Boost Your Productivity: Pro Quick Capture Techniques in Notion (A Guide)
Let's get nerdy with productivity hacks.
If you’re anything like me, you spend a lot of time consuming content. Podcasts, books, articles, Tweets, and so on.
And if you’re someone who builds or creates things (like products or content), you are probably constantly coming up with ideas. I know I am.
These scenarios pose challenges:
How do I recall interesting things that I read?
How can I store them so I can easily find them later?
How do I capture ideas that I have?
Quick capturing ideas and interesting content are often recommended. Some people use notes apps, sticky notes, to do lists. I’ve tried a bunch of approaches, but I’ve gotten serious about quick capture over the last year and I’ve discovered some expert ways to capture ideas — specifically with Notion.
Don’t lose your best idea ever
I’m not being hyperbolic when I say this: quick capturing is - in my opinion - one of the most important habits to adapt as a creator of any sort.
Inspiration can come at any moment and the confluence of circumstances that creates an idea is fleeting. Having a great idea can be impossible to reproduce.
The concept of capturing ideas is obviously very simple. The goal here is to really try to optimize the process with a focus on two primary factors:
Speed - The less clicks/taps to capture, the better
Organization - The easier to find the capture later, the better
Hyper-organized
If you want to capture ideas in a super organized way, this section is for you. And it requires Notion.
Step zero is to create a Notion page where you capture ideas. If you don’t have Notion, you can get a free account here.
Since I’m usually working on several different projects simultaneously, I am often capturing a wide range of ideas. To keep them organized, I use Notion’s database feature. This allows me to mark which project each capture pertains to, use tagging, and more.
When I trigger the shortcuts mentioned later, I am first met with a page that has buttons to create new database entries. When I click “Quick Capture Idea”, the screen below appears.
My entries include fields for:
Date Added
Project
Content Type
Link
Notes
AI Summary
AI Tagging
I don’t always fill in every field when I create a capture, but I try to. This helps me find information more easily later.
For example, I use quick capture for a lot of my newsletter post ideas. If I have a thought for a new post or find some supporting details for one that’s in progress, it typically gets quick captured. By labeling with the appropriate project, I can really easily filter to find captures for a particular post I’m working on. Or when I’m sitting down to write a new piece, I can go through all of the captures tagged as “Newsletter Inspo”.
I don’t capture only ideas, though. I also capture links to tools, books, courses, and articles that could be helpful in some way. There have been a few instances where I’ve been trying to recall an interesting tool or site I stumbled upon and having it stored in my captures has saved me.
Setting up a database
This may seem intimidating at first, but it’s easy.
Go to the page you want to be the database’s parent page OR create a new page.
Type “/” to pull up the blocks menu.
Type “database” and select the “Database - Full page” option.
Configure columns and settings to your liking 😎
Here’s how I set up my project column. Check out Notion’s documentation on databases to unlock their full potential.
Or you can just grab my free template here. It’s the same format I use. Just modify the values (project names, etc.).
Make a button
The button tool is a key piece of the quick capture equation for me. It creates a button you can click that performs several steps at once. I have my button create a new page in my quick capture database, set the date, and open the newly created page.
On the parent page, use the slash command to search for blocks and type in “button”. Select it and then configure based on your setup. Below is what mine looks like.
Desktop capture
On desktop, there are a few ways to capture that we’ll cover:
In-Notion button
Custom application shortcut
Web Clipper
Making a custom app may sound intimidating, but it’s really easy. And here’s why I like this level of shortcut: If you instead open Notion, then go searching for the right page, there’s a greater likelihood of getting distracted along the way.
This technique gets you right to capturing. Zero friction. Zero chance of distraction.
Let’s make a (basic) app
Step 1: Copy link to quick capture page
Open the specific Notion page you want to create a shortcut for.
Copy the URL from the browser or Notion app (using the three dot menu in the upper right).
Step 2: Create an Automator Application
Open Automator on your Mac (CMD + Spacebar, search “Automator”).
When it opens, select Application as the document type.
In the left sidebar, search for the action "Get Specified URLs" and double-click it.
In the URL field, paste the Notion page URL you copied earlier.
Next, search for "Display Webpages" in the actions and drag it to the workflow area.
Test the Automator by clicking the “Run” button in the upper righthand corner.
If it succeeds, click File > Save and save the Automator application with a name like "Open Quick Capture".
To launch the quick capture, I tried making keyboard shortcuts, but I think it’s more work than it’s worth. Instead, I hit CMD+Spacebar and then type “Quick capture” and hit Return.
✂️ Web Clipper
When browsing, Notion’s own Web Clipper extension is ideal for capturing links. Download links can be found on Notion’s website.
Once the plugin is installed, it can be clicked from any page in your browser. From there, you just need to add a note and select where you want the page to be saved.
Again, not all the database fields are filled in this way. I try to update important missing fields weekly. Notion also has a new AI Autofill feature, which should fill in fields automatically.
Why it’s great: Bookmarks seem like they go into the abyss. Saving pages into a Notion database puts them somewhere I’ll actually look later.
Plus, the content of the page saves to the database entry, making it easier to search later. This has also helped cut down on how many tabs I leave open 😅
Mobile capture
📱 Home screen widget
The mobile home screen widget acts a shortcut to your quick capture page. Whenever I need to write down a note or idea, I know that I can quickly get to the right Notion doc from the first page of my phone’s screen.
Steps for adding (iOS-specific)
Long press on your home screen
Tap the + button in the upper left
Find Notion from the list
Select the single page tile
Select the appropriate page(s)
The steps for Android are roughly the same. You can check the official Notion documentation for more details.
🗣️ Voice to text
This voice-to-text shortcut will let you dictate a note that goes right into a Notion database. It won’t let you fill in all the database attributes, but you can do the most important part which is capturing the actual idea.
Note: This is iOS specific. I’ll add the Android version once I can test it.
Open the Shortcuts app on your phone.
Tap the + button in the upper right to make a new shortcut.
Tap “+ Add Action” and search for Notion.
Select “Create a database page” from the search results.
Fill in the prompt details: “Create a page with [Title] and [Body] in [Database].
Tap [Title] and replace with “Ask each time”.
Tap [Body] and replace with “Ask each time”.
Tap [Database] and search the name of the database you’d like to connect to.
Tap the arrow next to “Create a database page” at the top and select “Rename”. The name you use will be the shortcut when you speak to Siri (I use “Quick Capture”).’
Tap “Done”.
Now when you trigger Siri you can say, “Quick capture” (or whatever name you give it) and it will ask you:
“What’s on your mind?” - Provide the title
“What’s the body?” - Provide the details of the quick capture (I usually just ramble on)
Why it’s great: Ever have an idea come to your while on the road? This makes quick capturing 100% voice controlled.
💾 Save webpages and files
When browsing on your phone, this shortcut can save just about anything to Notion. If the app has the share button, you’ll be able to use this approach (for example, it works in browsers, Instagram, Twitter, on files, etc.).
Why this is great: Rather than bookmark posts on every social media platform individually, you can save them all to Notion. It’s also better than leaving hundreds of tabs open that never get looked at (this is what I used to do).
I hope these productivity hacks help improve your quick capture game as much as it has improved mine! Do you have any tricks I missed? Share in the comments!