How to Manage Family History Tasks in Notion

It’s common to feel a bit overwhelmed by the number of family history tasks you still need to complete. This article provides instructions for managing these tasks in Notion, to help you stay focused and plan your time effectively. No formulas required!

If you have not already done so, follow the instructions in my article, Manage family history projects with Notion, to set up a Project database, a Research Questions database, a Tasks database and a Notes database. Create projects for your grandparent lines, and some places and themes.

Then follow the instructions in my article, Develop family history projects in Notion, to add research questions, tasks and notes.

What are tasks?

Tasks are actions that are undertaken to answer a research question, test a hypothesis or provide information for a family history project.

Examples:

• Order a transcription of the death certificate for William Milson, 1885/2378 (NSW, Australia)
• Look for DNA matches with the surname of Kiesecker in their family tree
• Get a list of townlands in Cavan, Ireland
• Prepare a draft of chapter 3 of my thesis

Maintain your Tasks Database

Task management is more effective if you enter your tasks accurately and completely. It’s a good idea to periodically open your Tasks Database and check that tasks are assigned to one or more Projects and the other columns are also filled in.

Every task should be assigned to one or more Projects and one or more Research Questions.

Setting up Your Task Management Tools

Here are three useful views of the Tasks database. You can use all three, or just the one that helps you the most.

These instructions result in three separate views of the Tasks database.

Another option is to add the second and third lists on different tabs on the first one, by clicking on the Plus icon and adding a new view. Then rename each tab appropriately. See image at the end of the article.

1. Create an Inbox

An Inbox is a place where you can quickly add a task to Notion with minimal details, and then process it later.

An Inbox is great when you are away from your computer and want to make a note of something you need to do before you forget. You can grab your phone, add the task to Notion using a macro button, and it’s done. It is also great when you are down the proverbial rabbit hole, find something interesting that is unrelated to your current project, but need to record it to deal with it later.

The Inbox captures tasks that have not yet been assigned to a Project.

Steps:

1. On your Home Page, add a Toggle Heading called: ‘Inbox’ or ‘Research Tasks Inbox’
2. Add a colour to that heading
3. Open the toggle and add a linked view of the Tasks Database within the coloured section. Instructions are in my article: Manage family history projects with Notion.
4. Click on the filter icon (three horizontal lines) and select Research Projects
5. The Research Projects filter now appears under the title Inbox. Click on the down arrow to the right and at the top of the popup box it says ‘Research projects contains’. Change ‘contains’ to ‘Is empty’. Your Inbox now only lists those tasks you have not yet assigned to a Project.
6. Keep it in Table layout if you wish, or change it to a List view. If you keep the Table layout, you should simplify it by hiding some of the properties (columns) using the Settings – ‘Property visibility’ feature.

An Inbox is meant to be a temporary holding place. Make sure that you check it now and then, and clear tasks by assigning them to Projects and completing the rest of the columns.

2. Priority list

Most family history research tasks will not have due dates, so you need a different system to clearly identify which tasks you should be working on first. If you followed my instructions in setting up your Tasks Database, you already have a property column called Priority. Now you can create a subset of the tasks that you have classified as a high priority.

Steps:

1. On your Home Page, add a Toggle Heading: ‘High Priority Tasks’
2. Add a colour to that heading
3. Open the toggle and add a linked view of the Tasks Database within the coloured section.
4. Click on the filter icon and select the property Priority.
5. The Priority filter now appears under the title Inbox. Click on the down arrow to the right and the popup box lists all the priority categories. Select ‘High’. This linked view now only lists those tasks you ranked as a high priority.
6. Optional: On a separate tab, repeat the process, but change the layout to List layout. By default this will just list the task name. If you wish to display the relevant project, change the Property visibility in Settings (top right corner of the table) to display the following properties: Name, Project.

3. Due soon list

If you work on projects with due dates then a Due Soon list will be useful. If you have not already done so, add a Due Date property column to the Tasks Database.

Next steps:

1. On your Home Page, add a Toggle Heading: ‘Due Soon’
2. Add a colour to that heading
3. Open the toggle and add a linked view of the Tasks Database within the coloured section.
4. Click on the filter icon and add a filter for Status, then check ‘To Do’ and ‘In Progress’. This will hide any completed tasks from the list.
5. Then add another filter for Due Date and select the time period you wish. For example, due this week or due in the next four weeks.
6. Choose List Layout, then change the Property visibility to display only the following properties: Name, Due Date.

Read more about improving the quality of your family history in my book, The Good Genealogist.

Back to the Notion in family history page.

Feedback is Welcome

I’d love to hear how you are using Notion in family history. Please also let me know if any of my instructions are unclear.

About the Author

Danielle Lautrec is a genealogy educator, researcher, and author of The Good Genealogist. With qualifications in history, family history, and historical archaeology, she teaches for the Society of Australian Genealogists.