Business Operating System in Notion

Link to my free Business system template in Notion.

Currently, Notion expands its product into teamwork and project management as more features, such as Notion Projects, roll out.

Notion positions its product as a hub that connects various apps and serves as knowledge wiki.

A year or so ago Notion acquired Make! (Integromat), a platform that focuses on no-code automation tools. Now we can see the results of that acquisition that creates smooth connections between Notion and apps like github, figma, slack and jira.

Let’s see how we can utilize new and features and blocks to create a system to manage projects, tasks, knowledge base for an entrepreneur or a small business.

## Notion Business OS

There’re many different templates out there but I always like to build my own templates using first principles.

First, I analyze the problem at hand (creating a business operating system).

Second, I define key elements of the system based on the insights and try to create a model.

And the third step is to create relationships between the system’s elements.

I am not going to cover the first step here as it will probably require an article on its own. Instead, I’ll focus on the key elements of my business OS and explain how different parts relate to each other so that it makes sense to you.

Here’s the overview of the structure:

- Dashboard: a central place to show daily operations information such as current projects, tasks, and most useful links.

- Wiki: a knowledge database to store company’s expertise and various resources.

- Clients: a database to store and manage client info.

- Marketing: a page to explore different ways to promote services or a product.

- Vision: company’s vision to keep yourself and your team aligned.

You can always add more sections and pages, but these are the core elements that I am happy with to start. Later, the more I use, the more insight I get how to optimize and improve it.

### Projects and tasks

I started off by utilizing the native Notion Project page as a start. It’s a good template that provides different ways to see projects and related tasks. I’ve modified a few views and added new ones that I need. For example, I like to see the tasks for today and for the next 7 weeks, all tasks at once, and grouped by projects. Optimize and modify these views and filters to suit your workflow.

### Dashboard

Then I created a dashboard page where I placed both my Projects and Tasks databases. Here I can access the task management, and project page with all necessary information. In addition to that, I placed most used links in a column so that I or my team can access them easily. For example, Product (services) page, Wiki, Clients, Market and Vision are all linked here in the most visible place.

### Product

I’ve also created a new `Product` page that is actually a page inside `Projects` database and has it’s own type to easily filter it when needed. The reason I created my product / service page in the `Projects` database is so that it inherits all the related properties that I’ve set up for projects. I can assign tasks and linked goals.

### Wiki

After that I added A `Wiki` page to keep and manage resources, tools, guides, and other types of knowledge. Managing a digital library of knowledge, expertise and resources is a complete topic on its own, and if you are interested, you can read more about in the linked blog post.

The next step was to find a way to track and store client related info. To do that, I created a `Clients` page and database that I connected to `Projects` . Additionally, since I am currently in the process of client acquisition, I added a `Leads` database so that I clearly see where my leads come from and how they become customers.

### Marketing

Next, I created a `Marketing` page where I’ll develop a strategy to promote my services and find clients. This page will be the home of ideas, strategies and exploration. If you already have certain strategies to market your product or service, integrate it into the page.

### Vision

And finally, I created a `Vision` page where I’ll write and find out where I see the product/service/company and what brings me to it as soon as possible.