How Notion Became My Second Brain (And Why I Now Run My Entire Life Inside It)
For years, I bounced between apps, notes, and scattered to-do lists, thinking I was organized. The reality? I was constantly playing defense, reacting to whatever felt most urgent instead of executing on what actually mattered.
I started using Notion as a way to track work projects, but something clicked. This wasn’t just a productivity tool - it was a system to run my entire life. Now, everything lives in Notion: my startup, my personal projects, my financial planning, even family management.
I built dashboards for everything - company strategy, investor relations, fitness tracking, travel plans, content pipelines, even a system to manage household tasks with my wife.
At this point, if it’s not in Notion, it doesn’t exist.
Why Founders Need a “Second Brain”
Startups don’t fail because of bad ideas. They fail because of poor execution. And execution requires focus, clarity, and structure.
Most founders juggle an overwhelming amount of information daily:
Investor conversations
Product roadmaps
Hiring pipelines
Meeting insights
Market research
Fundraising plans
Personal finances
Family commitments
If you’re relying on memory or scattered notes, you’re operating at a disadvantage. Things slip through the cracks. You waste time searching for documents, making the same decisions over and over, and reacting instead of leading.
A second brain fixes that. It’s a system that makes sure everything important is stored, structured, and accessible when you need it.
I stopped trusting my brain to remember everything. Instead, I offloaded everything into Notion. The result? More mental clarity, faster execution, and significantly less stress.
How I Run My Entire Life Inside Notion
The Command Center: My Life at a Glance
The first thing I see when I open Notion is my Command Center. This isn’t just for work - it’s a high-level snapshot of my entire life.
Startup Priorities – The three most important tasks that will move my company forward today
Investor & Advisor Notes – A running log of conversations, feedback, and next steps
Financial Dashboard – Income, expenses, investments, savings goals
Family Management – Upcoming events, shared tasks, grocery lists
Fitness & Health Tracker – Workout logs, progress tracking, meal plans
Content & Idea Bank – Every tweet, article, or long-form post I’m working on
Travel & Logistics – Trips, packing lists, flight details
One glance tells me exactly what’s on my plate. No wasted time figuring out what to focus on next.
The Decision Journal: Avoiding Repeated Mistakes
Most bad decisions come from repeating past mistakes. I track every major decision I make in Notion:
What problem I was solving
The options I considered
Why I made a specific choice
The expected vs actual outcome
This helps me refine my thinking over time. It’s like having a personal playbook of lessons learned, preventing me from making emotional or short-term decisions I’ll regret later.
The Knowledge Base: Capturing Every Insight
Every time I come across valuable information, it goes into my Knowledge Base - a structured repository of insights from:
Market research
Product development
Investor objections
Books & podcasts
Personal finance strategies
Lessons from past experiences
Instead of rediscovering the same insights over and over, I can instantly pull up what I need when I need it.
Family Management: Bringing Order to the Chaos
I didn’t expect Notion to impact my personal life as much as it did, but once I saw how well it worked for work, I started applying the same logic at home.
Now, I have shared dashboards with my wife for:
Grocery & Meal Planning – No more last-minute “What’s for dinner?” conversations
Household Task Tracker – Who’s handling what so things don’t get forgotten
Upcoming Events & Travel Plans – Everything from birthdays to flights in one place
Shared Budget & Expenses – Clear visibility into household finances
This changed everything. Instead of juggling a hundred things in our heads, we have a single source of truth for managing life together.
Content & Growth Engine: Never Starting from Scratch
Writing - whether for blog posts, newsletters, or investor updates - is a core part of what I do. But great ideas don’t always show up when you need them.
Inside Notion, I built a content system that includes:
An Idea Bank for every thought, tweet, or article concept
A Writing Pipeline to track drafts, edits, and published content
A Distribution Tracker so I know where and how I’ve shared my work
Now, whenever I sit down to write, I’m not starting from scratch—I’m pulling from a curated bank of ideas.
Fundraising & Investor CRM: Staying on Top of Every Conversation
Raising capital is a full-time job, and keeping track of investor conversations in a spreadsheet was slowing me down. Now, my fundraising pipeline lives inside Notion.
A list of investors I’m targeting
Notes from every conversation
Follow-up dates and key action items
A live document of my pitch deck and feedback
This ensures I never miss a critical follow-up or forget an important insight.
The Unexpected Benefits of Running Everything in Notion
Faster Execution – I spend more time doing and less time deciding what to do next
Better Thinking – Writing things down forces me to structure my thoughts
Less Stress – I don’t have to remember everything, because my system remembers for me
Improved Decision-Making – I track past decisions and refine my approach over time
Seamless Work-Life Balance – Everything, from business to personal life, is structured and optimized
Where Most People Go Wrong
Overcomplicating It – A messy system slows you down. Start simple.
Not Using It Daily – A system is only useful if it becomes second nature.
Spending Too Much Time Tweaking It – Don’t get stuck building a perfect system. Just start.
Why This Matters for You
If you feel like you’re constantly reacting instead of leading, you don’t need another productivity hack. You need a structured system.
If you take too many notes but never use them, try this.
If your tasks are scattered and overwhelming, centralize them.
If you want to scale your ability to execute, offload mental clutter into a second brain.
Notion isn’t just a productivity tool. It’s an operating system for life and work.
Try It for 30 Days
Build a Command Center – Get a high-level view of what matters every day.
Start a Decision Journal – Track key choices to improve judgment.
Create a Knowledge Base – Capture insights so nothing gets lost.
Apply It to More Than Just Work – Streamline everything, from finances to family planning.
The difference between operating at a high level and constantly playing catch-up is having a system that works for you.
If you found this valuable, I write about execution, clarity, and building systems that scale on my Substack.
Are you using Notion? How do you structure your workflow? Let me know.