. I think I created my own little spreadsheet on a piece of printer paper.

I think the addition of Notion charts to my 12-year-old self’s life would have been revolutionary.

Notion came out with their new chart feature a few weeks back and to be honest, it’s pretty great. It’s still V1 of the new feature, so there are a few improvements needed. But I’m looking forward to seeing how it gets better.

We’ve Updated Our Review of the Best GTD Task Manager for Mac, iPhone, and iPad »

The “Getting Things Done” methodology and all the apps that work within the GTD system are near and dear to our hearts here at The Sweet Setup. As a result, we’ve spent days and months (even years) testing as many of the best GTD apps as we possibly can.

And no matter how many times we test these apps, we come back to believing Things 3 is the most well-rounded, best designed, and easiest-to-use GTD app available for iPhone, iPad, and the Mac. There are numerous contenders nipping on Things 3’s tail — such as Todoist, which has made some of the biggest strides of any GTD app in recent years — so we’ll continue to watch this space in the coming days and months.