Ever since I decided to go indie for my fiction, I’ve been obsessed with trying to find an appropriate project management software. Being organized really scratches an itch, for me. And embarking on this new journey–one that could potentially flop or fly–I wanted to attempt being super professional from the beginning.

Trying to find a project management software that fit my goals was quite confusing

There’s a lot of project management software out there like Trello, Monday, Asana, Wrike, and Basecamp just to name a few. Trying to find one that makes sense for me was quite confusing. I did the usual: Web search, watch videos, read blogs, but sadly no one I found was using these tools to manage their self-pub business. There were plenty using them to plot their novels and even write their stories, but that isn’t of interest to me.

Here’s what I wanted from my choice:

• Free version
• Allowed for working offline. There are plenty of times I’m without internet (on purpose even!), so this narrowed the search even further.
• Visually stimulating
• Logical ways to look at projects and tasks.
• Something that would integrate with Google calendar or such.

All had free versions (yay), many were visually pleasing, all had logical ways to look at projects and tasks, most integrate with familiar calendars, but only one that I narrowed it down to would work offline: Notion.

I watched tons of videos and sieved through the things that didn’t matter (like decorating with cute icons, making a mood board, and making my Notion pertinent to teams.) I’m still a long way from done, but, at last, it’s all starting to make sense.

The same data as the first screenshot, but in board (kanban) view, rather than as a table.

The Basics of Setting Up (or what I know so far…)

• Create a dashboard page
• Create database pages for such things as projects, tasks, expenses, and so on.
• On your dashboard, create linked databases for each of your databases. These linked versions will automatically pull from your main databases and put that info on your dashboard.
• On each database, add sorting properties such as due dates, priority level.
• On each database, create relation properties to link a task to a project, for example.
• Create a checkbox property for tasks and to-dos you want to mark as done.
• Add colors and dividers to help organize your dashboard.
• Move linked databases on dashboard to columns to line them up across your view.
• Add a timeline or calendar view if you want.
• Download the phone app and include the notes widget–this is super cool. It’s a little plus mark icon on your screen the allows you to quickly make a note then send it to the appropriate database!

I have a lot left to learn, as I said, but I wanted to get you all in on my journey! I might do a video tutorial someday focused just on using this for the indie author business.

Let me know your thoughts!