Creating a Notes Database

What is a Personal Knowledge Management System?

Before we start building, let's clarify what we're aiming for. A PKM system is your private, digital library of information. It's a structured place to save everything you want to remember, from book summaries and article clippings to random shower thoughts and meeting notes.

To understand the core concept, spend a few minutes reading the introduction from this helpful article.

1. Planning Your 'Notes' Database

Your background in project management will be useful here. Before building any system, it's wise to define its requirements. What information do we need our 'Notes' database to hold?

A professional note-taking system goes beyond just a title and text. The article "How to Track Notes, Ideas & Research in Notion Like a Pro" lists several key properties that turn a simple list of notes into a powerful, searchable library. The most important ones for us right now are:

• Tags/Topics: To categorize notes by theme (e.g., Design, Productivity).
• Note Type: To specify the kind of note (e.g., Book Summary, Quick Idea).
• Source/Reference: To link back to the original article, book, or website.

We will now build a database that includes these properties.

2. Building the 'Notes' Database and Its Properties

We'll follow a best practice of keeping our "master" databases in a dedicated, tucked-away page to keep our workspace clean. The following video demonstrates how to build a note-taking system from the ground up. We will use it as a guide to create our database and add its first set of properties.

Now, let's break down the specific properties you need to create for your 'Notes' database.

A. Tags (Multi-select Property)

Tags are for high-level categorization. A single note might touch on multiple topics, so we need a property that allows for multiple selections. The Multi-select property is perfect for this.

• Property Type: Multi-select
• Name: Tags
• Purpose: To assign one or more topics to a note, making it easy to find all notes related to "Design" or "Content Creation," for example.

The video below gives a very quick and clear demonstration of creating a Multi-select property.

A well-developed tag system is invaluable. The image below shows what a Tags property looks like once you've built up a library of categories.

B. Type (Select Property)

Unlike tags, a note usually has only one primary type. Is it a book summary? A meeting note? A quick idea? For this, we use the Select property, which limits you to a single choice.

• Property Type: Select
• Name: Type
• Purpose: To define the format or context of the note. This helps you filter for specific kinds of information, like seeing all your meeting notes in one place.

C. Source (URL Property)

If your note is based on an external resource, like an article or a video, you need a way to get back to it. The URL property is a simple text field formatted specifically for web links.

• Property Type: URL
• Name: Source
• Purpose: To store the hyperlink to the original webpage, article, or online resource.

The image below shows these properties working together in a finished database entry. You can see the Type is "Book", it has multiple Tags ("Leadership", "Personal Development"), and a Link (our 'Source').

✍️ Exercise: Build Your 'Notes' Database

It's time to put this all together. Follow these steps to create the foundation of your PKM system.

Your Tasks:

• 1. Create the Structure:

  • Create a new, empty page in your sidebar and name it "My PKM System". Give it an icon of your choice (a brain 🧠 or book 📚 works well).
  • Inside this page, create another page and name it "Databases". This is where your master databases will live.

• 2. Build the Database:

  • Navigate into your new "Databases" page.
  • Create a new Full-page database by typing /database and selecting the full-page option.
  • Name the new database "Notes".

• 3. Configure Properties:

  • By default, Notion adds a 'Tags' property. Click its name, then click 'Delete property'. We'll create our own from scratch.
  • Click the + sign to add a new property. Create a Multi-select property and name it Tags.
    • Add a few starter options relevant to you, such as Content Idea, Design Inspiration, Project Management, and Notion Templates.
  • Add another property. This time, create a Select property and name it Type.
    • Add options like Quick Idea, Article Summary, Book Note, and Meeting Note.
  • Add a final property. Create a URL property and name it Source.

• 4. Add Sample Notes:

  • Create two new entries in your database to see how it works.
    1. Note 1: Name it "Idea for a New Notion Template". Set its Type to Quick Idea and its Tags to Notion Templates and Content Idea.
    2. Note 2: Name it "Summary of Grizzly Templates PKM Article". Set its Type to Article Summary and its Tag to personal knowledge management. Paste the article's URL into the Source property.

You should now have a clean, functional database ready to capture your ideas and research!

Conclusion

Great job! You've successfully built the foundational database for your Personal Knowledge Management system. This 'Notes' database is the central hub where all your ideas, research, and learning will be stored. By thoughtfully setting up properties like Tags, Type, and Source, you've created a structure that is not only easy to use but also powerful enough to scale as your knowledge library grows.

Key Takeaways:

• A Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) system acts as your digital second brain.
• A well-structured 'Notes' database is the heart of a PKM system.
• Use the Multi-select property for topics or tags where an item can have multiple categories.
• Use the Select property for attributes where an item can only have one value (like a status or type).
• The URL property is essential for linking notes back to their original sources.

Preview of the Next Lesson:
Our PKM system is just getting started. Many of our notes will come from things we consume—articles, books, and courses. In the next lesson, we will build a dedicated 'Reading List' database to track these resources. After that, we'll learn one of Notion's most powerful features: creating a Relation to link our 'Notes' database directly to our new 'Reading List'.