My Notion Birthday gift

Last night I showed my girlfriend one of the birthday gifts I got her: a Notion dashboard I designed and built specifically for her needs. I made it because we’re at the phase in our life where we are trying to cut out more materialistic things in our life and I’ve always known that she wanted to find a way to tackle her digital “clutter” but was intimidated to start on Notion because it always felt like another big learning curve. So I wanted to build one for her, to give her an easy starting point.

To design something that fits her needs I went through a handful of Notion templates to draw inspiration for creating things that can complement rather than completely replace her current workflows. I also research a lot of dashboard examples to pick one that is simple and aesthetically pleasing. I even created a mood board so I can pick the right color schemes. Finally, I left 💌 all around the dashboard to include what I called “love + product notes” that make it easier to understand the different pages, functions, and overall vision of it.

What I didn’t expect was her reaction. After explaining each part of what I’ve built, she was so touched by gestures and was crying. I kept telling her that I was worried that I was too nerdy of a gift and I didn’t want her to feel like I’m trying to impose on her growth steps, but it all turned out my instincts were spot on and I created something exactly what she needed.

All of this further validation of how I need to continue to trust my building and product instincts because they’re definitely getting better than even I would like to give myself credit for. Onwards