My Biggest Notion Summit Takeaway: Building Is Only the Beginning

Listen on Spotify // Listen on Apple Podcasts

You Built the System. Why Aren’t You Using It? My Biggest Takeaway from the Notion Ambassador Summit

Last Friday, I was sitting in a WeWork in downtown San Francisco with my headphones on, trying to process two days at the Notion Ambassador Summit.

I’d made zero social plans. I was fucking tired. And apparently, my brain had decided that the thing we needed to do before going home was think about databases some more.

But really, I was thinking about the people using them.

I’d spent those two days around Notion consultants and creators with very specific opinions about systems. I have those opinions too. And still, being in a room with some of the best people in the field had me questioning my expertise and my business.

Then, in three separate rooms, I heard people coming back to the same concern: what happens after the build?

Do people use it? Where do they get stuck? What changes once the system meets an actual workday?

And I thought, okay. If professional builders are talking about how much support that takes, why are we expecting ourselves to buy a template, finish a dashboard, and have the whole problem solved?

The relief of getting organized is real. So is what happens afterward.

I love building systems. I love a good organizing session. I love opening my Notion workspace and knowing where everything goes.

That feeling is real. But I also know how easily I can confuse it with the problem being solved.

I’ve spent a weekend building something in my own workspace, felt great about it, and then quietly stopped using it. And I build systems for a living.

Knowing how to build the thing doesn’t automatically mean I’ve worked out how to use it consistently.

There’s a difference between having somewhere to put your tasks and actually adding them when you’re between calls. Between building a client tracker and using it to follow up. Between designing a weekly review and having a version you can do during a busy week.

At the summit, Notion State, an agency of Notion consultants, talked about how much a system’s success depends on adoption: whether the people it’s designed for actually use it.

That stayed with me. Because if your dashboard is finished but your business still lives mostly in your head, finishing the dashboard didn’t answer every question.

What Notion implementation looks like during a real workday

Notion implementation means bringing the system into your actual work, using it, and adjusting it based on what happens. The databases are part of that. So are the decisions about when, where, and how you use them.

Say you’ve built a place to track potential clients. You’ve added names, contact information, and statuses. Great. You have somewhere for the information to go.

Now someone emails you while you’re getting ready for a client call.

When does their information get added? How do you know when to follow up? When do you check the list? If you have to enter the same information in two places, are you realistically going to keep doing that?

Those are implementation questions.

Sometimes you need a quicker way to capture an inquiry. Sometimes a filtered view showing who needs a follow-up would help. Sometimes you need to connect your tools so you aren’t doing double entry.

And sometimes the setup is useful, but you’re trying to practice a new way of working while also running your entire business.

Telling yourself to “be more consistent” doesn’t tell you which of those problems you have. Consistent with what? A process you haven’t worked out yet? A workspace that takes too long to maintain?

You need to look at where using it breaks down.

I’ve tried changing the tool before understanding the problem

Last year, I moved my membership from Circle to Skool. Everyone and their mother seemed to be moving there, and I’d watched a friend grow massively on it.

I wanted that.

But changing the platform didn’t answer the questions I still needed to answer. What was I helping people do? How would they participate? What support did I want to provide—and what did I not want to provide?

I still had to figure my own shit out.

And to be fair, sometimes changing platforms is the right decision. I moved my membership again because my business and my needs changed. I needed something that fit those changes.

Both can be true. A tool can be the wrong fit, and a new tool can leave an unresolved problem untouched.

Before you buy another Notion template or move your whole business somewhere else, can you explain why the last setup didn’t work?

Maybe you can. Maybe you can’t yet. But that’s worth investigating before spending another weekend rebuilding.

AI can build faster. You still have to make it usable.

I recently worked with a client who’d used Claude to build her Notion systems.

When we opened the main page, there were databases stacked on top of each other. The pieces existed. But she was overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start.

So we spent our session figuring out what she wanted to see, how she pictured the workspace, and how she wanted to use it. Then we organized it around those needs.

AI had helped create the databases. It hadn’t finished the work of making them useful to her.

That’s an important distinction, especially when building is getting faster. Speed is useful. I use AI too. But you still have to decide what the system should do and whether the result makes your work easier.

A page full of databases doesn’t answer the question, “What do I do when I open this?”

Before you rebuild, follow one task through the system

Pick one system you’ve already made or bought. Just one.

Ask yourself: What was this supposed to help me do, and where does using it break down?

If it’s a client tracker, follow one inquiry from the first email to the follow-up. Notice where you lose track, what you have to remember, and what you enter manually.

If it’s a task list, notice what happens when a new task arrives. Can you capture it quickly? When you return, can you tell what needs your attention? What happens after you haven’t opened it for a week?

You don’t need to fix everything today. You’re looking for something specific enough to work on.

Maybe that means simplifying a view, removing unnecessary fields, or choosing a realistic moment to check the list. Try the change during your actual work before deciding you need an entirely new setup.

And if you can’t tell what’s getting in the way, you don’t have to arrive at a consultant’s door with the diagnosis already done. Bring what you’re noticing: the follow-ups that slip, the page you avoid, the part that takes too long.

That gives us somewhere useful to start.

You don’t have to figure out the implementation alone

I think about what would feel different if you could open your workspace and trust it. See who needs a reply. Find the next task. Come back after a busy week without spending your afternoon reconstructing everything.

That’s what I want the system to help you do.

It’s also why implementation support is such a big part of my work. Inside Burnout-Proof Business, we work through the parts you’re stuck on with weekly Build Labs, troubleshooting, and support making decisions as you use your systems in real life.

You don’t need a perfect workspace before you join. You can bring the thing you’ve built and still aren’t using. If you want ongoing help putting your systems into practice, join Burnout-Proof Business. If you need something more personal than that, book a Huddle!

What I brought home from the summit was simple, but I needed the reminder too: the goal is a system you can actually use to make your work easier.