Are you responsible for your chapter’s NCL Senior Recognition? I suggest trying out Notion for planning the event. Notion is a great way to manage all of your tasks. I am getting ahead of myself. First, let me say…congratulations! You are planning one of the most anticipated events during the NCL year! Now you need to get organized. I am here to help you. I have been VP of Communications for two different NCL chapters and found that Notion was the best tool to keep me organized.
Below you will find 10 awesome reasons to utilize the Notion application for planning this year’s NCL Senior Recognition.
This post is all about using Notion for Planning NCL Senior Recognition
Best Reasons to use Notion for Planning NCL Senior Recognition
1. NCL Senior Recognition Has Lots of Moving Parts
In most chapters, the NCL Senior Recognition event is the most complex event of the year. The Tea and Junior Style Show are close seconds. For Senior Recognition, you are likely coordinating attire, pictures, scripts, and slideshows for 20-30 girls. In addition, you are securing a venue with food, flowers, audio, and video. You probably also have invitations, chapter RSVPs, and a senior class guest list to manage. That makes my head spin! It’s like planning a wedding all over again!
Clearly, there are a lot of moving parts and that’s why Notion is the perfect tool to keep track of it all. All of that information can be kept in one workspace. In that workspace, you can have calendars, images, databases or tables, contacts, and more. Gone are the days of 20 different files for the event, in Notion it can all be put together so you are not searching for information on different devices.
2. What is Notion?
Notion is an all-in-one online workspace that allows you to have a task list, notes, calendar, and databases in one location. At the time of this writing, it is free to use, and it syncs across all of your devices (yes, it has an app for both iOS and Android). I have been using Notion for a few years and they keep making worthwhile improvements.
Notion is a collection of blocks that can be linked and moved around. Pretty much everything is a block – text, headers, pages, images, databases, etc. I don’t plan on going into detail on how to navigate around the workspace in Notion here, because there are lots of great YouTube videos out there that will give you the basics.
Notion allows you to make it as pretty or as bare as you want. You can easily add icons and images to make your pages come to life. Of course, or if you only want basic information, you can have plain text. It’s not perfect, but nothing is. My biggest issue with it is currently, there is no offline option, but they are working on that as we speak. So hopefully, by the time you are reading this, they will have figured that out.
If you can’t wait to see this free Notion template for Senior Recognition, click HERE.
NOTE: Since it is all online, I would recommend not putting sensitive information such as account numbers or passwords in the application.
3. Notion is Flexible & Free!
Notion is very flexible and completely customizable. In Notion, you can see the NCL Senior Recognition overall plan or task list in a calendar, table, kanban board, timeline, gallery, or a list. And you can set things up to suit your chapter needs. If you like seeing your task list in a calendar form with due dates, you just click a button, and there it is like magic all in a calendar, or you can switch to a Kanban board that shows progress. My preference is the table view.
To download the app, go to Notion.so. I am an Apple user, so I cannot speak to the Android app, but I imagine it works just as well. I am constantly looking for a better way to organize my tasks, notes, and projects. Notion seemed like an excellent fit for all of my volunteer work.
4. Easy to Use
It takes a little time to learn. However, there are so many how-to YouTube videos. I believe you can learn the basics in an hour. Once you watch a few videos and play around with it a bit, you will be up and running. A template might help you get started more quickly. Notion is fairly intuitive, however, with any new software application, some tips and tricks will make your life easier.
5. Images are Worth a Thousand Words
Images can be added easily and are helpful when you are looking for information or collecting ideas. In addition, you can embed website links when you find potential vendors or other interesting sites. You can even embed a video if you need to remember which dance you want to share with the seniors.
6. Second Brain for NCL Senior Recognition
Would you like to have a second brain to store all of the information related to Senior Recognition? Keeping notes, tasks, and dates together is so helpful! All of that is in your Notion second brain! By putting information into Notion, you are freeing up your brain for creating and brainstorming new ideas.
Another cool thing about using Notion for project management is the concept of linked pages. For example, you can link tasks to pages with more detail. If you just wanted to leave notes for the next Senior Recognition chair, a linked page might be a great place to do it.
7. Aesthetically Pleasing
Notion has a very minimalist look. However, if images and icons help you in your workspace, you can add them to your heart’s content. It is still a great application regardless of your preference. It reminds me of having a nicely organized desk.
Document & spreadsheet applications are still necessary, especially if you need to analyze data or create professional-looking documents. However, Notion provides a good option for organizing a lot of information, tasks, and notes.
Instead of having a bunch of files & folders to look through, Notion gives you a way of nesting information without burying it inside files. If you know you had some notes written about a particular task, you can just search your workspace to find it quickly.
8. Lots of Free Templates
There are also loads of free templates available. I have one for Senior Recognition at the end of the post. In this template, you will find an example of a master task list and sub-pages grouped by the different tags (attire, venue, invitations).
On my template, if you need to focus on the venue, click on the venue gallery page. As you drill down, you can have more clickable pages, such as a pricing or contract info. You can keep adding content and notes as you see fit, and it is all in one place.
If you don’t like the look of mine, I suggest looking for a wedding planner template.
9. Keeps Everything in a Central Place
Before I started using Notion, I had all my tasks in a to-do list app and my notes in different files on various devices. That worked reasonably well, but it was a pain because sometimes my notes were not in the cloud. Sometimes I just could not find them. Needless to say, when I sat down to do specific tasks, I might spend the first 5-10 minutes trying to find my notes and files.
With Notion, you can have all of your information in one application and break it down into the different major areas. For our chapter, the Senior Rec. areas are:
- Attire
- Invitations
- Venue
- Vendors
- Age Progression Slideshow & Scripts
- Dance
- Programs
- Passdown
10. Easy to Pass Down from Year to Year
I dislike a pass-down binder full of paper for a multitude of reasons. I have received many binders with outdated information, which made the binder worthless. Passing down a lot of files is a step up from a binder. There is still the problem of opening the files to figure out why all of them are necessary. Notion gives the new chair the ability to drill down into the information. You can drill down into the different subcategories as needed. The pass-down process is as easy as:
- Transferring a login and password
- Explaining the organization of the setup in Notion
- If necessary, share a couple of links to Notion overview YouTube videos
Below you will find a link to the NCL Senior Recognition template. It includes the venue, attire, and invitations areas. You can certainly change them to suit your own chapter needs. If Notion sounds interesting, give it a test drive and see what you think. I hope it might help you feel on top of the many tasks you have as NCL Senior Recognition Chair. Good Luck!
NOTE: If you decide to give Notion a try, I would suggest using a gmail email address that can be transferred to the next chair.
Click HERE to get the free Notion Template for NCL Senior Recognition
This post is all about great reasons to use Notion for planning NCL Senior Recognition.
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