Using Notion to Manage Your Life - Part 10 of 12 - The Media Database

December 13, 2020
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Introduction

This lesson was originally intended to create a Books Database to track your library of physical and digital books.  However, by simply adding a "Category" field to the database, we can expand it to other types of media as well, such as Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, etc.

We can also easily expand this database further, by adding additional categories, to capture Recipes (have the ingredients added to your shopping list), Quotes, or any other non-Media collections.

Depending on your needs, you may want to add fields specific to the Category created or you can duplicate this database and create a new, custom database for the specific collection.

Let's dive in...

Topics in Today's Lesson

  1. Creating the Media Database
  2. Creating Views for the Media Database
  3. Using the Media Database

Notion Tutorials

  1. Getting Started with Notion
  2. Creating and Using the Notes Database
  3. Creating Templates for the Notes Database
  4. Creating and Using the Tasks Database
  5. Project Management Using Notion
  6. Goal Setting and Tracking
  7. Daily Tracking and Habits
  8. Weekly and Monthly Reviews
  9. Creating a Contacts Database or CRM
  10. Creating Book/Recipe/etc. Databases
  11. Using the Notion Web Clipper
  12. Bringing it Together with Global Tags

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Lesson 10: Creating the Media Database

Step 1: Under the "Shortcuts" section of the dashboard, add a new sub-page under "Contacts" named "Media Database".

Step 2: Add an icon to the page and select "Table".  Rename "Name" to "Title" and delete the "Tags" field.  Add the following fields:

  • Sub Title (Text)
  • Creator (Text)
  • Image (File)
  • Category (Select)
  • Status (Select)
  • Priority (Select)
  • Website (URL)
  • Completion Date (Date)
  • Rating (Select)
  • Recommended by (Relation to Contacts Database)
  • Notes (Relation to Notes Database)
  • Tasks (Relation to Tasks Database)

Step 3: Add the following selections to the appropriate fields:

Category

  • Books
  • Movies
  • TV Shows

Status

  • Not Started
  • In Progress
  • Completed

Priority

  • High
  • Medium
  • Low

Rating

  • 1 - ⭐
  • 2 - ⭐⭐
  • 3 - ⭐⭐⭐
  • 4 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
  • 5 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Step 4: Add any other media you would like to track to the "Category" selection.  Delete the empty rows and change the field length as needed.

Lesson 10: Creating Views for the Media Database

Step 1: Click "Add a view", select Table and name it "Books Table - All".  Add a Filter to show where the "Category" is "Books".

Step 2: Create a new view as a Table and name it "Books Table - Read".  Add a filter to show all books where the Status is "Completed".

Step 3: Create a new view as a Gallery and name it "Books Gallery - All".  Add a filter to show all books where the Status is "Completed".  Go into the Properties and change the "Card preview" to the "Image" field we created.

Step 4: Select "Fit image" and toggle on the "Sub Title" and "Creator" fields.

Repeat this for each of your Categories and the different Status you would like to view.

Lesson 10: Using the Media Database

Step 1: Click "New" and rearrange the fields so they flow smoother.

Step 2: Fill out the applicable information.  To get an image to use in the database, find the image online, right click on it and select "Copy image address".  Now paste that link in the Image field.  You can also upload an image from your computer.

Step 3: If you pasted the correct link (usually a JPG file), you should see an icon of the image.

Step 4: As you add media to the database, select the appropriate view based on what you would like to see.

End of Lesson 10: The Media Database

This is a simple database, but one that can be quite powerful.  As always, customize it to your specific needs.  As you are taking notes for a book you are reading, you can link the note to the book.  You can add a Recipe Category and expand it beyond just media.  The limits re only constrained by your imagination.

Next week we will review how to use the Notion Web Clipper with this database to easily capture data on the web.

Notion Tutorials

  1. Getting Started with Notion
  2. Creating and Using the Notes Database
  3. Creating Templates for the Notes Database
  4. Creating and Using the Tasks Database
  5. Project Management Using Notion
  6. Goal Setting and Tracking
  7. Daily Tracking and Habits
  8. Weekly and Monthly Reviews
  9. Creating a Contacts Database or CRM
  10. Creating Book/Recipe/etc. Databases
  11. Using the Notion Web Clipper
  12. Bringing it Together with Global Tags

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Lesson 10: Free Notion Template

Here is the link to the template we just created. To add this template to your workspace, click the "Duplicate" link in the upper right of the screen.

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