Notion and Substack: Building the Writer's Assistant

First in a multipart series on making Notion your helper when it comes to writing and managing content creation.

This is the first in a multi-part series on how you can put Notion to use when writing on Substack. Substack is an excellent example of a content creation platform where Notion can provide structure, organization, and process management. These concepts are not excelusive to Substack writing and can be used with almost any content creation platform. If you are interested in learning about how to use these strategies on other platforms, leave a comment about the platforms that interest you.

Write when the words come

At the very core of using Notion to help with your Substack writing is the creation of pages on the fly. Inspiration can strike almost anywhere, and avoiding losing that inspiration is key to getting the words on the screen. Notion is an excellent tool for writing on the fly because of two key features: pages and moving.

When in Notion, you can create a new page at any time, whether you’re in an existing page or at the top of your system at the Home screen. On Android for example (where I’m writing this right now) a click of the new page button immediate sets you to a blank page for writing your missives. I’ve been often asked, “Why create a blank page just anywhere when you could create it in your production tool?” My response is simple…just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you have to do a thing.

Moving right along

Pages in Notion can be moved into databases (a key component of the system we will be spending a good deal of time with) ay any time and when they are they pick up the properties (data fields) that are defined in the database. This means your writing productivity tool could include due dates, scheduling information, tags, images, links and ultimately all the information to manage your writing, but you don’t have to worry about capturing all that when your muse is whispering in your ear.

Just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you have to do a thing.

Quick observation - the quote format in Notion will copy and paste directly into Substack…callouts, not so much.

One of my favorite pro tips for writing in Notion is to apply the formatting and styling you want in your final Substack post directly within Notion. Headers, bold, italic, and other text styles can all be created in Notion and then simply copied and pasted into Substack. This approach significantly reduces your post-production writing time.

AI isn’t just for research

Pro tip number two relies on the AI functionality of Notion to aid in creating summaries of your writing. These can be helpful when sharing your posts on social media. Write your post in Notion and then when finished, ask the AI to summarize the page.

For example, when I prompted the AI to “summarize this page in a paragraph and write it in a way that encourages reading the page” I received the following result in seconds:

Dive into this insightful guide on leveraging Notion to supercharge your Substack writing process! This page offers a treasure trove of practical tips for content creators, from capturing fleeting ideas on-the-fly to streamlining your post-production workflow. Learn how Notion's flexible page creation and powerful database features can transform your writing organization, and discover time-saving tricks like formatting preservation and AI-powered summaries. Whether you're a seasoned Substack author or just starting out, this guide promises to enhance your content creation journey with Notion as your secret weapon. Don't miss out on these game-changing strategies that can be applied to various content platforms beyond Substack!

Leveraging the AI capabilities of Notion is something we will revisit frequently as part of this series, so if you have questions about how to use the Notion AI, please leave them in the comments for all to see and share.

Only the beginning

Closing out this first post, the fact that Notion is a multiplatform tool is on of it’s greatest strengths. I can start a post on my laptop, switch to my tablet, add more content on my phone while on the go, and come back to finish on my laptop in a frictionless experience. Notion really is a writer’s best friend.

Next we’ll start to explore the requirements and information you need to start building your own writer’s assistant in Notion!