Why I used Notion with my clients to manage design projects
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Full disclosure: I’ve since copied this whole process over to ClickUp*, but it works well in both apps, depending on how ya set it up & what features you want. 😁 If you’re curious why what that looks like, leave a comment on this post & let me know, or check out my Shop for the template!
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If you have a service-based business, how have you been collecting information from your client that you need to provide that service?
If it looks like:
sending a ton of emails back and forth, losing track of this or that, missing deadlines and skipping steps...
working in a Google doc with comments and highlighted changes, but still missing deadlines and skipping steps...
forcing your client to use an app they aren't familiar or comfortable with and all you hear is crickets...
Then there's hope on the horizon! Because it doesn't have to be like that, and I'd really love to help you fix it.
I’ve *actually* tried (what feels like) everything, and IMHO Notion is the bee’s-knees of productivity apps.
I could legit talk about Notion (& productivity in general) for days, and I actually plan to talk & share more about it here and on the blog because it’s become so integral to my processes here at LTDT, –juuuust not in one post. 😳
Why Notion*, though? I did the “research” & decided to try it.
(Yeeeeeeah, let’s call it “research” –totally not “shiny object syndrome.”) 😂
Over the last 6 years, I excitedly found, set up, and used a series of PM tools in my search to find the one that works best for me, going through 8 or 9 apps total!
Besides Notion, here are the main PM tools I’ve also tried (the longest):
Asana, which is fun to use & relatively simplistic, while still being robust,…however a lot of the features I wanted were on a paid plan and it’s by far the most expensive (literally like 3-4x as much) to upgrade if you want access to the paid-only features which make the platform so robust. I’m sure I gripe about this somewhere else on my blog.
Trello: I used it for years, and even implemented it at my 9-5 as a free way to manage production throughout the building (which they’ve been using now for 5+ years as of posting). It’s great for individual use & can work for teams depending on how it’s set up, but the second clients get involved, it can get messy very quickly. It also doesn’t have native access to a global calendar showing all dates from across the team, being board-specific; there are workarounds but it seems like an odd necessity for a PM tool.
ClickUp was a really neat find, and their UI is really clean, modern & customizable. That said, they’re the most robust option I’ve come across so far and the hardest to learn. I used it on/off for 2–3 years, jumping ship and coming back in cycles. It genuinely is a great platform, just not a great fit for everyone because of the steeper learning curve & expansive feature set.
Milanote, which is great for a lot of custom visual layouts like basic mind-mapping, creating a user journey’s visual path (ie: A → B ↓ C …etc), brand or mood boards, using it kinda like a whiteboard, and more but it lacks the robust data organization of other apps across the board.
others I tried briefly or never fully went all-in on, but used occasionally & still have accounts with are Zenkit, Airtable, Dubsado’s task management boards, and Quire.io. I also researched a few others like Monday and Basecamp, but never pulled the trigger.
I used 3 of those for at least 1-2 years, each. –I mean, I went all-in! Then I found Notion & the heavens opened up and the angels began to sing! 🤣
Actually, it was more like this:
[Cue a Notion-themed song "Milkshakes" by Kelis]
"[Notion] brings all the clients to the yard. Damn right, [mine's] better than yours!"
...I know, I know; I just murdered that song. #sorrynotsorry
Since I’ve tried so many (Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Airtable, –the list literally goes on), I know how my clients reacted to using each of them with me and Notion happens to be my favorite to use by far AND also the path of least resistance with my clients. Win-Win!
But switching systems can be hella overwhelming (I should know; I'm kind of an expert at it now 😂).
Want to know more about those other options?
Check out this PM tool comparison post
Why Notion* can work so well
Of all the project management apps I’ve tried over the last 6 years, Notion is by far the easiest to use while still being a robust platform that’s also incredibly customizable.
Minimalist UI + page layout freedom
I recently shared Notion as an option with someone in a Facebook business group who clearly needed something like it, and he snubbed it bc it wasn’t pretty. 🙄 It’s actually just minimalism at its best! There are a couple of page-style choices, and beyond that you just focus on structure. Not sure why this was a sticking point for him, as Asana & ClickUp don’t let you choose font styles for their UI either. 😂
Ultimately though, that minimalist styling allows you to focus on the data itself & its organization, removing the need (or desire) to tweak the design aesthetic into oblivion and spend way longer setting it up than was actually necessary, –a cycle I often got stuck in when setting up Questionnaires in Dubsado.
The structural customizability also means, what it looks like for me could be completely different than how I set it up in the Portal for my clients, and completely different than how you may want to use it for you & your clients too.
Freedom to build each page how I need it to function is exactly what I love about it!
With layout freedom like that, it beats every other major player hands down. Asana, ClickUp, Trello, –they don’t let you build anything; you have to use their platform the way they structure it FOR you. You can have different views, yes, but can you embed things on the page? Put text & images where you want on that page? No.
It’s practically dummy-proof
Amazingly too, Notion has created (I dare say) an almost dummy-proof interface so even the most technically challenged can still figure out how to use it, simply because it works similarly to a word processor: click anywhere and start typing or adding content.
The command that tells you how to add content is ALWAYS there, no matter where you click on the page, if you’re new to the account or not, so you never have to question what to do in order to contribute.
No matter where you click you have 2 options:
Click the ➕ to select from the simple pop-up list, the type of content you want to add
Type / to trigger the same list in a popup, then start typing to filter that list to related options
How to easily add content in Notion
It also kind of intuitively helps you add content. You can drag-and-drop an image onto a page and it’ll embed it for you. If you paste in a link, it will ask if you just want the hyperlinked text or a web-bookmark with a page preview (and when applicable, even an embedded website page on this Notion page. 🤯)
Reminders and comments are simple & easy
You can leave comments just about anywhere, and so can your client. There’s a dedicated comment section at the top of any page, or most elements on a page can be directly commented on, displaying a comment icon near the element.
Creating reminders is simple too, by using real language and can be done in couple ways:
Simply type something like “@remind Katelyn at 12pm tomorrow” and it’ll create an inline reminder right there. I’d get a notification no matter where that was written, and if I click that notification, it’ll take me to the place and page where that reminder is so I don’t have to hunt for it.
in a database you can add a due date with a reminder and set the alert time before the deadline, whether it’s at the time it’s due or 1 week before.
You can build customized client portals
This was the main draw for me at first, honestly. I saw the potential for creating a real client portal that was easy to use and could be used collaboratively without overwhelm in the most customizable format/structure/layout.
After using Notion exclusively for about a year, it’s proven its worth here, tenfold –depending on what you’re looking to do.
I have different package sizes, from a normal 2-week website buildout to a single VIP Day service, and more complicated options like shops or membership site builds. Each use case requires varying sets of content-gathering homework for my client.
Dubsado has custom forms, but I had 10+ questionnaires for gathering web content, ALONE, and was adding them 1-by-1 to the project based on what the client needed, from an unorganized list in the Templates page. The forms themselves weren’t flexible for the client’s needs as they were filling it out either, –more on that in the next section.
In Notion, I could have a Portal set up for each package type, with subpages to collect the content for each page included in that package, and I could templatize it, making it easily reproducible, literally, in a single click.
Now when a new client accepts a proposal, signs the contract & pays the retainer deposit, I go to my own main Portal Hub, which houses ALL the active & archived portals I’ve created, and click a single button to duplicate the portal type I need for that client. I rename it, invite them to it & Notion sends the invite via email.
Your workspace layouts are flexible
When I was using Dubsado to collect my client’s website content (copy, images, logos, etc) for a project, I’d often have to go in and add more fields on the shop products, services, reviews or FAQ page questionnaire forms if my client realized they had more to add while completing this homework.
However, in Notion, all they have to do is select & copy a section they want to use again, click, then paste somewhere new to add it themselves, or simply keep typing in a new spot on the page, & leave a comment there to let me know what’s up. That means:
No more requests for more fields!
Realistic file size upload restrictions.
No more guesswork on the uploaded images because there’s a preview
We can both comment directly on the file(s) uploaded, or on the page where they were uploaded if we have questions or concerns to address.
The content can be organized however I need it to be AND how I feel it may work best for my client so she/he doesn’t get overwhelmed.
Want something structured so the client can’t edit it? Add an inline database in the form of a table, list, board, gallery, timeline, or calendar and you can lock it in the view you set it. The contents can be editable to a degree, but not the structure, which is perfect for clients.
Videos can be embedded
Before Notion, I’d always record a quick 5-15 minute training on how to do/use such-and-such for each client, and then I’d email them that video and put the link to it in the PM tool somewhere it made sense, usually in a section labeled “Reference,” “How to videos” or something like that.
Then, inevitably during the project, I’d get a question about how to do this or that, and the client would have forgotten the video was there for them to refer back to, and couldn’t figure it out on their own because the UI wasn’t intuitive.
In Notion or ClickUp, you can embed the video directly into the tasks/pages you create for your client so they can watch it without leaving the portal any time they need to.
You can even hide them inside a toggle if you want to keep things clean & minimal/clutter-free, which means you could add 2 or 3 short videos on specific topics (like a welcome to your portal video, or how to leave comments, how to access X, Y, or Z, how to complete the homework, etc) without things feeling cluttered on the page.
The one main downside of using Notion for client portals & how I fixed it
This one major flaw in my system within Notion was the main reason I ended up moving my whole client portal system into ClickUp –which, granted, is not an easy move to make & to get clients in as guests it does require more onboarding materials. I switched because I needed to be able to see metrics & reports. I could build those using databases & dynamic information to a degree in Notion, but I couldn’t figure out how to see what I wanted/needed from a 30,000ft view.
In practice, over about a year of tweaks to my system & revamping it a few times, no matter what– I needed each portal to be an entry in a single ‘Portals database.’ That means that the content inside each portal would be a series of subpages, and while Notion has great Relationship & Rollup fields that work with these types of things, I couldn’t get those fields to show overall progress on the main portal hub database without being SUPER manual & time-consuming per portal entry.
Why did that matter?
Because eventually, I got to the point where I had 3-5 clients in the pipeline for months on end, all working at different speeds on their homework prior to their project date, and I needed to be able to see their progress at a glance without having to take a deep dive into the portal content to be able to see it.
How I fixed it:
ClickUp. I know, –I know! I can hear you now, ‘but this post is about Notion?’ I do genuinely love using Notion & still use it for some things. But for my purposes, it ended up not being the perfect fit for the way I like to work with clients because I have short project timelines (2-3 weeks on avg or as short as 1 day) and can fit a lot of projects into a shorter amount of time, –which means more onboarding and client turnover.
ClickUp also has a vastly different idea of notifications, so if they are set correctly for both parties, I miss far fewer things happening in the portal & so do they! With ClickUp, I’m actually able to build a custom dashboard with a “Portfolio” widget that lets me see the overall progress of any portal List - and that way I can see at a glance how far along each client is in their homework. I can also set up automations for setting statuses on due dates, use built-in forms for support ticketing, –and a lot more. It could be a whole series of blog posts on its own merit.
So while I do think Notion has a place for client portals, after trying it for a year & going all-in myself, I realized it just doesn’t fit the way I work & that’s okay!
And I also thought YOU should know the roadblock I hit, so maybe you can think creatively and find a solution within the Notion app if you really want it to work for you. 💛
