Most of us somehow drift through undergrad, but if we end up pursuing graduate studies, that is when we really come into what we like and care about. Going from not giving a hoot about education beyond my Bachelor’s degree to traveling halfway across the world for grad school was not how I imagined life would turn out to be. And now that I am in my final quarter of the MS Computational Linguistics (CLMS) program at the University of Washington, writing about my experiences over the past two years seems like a good idea.

People who happen to visit my website or look me up online may have noticed that I have no social media presence: no Instagram, no Twitter, a Facebook account I use solely for the Marketplace feature. The only social media I somewhat engage in is Reddit where I browse and occasionally ask questions, and LinkedIn which I used when I was looking for jobs. My profile is still up there, though.

Over the past year, I have come to love Notion and integrate it significantly in my daily life. So much so that it functions like an external brain for me, although I don’t recommend going that path; it is a good and fun thing to try and remember things (ask Joshua Foer). But this isn’t an ideal world and we are all too distracted by the world, our phones and the attention economy, so I might as well share my Notion workflow in the hopes that this would help a fellow beleagured student/professional. I’ll discuss some of the things I use Notion for, and what exactly I do for them.