Last week, I took some time off to unplug, be in nature and explore Washington state for 5 days with some friends.

A little know fact to boosting productivity is taking breaks.

We wanted to taking advantage of the warm weather before it starts to cool down again in northern hemisphere.

The highlight of our trip was definitely hiking the Skyline trail in Paradise corridor in Mt Rainier National Park. It was refreshing, restful and absolutely stunning. Though a bit of a tough hike!

Here’s a quick photo from our hike.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather!

If you’re into the outdoors and enjoy a bit of hiking, highly recommend checking out Mt Rainier National Park in Washington.

Now let’s get into it…

Digital tools like Notion are powerful tools to enhance your productivity, take notes and help you manage your life, business and work.

Notion sits at the center of my personal and business “second brain”.

It’s where I:

• Capture information.

• Distill, learn and create.

• Organise and plan all aspects of my personal and business life.

• and so much more!

Today, I want to share what I think you should NOT keep in Notion (and the 5 best practices and recommendations to keep your data secure)

Three Things You Should Not Keep in Notion

Here are the top three categories of information I personally avoid storing in Notion (and suggest you do too).

1. Confidential and highly sensitive information

Data in Notion is secure and encrypted. But unfortunately it’s not end-to-end encrypted.

Because of that, I do not and would not recommend anyone store highly sensitive information, such as:

• Passwords.

• Sensitive financial, banking or health data.

• SSN or identification data that can lead to fraudulent activity if stolen.

• Or any other sensitive information you feel you do not want exposed in the unlikely event that your Notion data is exposed.

Instead, use bespoke Password manager apps, banking apps and other tool in these instances for optimal security.

I’ve worked in the hospital and healthcare management for 13+ years and understand the critical importance of protecting patient data.

If you run a health care business, I would avoid storing patient information in Notion. It’s better and more secure to store that in bespoke health software with end-to-end encryption and custom built for managing patient health data.

Notion will be fantastic for running all other aspects of your business, like:

• Staff management.

• Client onboarding process.

• Task and project management.

• Company wiki and knowledge base (SOPs and docs).

• Even keeping track of non-sensitive business expenses, revenue and key financial figures.

2. Large files (e.g. photos, videos, media files)

On the free Notion plan you can upload file sizes up to 5MB and on any of the paid Notion plans there is no limit to the file sizes you upload into Notion.

I store receipts, PDFs and other files that I want to easily reference on the go or when it fits in with the databases and use case.

Here are some examples

• Travel planning in Notion. I store relevant ticket, activities, travel confirmation etc. PDFs in the relevant trip database in Notion for easy access when I’m travelling. This is more convenient to have all my travel information together, instead of files in an alternative tool like Google Drive

• Tracking non-sensitive expenses, revenue and key financial in Notion. Attach receipts against each line item in the Finance database. If you’re on a paid Notion plan, you can then turn them into powerful charts to visualise your data to help you make better business decisions.

• Storing ancillary files and documents for reference in your Business Knowledge Base in Notion. This makes it quick and easy to reference all from one place (e.g. sample emails sent save as a PDF)

In my situation, Notion does not replace my full file storage system.

Larges files, sensitive data and files I don’t need access to on the go are still stores on my laptop (and backed up). I much prefer to store that on my own encrypted hard drives for added security.

I’m an avid photographer and traveller, and take a ton of photos when I travel.

Those photo files tend to be very large. Storing them in Notion is not an efficient way to store a huge number of photo files. Especially if you use photo editing software to edit those files on your computer.

(By the way, if you’re looking to de-clutter, simplify and streamline your Notion, join the free Clutter to Clarity in Notion Roadmap email course wait list. I’m excited to say the email course will be dropping in September!)

3. Quick access links and bookmarks

While it’s perfectly acceptable to save URLs and links to websites you want to access quickly from Notion…

I don’t think Notion is the best tool for that purpose.

Using a web browser’s native bookmark tool and then syncing it across your desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile phone browsers is a much more efficient way for managing bookmarks.

Five Handy Tips and Best Practices I Recommend When Using Notion

Balance access and security is always a challenge.

I have no real concern about Notion’s ability to keep our data secure. After all, it’s in their best interest that data security is prioritised.

But it’s still important to do what we can to reduce any risk to our data.

Here are the 5 best practices and recommendations to keep your data safe:

1. Enable 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) for an added layer of security.

2. Use an authenticator app, instead of getting an SMS secure code as your 2FA in Notion.

3. Manage all your passwords (including your password to Notion) in an encrypted password manager tool like Bitwarden, 1Password, Lasspass etc.

4. Before storing any piece of information in Notion, ask yourself:

   • How sensitive or confidential is this information?

   • What are the consequences if your Notion account became compromised or data was accidentally leaked?

5. There currently isn’t a way to share a single page within a database while blocking access to all other pages within that same database. So before sharing a page nested within a Notion database, consider if the rest of the pages in that database is private and confidential. If so, move the information you want to share onto a new Notion Page and just share that one page.

🔓️ Behind the Scenes

The email course is really coming along nicely. I’ve spent the week reviewing feedback from beta readers and making changes to the course.

If you’re also creating an email course (or thinking about creating one in the future), here’s a big takeaway I got from my beta readers and waitlisters told me what they thought about my email subject line.

Make the email subject lines specific, actionable and results-driven.

For example I’m changing day 1’s email subject line from:

Prep your workstation by radically simplifying your Notion sidebar in 15 minutes or less…

To…

Radically simplify your Notion sidebar in 15 minutes or less (To find exactly what you’re looking for under 5 seconds)

I’m on track with launching the email course in September, so if you’re interested in decluttering, simplifying and streamlining your Notion, hop on to the waitlist!

That’s it for this week’s Slow Digest!

Thanks for reading.

Just one more thing, hit reply and let me know how I did. Good? Bad? Helpful? Have ideas you'd like me to dig into or questions you want answered?

I’d love to hear from you!

See you next week,

Janice CK

(p.s. if you need a customised Notion system to get organised in your life and business and get the peace of mind you deserve, I’m always up for a chat to see how I can help you.)

📌 Noteworthy Resources

1. 4 Questions To Ask Anyone Who Buys From You (Josh Spector)

   This was the best 2-minute investment I made this week to up my sales game and how to learn from your buyers.

   → Click to watch the video

2. The Reading Mind: Surprising Science-Based Benefits of Reading Everyday (Ness Labs)

   Reading regularly engages the brain, reducing stress, improving memory, and boosting cognitive skills. Use the 3 simple tricks in this article to cultivate a reading habit.

   → Check out the full article

3. Surprising secret to boosting productivity (Chase Jarvis)

   How to harness the underrated power of play to up your productivity and creativity.

   → Check out the full article

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