Why you need a master task database in Notion
Summary
TLDRThe video explains how to create a master task database in Notion to track all your tasks in one place. It shows how you can link this database to your weekly or daily agenda to filter and surface only the tasks you need to see at any time. This keeps your workspace organized, saves you time, and allows you to plan projects and assign tasks across your business or personal life while maintaining one unified view of your outstanding to-dos.
Takeaways
- 😀 Create a master tasks database to consolidate tasks from across workspaces
- 📝 Surface master tasks in weekly/daily agendas to focus only on relevant tasks
- 🔀 Embed master tasks database in various workspaces using linked databases
- 👥 Include personal, business, team member tasks in master database
- 🗂 Refine views of embedded database to show most useful info
- 📅 Assign master tasks to specific weeks for better project planning
- 📈 Filter tasks by status/assignee to customize task views
- 🖼 Show tasks in gallery, board, calendar to fit your planning style
- 📤 Archive completed tasks monthly to prevent master DB bloat
- ⛺ Create templates with default task views to save setup time
Q & A
What is a master task database and why is it useful?
-A master task database is a central database in Notion that contains all your tasks across different areas of your life and work. It's useful because it allows you to view, track, and manage all your tasks in one place instead of having them scattered across different databases.
How does the author surface tasks from the master database?
-The author surfaces tasks from the master database by embedding it in different workspaces like her weekly agenda. This allows her to filter and view only the tasks that are relevant for that week or day.
Why does the author archive completed tasks every month?
-The author archives completed tasks monthly to prevent the master task database from becoming too large and unwieldy over time as more and more tasks are added.
What are some ways to filter the embedded task database?
-Some ways to filter the embedded task database are by client, project, assignee, due date, tags, or any other database property. You can create custom views to only surface the most relevant tasks.
Where else can you embed the master task database?
-Besides the weekly or daily agenda, you can also embed the master task database in individual project pages to show all tasks related to that project. Or in dashboards and any other pages where having task visibility would be helpful.
What happens to views when embedding the database?
-Unfortunately, any views you've created in the original master database do not carry over when you embed it. You have to recreate any views you want for the embedded version.
How are tasks assigned to specific weeks?
-When setting up her weekly agenda, the author goes through and manually assigns relevant tasks from the master database to that specific week. This allows her to see what her focuses are for the week at a glance.
Why create a template for embedded databases?
-Creating a template saves time if you will be embedding master task databases in multiple places. You can set up the filters, views, and properties once and then simply spin up new instances from the template.
Can you embed the same database multiple times?
-Yes, you can embed the same master task database multiple times, for example showing tasks for Client 1 in one embedded version and Client 2 in another.
What happens when tasks are completed?
-When tasks are completed, the author will often move them from the embedded weekly view into her daily journal entry as a record of what was accomplished.
Outlines
📝 Overview of using a master task database in Notion
The paragraph provides an overview of using a master task database in Notion to consolidate tasks across different workspaces. It shows an example tasks database and explains that the full database is rarely accessed directly. Instead, it is linked or embedded in other Notion workspaces like the weekly agenda to surface only relevant tasks.
🗂️ Embedding and filtering a master task database
The paragraph explains how to embed a master tasks database in another Notion page using a linked database. It shows filtering and refining the view of the embedded database to only show certain tasks. Custom views and templates are also discussed to set default views when embedding the database.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡master task database
💡weekly agenda
💡embedding
💡task view
💡notion template
💡data consolidation
💡workspace
💡surfacing tasks
💡linked database
💡notion automation
Highlights
Create one master tasks database that has everything you ever need to do across all areas of your business, life, etc.
The master tasks database is a big dump of data - it's not necessarily useful to see it all at once.
Surface master task data across different workspaces in different ways based on what's most useful.
The weekly agenda is where most time is spent plotting out tasks, focus areas, meetings, etc. on a granular level.
Embed the master tasks database in the weekly agenda to link tasks while keeping the view refined.
Create templates with the embedded database filtered how you want so new agenda pages have useful default views.
Pull tasks into the weekly agenda from the database so you can see at a glance what to focus on.
Embed the master tasks database in other areas like daily agendas or specific projects to surface relevant data.
Archive completed tasks regularly to avoid an overly large master database.
Client data, personal tasks, etc. are all stored in one master database and surfaced where useful.
Embed a database view showing only data for that specific project inside project pages.
Creating a master database allows calling data across multiple workspaces, saving time.
Refine embedded database views to only show the most valuable, useful data needed.
Update views on embedded databases easily to display info differently as needed.
Keeping a single source of truth in the master database avoids scatter and duplication.
Transcripts
I want to show you why you need a master
task database in your notion workspace
so if you have been using notion for any
amount of time and you've been creating
tasks for yourself and playing with the
different ways of organizing your
workspaces you might have asked yourself
how to start pulling data that lives in
different places into the same area can
I pull entries from this database in
this database and you know be able to
see all the tasks that I have to do
basically and the easiest way to do this
is to create one master tasks database
that has everything that you ever need
to do across all of the different areas
of your business your life what have you
so we do this at okie-dokie we have a
task database here this one's got some
test data in there to show you what this
looks like so this is basically a big
dump of 12-hour tasks very rarely if
ever do I go in to this task database
it's there's too much data in there I
don't need to see it it's not
necessarily useful for me to see it in
this way because it's got again business
personal Ben's tasks my tasks and I
don't always need to see that
information all at once so what I do is
I surface this information in different
ways across different workspaces the
most notable of which is the weekly
agenda that's where I spend most of my
time so I'm just gonna jump into my
dashboard my dashboard does actually
have a master task database embedded
down below I also got a lot of personal
information in this dashboard so I'm
just going to quickly show you what this
looks like to embed a master task
database inside of a weekly agenda so I
have this weekly database here and I've
got a template for creating new weeks so
I'm just going to create a new week and
if I click we it's going to pull up my
template open this as a page
let's see we're gonna do August actually
we're already in September now so why
don't we just set this up for September
9th to September 15th excellent okay
September 9th to 15th so this is my
weekly agenda for this particular week
and whenever I set up a new week usually
I do this on Sunday I will favorite that
workspace and that will get added to my
favorites up there which I won't show
you just at the moment I've got some
personal projects in there but so this
is my weekly template and this is where
I spend most of my time every day every
week I plot out all of my personal
projects drop them in here put my most
important things my big focus for the
week focus for the day and then below
you'll notice there's this gallery down
below so this is an embedded task
database so you can see it's got the
same icon it's got that little arrow so
it's showing that I can actually
navigate to this original database if I
want to go back there click on that and
you'll see them back in this database
again but we just want to go back to
this space that I've created open it as
a page again
and so to do that to do it from scratch
I'll just show you you can use this
command create link state link database
choose your database tasks there you go
and you'll see it just does a big dump
of all of the information in there and
then you can refine it to show only the
things that you want to show you could
show it in a Kanban board if if you'd
like I've got one set up here all tasks
by week and so basically that turns it
into a bit of a Kanban and you can
adjust these properties as well if you
want it to span span medium or large
size just to kind of get it to a line
with my calendar up above and the reason
I like to separate out my like very
quick to do's and little tasks and just
kind of notes and meetings and things
like that above and then these are
speaking more in-depth tasks but yeah
this is this just allows you again to
refine this view any way you want so if
you wanted to show this by personal or
different areas of your life you could
do that if you only want to show
specific clients you can have each
client kind of zone view there's so many
different ways you can surface that
information in a way that makes sense
for you and again you can refine this to
only show what's due this week and
anything that's not deferred anything
that's assigned to me I can show this in
whatever way I want by default there's
no there's no kind of default views
ready to go it doesn't translate the
views for example like we've created
these pre-made views over here
unfortunately those don't get translated
when you embed your master test database
in your area so you will have to create
your own view decide what you want that
to look like you know for example I
could I could view it on a calendar if I
wanted to and that will show all the
things that are due at the moment so
you've got a couple options in terms of
how you want to show it again for me
personally I've made this into a
template so if I show you what this
looks like I've already got the master
tasks database already embedded in this
template with the settings that I want
so if you know that you're going to be
doing this over and over again I would
recommend creating a template wherever
you're going to be using these master
tasks and just filter them by whatever
you want and for example maybe I'm going
to filter this and I'm gonna field trip
it just show these properties full size
there you go and so maybe I want that to
be my default now so anytime I spin up a
new instance of this weekly planner
you're going to see this as your default
view and again these are other options
as well so all tasks by week that can be
my default view if I want it to be I
just leave it on this gallery view for
the moment so just to go back to show
you here I think now I've got to to
master tasks databases and he
just to show you but what's kind of fun
too is you know you can embed the same
the same database but this one could
include just client one this one could
include just client too the options are
really endless in terms of surfacing
only the data that you want to see in a
given moment that's going to be most
valuable to you
sometimes when I'm finished one of these
tasks I'll also do a quick move and I
will move it into my journal entry as
well but that's neither here nor there
so yeah I I by default tend to always
include master TAS database right in my
weekly planner I do sometimes embed it
in my daily agenda and again the beauty
about this too is when you have a master
tasks database I can assign certain
tasks to this week so at the beginning
of the week on Sunday I can say oh I
want to do that newsletter strategy
project I want to you know recent
confirmation email these are just test
tasks so they're not actually my tasks
for the week but the beauty then is I'm
pulling those tasks from that database
so at a glance here I kind of know what
my project focuses and I can jump right
into those right away and jump straight
to information so that's really the
beauty of notion is that you can pull in
and you can surface only the data that
you want or need to see if it's going to
be useful for you in the moment so I've
just really designed you know my weekly
agenda to only show me what is going to
be helpful for me and what I need to see
on a weekly basis and I just want this
standard view of my tasks anything
that's assigned to me I want to see the
date I want to see what project it's a
part of but again I can I can change
that up very very easily just to show me
that information in different ways that
might be helpful so I hope that's
helpful for you I do this with every
single client project so all of my
client data all of my personal tasks all
of Ben's personal tasks everything is
stored in this master tasks database
every month once we hit a certain number
of tasks really I just go through
and I will select everything that is
marked as complete and I will actually
move that into the archive too and that
kind of keeps the master database
database from getting a little too
unwieldy and yeah that's that's been a
game changer for us is just to again
embed this tasks database wherever you
want or need it you can embed it into
singular projects as well which is
pretty handy so if I open up the
specific project I can just embed any
tasks that are associated with that
project and that only I hope that's
helpful
I hope that you'll be able to create
your own you know master tasks database
and embed it pretty easily whether you
use a weekly agenda or a daily agenda
whatever works for you but definitely
being able to call the same information
across different workspaces is just
going to save you so much time
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