Notion Databases: 10 Things I Needed To Learn
What I wish I knew when starting with Notion databases
Notion is the first major note-taking app to provide full database functionality to its users. While easy to use when you get to grips with it, there are a lot of associated concepts to understand, some of which even the Notion interface can confuse you with. Here I share a cheatsheet of what I learnt about Notion databases and what I wish I had available to me as I did so.
Think of a Notion database as a table with superpowers. It has rows and columns like a table, but in Notion every row can contain its own set of information beyond what’s in that common set of columns.
Every row is a separate Pandora’s Box ready for you to open it — hopefully with a lot less evil spilt into the world.
If you’ve worked with any spreadsheet programme, like Excel or Google Sheets, you’ll be right at home with the basic functionality. But even if you’ve never worked with any of those before, if you can work with a table of columns and rows, you can work with a Notion database.
In Notion terms, each column is called a property and each row is called an entry. Here’s a blank database to see those concepts in action:
Learning #1 — Entry Pages: Notion’s greatest feature
When you hover your mouse pointer over any entry (row) in a database, an Open button appears that, when clicked, opens the corresponding page for that entry.
At first this might not seem like much but it means besides all the properties that an entry has, the entry page can store so much more about that entry.
For example, perhaps you have a database of books: for those that you’ve read, you want to jot down all your notes of what you learnt from each book — you do so within the entry page for each book. For those books you have yet to read, their entry pages will be empty waiting for you one day to add to them.
Because entry pages are just like any other kind of page in Notion, you can add any blocks you want, including videos, images, and links. You can even create sub-pages in the entry page. You get to decide how much to put into each entry’s entry page.
💡 Tip: To get to the database that contains the entry page, use the breadcrumbs at the top of the Notion screen and go one level up.
Learning #2 — Database Types: There’s only one type of database
When you want to create a database, Notion asks you to choose between creating a database “Inline” or “Full page”. Don’t stress about this, it’s an unnecessary complication of the user interface because they’re exactly the same type of database, neither option has more features than the other.
It’s the choice between whether you plan to put other content on the page around the database or want the database to be its own page entirely. You can switch between these types easily later at any point without losing any data.
💡 Tip: If in doubt when creating a new database, just select Database - Full page.
Learning #3 — Database Limits: There is no limit to how many databases you can have or where you put them
You can create any number of databases in Notion, each can have any number of properties, and you can store any number of entries.
You will encounter slower page loads though the more you put into one database or on one page. To ensure the page performs fast enough, there is a load limit placed in terms of the number of entries Notion loads at a time.
And, like everything else in Notion, a database is a block so you can place the database pretty much anywhere you need. You can also put multiple databases onto one page using the Inline Database option.
💡 Tip: Explore load limits for larger databases and use views to reduce how much data to load at once.
Learning #4 — Database Views: Each database has at least one view and you can create any number of views
When you have lots of entries and properties in a database, it can become difficult to make sense of all that information and you find yourself scrolling a lot.
A view helps you hide the different pieces of information you need by specifying the:
- properties to show or hide
- order that properties are listed
- entries to show using filters
- way to sort those entries
Even though a view is not showing all your data, nothing is ever lost in your database. A view is merely hiding stuff that you don’t want to see of that database at that time.
💡 Tip: For big databases, create a view using the Table Layout that shows all properties and has no filters so that you can reference it if you need to remind yourself of the full database structure.
Learning #5 — Layouts: A layout is part of a view
A layout is a visual way of representing data in a view, every view must have one layout.
Besides the traditional Table or List, there are several more visual layouts to choose from:
Layouts can be another confusing terminology area when getting started with Notion databases because when you want to insert a database, you’re presented with several options labelled as “views” that all have very familiar names:
These options are technically named after the layout that will be used for the first view of the new database you’ll be inserting. Think of these options phrased rather as “New Database With a View Using a Table Layout”.
💡 Tip: Create a different view for each layout that you want to use for the database rather than trying to change the layout each time within the same view.
Learning #6 — Linked Views: A linked view is not a copy of a database
The linked view has gone through various name changes in Notion in an effort to best try and describe what it does. It’s a special view of a database that is placed on other pages to show the content of the database wherever you need to.
Any changes you make to the entries in a linked view, change the underlying database it provides a view of. There is only one version of each of your databases, along with any number of linked views of that database.
When creating a linked view, you can copy an existing view from your database to use as the basis for the linked view. After creating the linked view however, its settings (in terms of filtering, sorting, and layout) are completely separate from the views in your database.
💡 Tip: Try to use linked views more than working directly in a database.
Learning #7 — Name Property: A property with special considerations
A Notion database at a minimum must have the Name property, which has several important qualities.
You CANNOT:
- change what type of information the Name property stores to anything other than text because it’s used for auto-naming each entry page
- delete the Name property because it’s the only property where that Open button appears
- wrap the Name property’s contents like you can with other properties
You CAN:
- rename the Name property itself to anything you’d like (I like to rename it to the singular version of what my database is holding, for example in the Tasks database, the Name property is renamed to Task)
- reposition the Name property by dragging its column heading to the right so that it’s not the first column in your database
💡 Tip: To make it easy to open entry pages on mobile, create a simple view and ensure the Name property is the first column.
Learning #8 — Peek Mode: Entry pages can open in different ways based on the view
Until recently, when clicking the Open button, Notion displayed the entry page in a central popup that obscured the display of the entire database. You optionally could then make that popup into full screen by clicking another button.
Thankfully, now there is the much better popup option called “Side peek” that opens the entry page in a panel to the right of the page without obscuring too much of the database so you can easily open other entries.
Alternatively, you can choose to open entry pages full-page directly.
You can set a different type of open mode as the default per view.
💡 Tip: If you’re going to be jumping between entries of a database, for example a database of links of reference material, keep Side peek mode as default. If you need to work without distractions, for example a database of articles you’re writing, use Full page mode.
Learning #9 — Templates: You can set a default template per view
A template creates a new entry in the database and pre-populates it with the following:
- any icon or cover image you set in the template
- any values of properties you set in the template
- any content you place in the page of the template
For example, maybe you have a single Entertainment database and create four templates for Movies, Books, Series, and Games. Besides populating a Type property with the type of entertainment, you want the Movie template to have sections for noting the director and actors, whereas you want the Book template to have a set of questions for you to answer about each book, and the Game template you want a specific fun cover image for.
These templates you create are accessible from the dropdown list alongside the New button.
If you click the New button itself, Notion uses a default template to set up the corresponding entry and its entry page.
As with setting the default view mode, Notion now supports setting a different default template per view.
So in your view for Movies, you can set the Add Movie template as the default for when clicking the New button in that view but the Add Book template as the default in the view for Books.
Learning #10 — Page View: Entry page properties are not part of a database’s view nor template
A view displays properties in columns horizontally from left to right. The entry page lists all the properties of the database vertically from top to bottom.
Changing values for any properties here, changes them just as if you did so in the columns of the database. Similarly, you can add new properties in the entry page or delete any to update the database accordingly.
Unfortunately, the order in which properties is listed on the entry page is not determined by the view, and showing or hiding these properties is set neither in the database’s views nor templates.
This is because when you are looking at an entry page, there is a page view that takes over and that’s what determines the order of properties and which should be hidden.
This can be confusing and hopefully is something that’s simplified in future versions of Notion.
💡 Tip: For entry pages, hide any properties that won’t be frequently referred to or updated to ensure entry pages don’t become overwhelming.
Bonus Learning — Simple Tables: Not everything has to be a database 😱
Sometimes, a database can be overkill and a good ol’ table is all you need.
For example, maybe you want to list countries and their population count, or your friends with their birthdays. If you don’t need a database, use what Notion simply calls a Table.
You can add any number of columns and rows as you need, without having to worry about views, layouts, templates, or anything else that’s database-y scary.
Note that if you copy a table from another application (such as Word) and paste it into Notion, it’s going to be a database by default. You’ll recognise it by the familiar View tab at the top (which by default is named Show All) and that blue New button.
However, as with many Notion blocks, you can turn any database into a table and vice versa.
💡 Tip: When searching for the Table block, don’t confuse it with the Table View block, which is a database (as described in Learning #5).
When you start seeing the power of Notion databases in action, you’ll want to use them for everything. In fact, I’ve embraced them so much that I have a database of my databases just to keep track of all of them.
(And yes the idea of putting databases inside other databases is totally a thing you can do with Notion — we’ll see more in the next article!)
Like Pandora, you just won’t be able to stop yourself.
