Hey friend,

Hiring a Notion consultant could transform how you manage your life and business—Giving you the time freedom, peace of mind and the boost in productivity you’re looking for.

Or, it could leave you still feeling overloaded and overwhelmed with a system you don’t use.

As a Notion consultant myself, I know this might seem counterintuitive for me to say, but I really want you to know what you’re getting into if you’re thinking of working with a Notion Consultant to build a Notion workspace that works for your business (or life).

Too often, people hire Notion consultants without deeply considering what they truly want to achieve with the project—or what to expect.

Here are a few things you need to know before you hire a Notion Consultant.

What Is a Notion Consultant?

First, let’s define what a Notion consultant does—and more importantly, what they don’t do.

Notion isn’t just a tool; it’s a fully flexible way to organise, manage and optimise your business operations and juggle your life’s priorities.

It can serve as a one-stop shop for your business processes and an easy way to collaborate in teams.

But using Notion effectively and productively to save time (instead of waste time) requires a strategy.

That’s where a Notion consultant comes into the picture.

The goal isn’t to have a perfectly organised system.

It’s to have an organisation and productivity system that works for you to achieve your business (and life) goals

A Notion consultant helps you design systems, workflows and a workspace in Notion that are aligned with your goals.

Whether it’s tracking your client relationships, managing projects, creating a knowledge hub, or systemising regular tasks, the role of the consultant is to help you make Notion work for you.

But there’s a catch:

Notion is a tool, not a magic wand. It can’t fix disorganisation or inefficiency if the underlying workflows and processes are broken.

A great consultant won’t just build a fancy systems and dashboards that look pretty—they’ll help you gain clarity on what you actually need and build simple systems that you’ll actually use.

Custom Notion Builds vs. Off-The-Shelf Notion Templates

There are millions of free and paid Notion templates on the internet. You can even buy them straight off Notion’s official template marketplace.

Many people believe they can grab a free Notion template and call it a day.

Sometimes, that works.

Especially if they’re already savvy with Notion and have the time to tinker and adjust those templates to exactly how they like it.

But templates are generic by design.

If you don’t customise it to exactly how you like to use it, it just stays unused in your Notion workspace. Soon Notion just becomes a dumping ground of templates…

If that’s you, you’re honestly not alone.

95% of the people I’ve spoken to felt that way about their Notion workspace at one time or another.

These are the big 4 reasons for using Notion templates I often share with clients (or anyone who ask).

Outside of that, templates just might not be the best way forward for you.

All the clients I’ve worked with tried a bunch of paid and free templates before they gave up wasting their time with it, and hired me to help them build a customised system in Notion that works the way they want it to.

A good Notion consultant focuses on your goals and needs for wanting to use a tool like Notion.

They’ll analyse your workflows and design pages, databases and dashboards inside Notion that are easy to use and effective for you.

You don’t just need a system; you need the right system that works for your unique goals and ways of working.

Focus On Simple Instead of Over-Engineered Solutions

Notion is a highly flexible, complex and powerful tool. That can be a double-edged sword.

It’s so easy for some consultants to fall into the trap of creating overly complicated Notion setups with hundred of database properties, endless ways to view information and putting in place automations before a client really needs it.

These setups look and sound impressive, but it can become really overwhelming to use (especially if the client’s still fairly new to Notion).

The rule I try my best to follow: Keep things simple, function and easy to use.

Unless it’s done right, Notion can fall in a mess quickly where there’s a build-up of hundreds of databases, pages and dashboards (I’ve seen it 🫥).

Every consultant has a different approach, this is mine to way of staying organised in Notion. The most important being tip 1.

Bottom line, look for a consultant who prioritises simplicity, function and usability. Their goal should be to save time and reduce friction in your workflows, not add to it.

Notion Isn’t Just About Productivity—It’s About Clarity

One of the biggest benefits of using Notion and putting in place customised workflows and processes that helps you increase your productivity but more importantly gain clarity on what matters.

A great consultant doesn’t just organise your tasks and projects—they’ll help you think more strategically about how you spend you time, energy, and resources.

When your Notion systems and setup is working well, you’ll:

• Spend less time searching for information or figure out where to store things.

• Reduce decision fatigue by setting up routines and automating repetitive processes.

• Free up mental space to get clear on your priorities and focus on the right tasks that align with your goals.

In short, a good Notion setup doesn’t just save time—it transforms how you approach your work, reduces mental overwhelm and experience a peace of mind.

A Notion Consultant Should Teach You to Fish

The best consultants won’t leave you dependent on them forever.

While they’ll build and design the initial system to fit your needs and goals, they should also empower you to manage and adapt the system.

That means:

• Training you (or your team) to use the Notion setup effectively.

• Ensuring you feel confident with making basic changes as your needs evolve.

• Giving you time to adopt the new systems and circle back to the consultant with more questions or requests for support.

So make sure you hire a consultant who’s not only going to build the right system for you, but also has a plan for handover and support.

Notion Won’t Fix Broken Processes (But a Consultant Can Help)

If your business has underlying reasons for being disorganised, Notion isn’t a magic pill to fix those issues.

What it can do is provide you with structure, visibility and clarity.

But for a Notion setup to be truly effective, make sure you also address the root causes of disorganisation first—Often they are mindset and self-awareness issues. And a good consultant can help shed more light on this.

Think of Notion as an amplifier: it makes good systems even better, and exposes the problems of bad ones.

Notion Is a Just a Vehicle to Help Get You to the Results You Desire

Too often, consultants obsess over building the "perfect" system, neglecting the crucial aspect of ensuring it’s easy for the client to use so clients get their desired outcomes.

The right consultant will talk about results like:

• Finishing work earlier.

• Increased productivity and focus.

• Less stress and fewer missed deadlines or forgotten tasks.

• Less time wasted hunting around for information or figure out where to store mission-critical information.

The metrics that matter aren’t about Notion—they’re in the outcomes you experience in your life and business.

How I Can Help You Simplify and Get Organised in Your Business (And Life)

If you’ve read this far, you understand that hiring a Notion consultant is about more than just finding a Notion guru that knows everything there is to know about Notion —it’s about using Notion to transform the way you manage and organise business (or life).

If what I said above resonates with you and you like some help from me to create simple and streamlined Notion systems for your business (or life) that works for you, here’s how I can help you.

That’s it for this week!

See you next week,

Janice CK

🗞️ New To This Newsletter?

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Subscribe here​​​​​​​​​​​​​ to get what I share next week.