thesis planning template notion

• Sep 29, 2020
• 10 min read

How I Use Notion as a PhD Student (With Template)

Updated: Dec 12, 2023

For the most up-to-date version of this template, click the button to head to my new website

Or check out my other PhD template – the Ultimate PhD Notion Template

Here's the YouTube video I made about this Notion setup:

I discovered Notion about a month ago, and it has honestly changed my life, both at my PhD and personally. If you don't know what Notion is, it's self-described as an "all-in-one workspace", but is basically a program / app where you create databases and pages to store any and all kinds of information. Personally, I use it to track the books I'm reading, my recipes, and I've even set up my Christmas planning in there. I also use it for organising my Instagram and blog, and keeping track of my overall career progress.

But most importantly, I now use Notion on a daily basis for my PhD. So if you're interested in how I use Notion in my PhD, then keep on reading! And if you're just interested in my template at the end, then scroll down to the bottom where I'll leave a link to it.

(For the purposes of this post I'm going to talk you through the PhD template I made instead of my own actual PhD pages, as they contain unpublished information and cannot actually be shared. However, it's important that you know they are identical to each other, just the template has the sensitive information removed!)

In a PhD, there is a lot to keep track of. Things to do and things you've done, papers to read and papers to write up. So it helps to have a space to keep track of all these things. I originally had a million and one excel spreadsheets and word documents, but once I discovered Notion, I realised how much easier it was to have it all stored in the one place! And one of the best things about Notion is it's free for students!

I start my overarching PhD page with a header of a brain, because as you all probably know, I'm studying neuroscience. Then my little emoji of choice for the page is a graduation cap. One of the things I love about Notion is the widespread use of emojis, where every page can be assigned an emoji. I then have a quote about doing a PhD which I found to be quite funny, alongside a countdown to my PhD submission date. I made this countdown using this website I found called Indify, which specialises in making free Notion widgets that you can embed into your page. I've left my countdown in the template, but if you want to use this template for yourself, you can either remove the countdown entirely, or go to Indify and create your own!

As you scroll down, I have my list of different pages, which I'll go through with you all in just a moment. But they basically cover everything you need to know or keep track of.

Scrolling down further, you reach my tasks planner. I use Google Calendar for my overall diary but I do like to just have a space for planning out my PhD tasks. First up on my tasks section is the Calendar View, where I can see everything laid out for each day. For illustrative purposes, I've put in a few example tasks that I may need to do for my PhD in the month of September so you can see what it would look like.

Next we have the "Task Inbox", which was inspired by a YouTube video I watched on creating a "Getting Things Done" (GTD) Dashboard! I did modify this a little bit from the video, but if you're interested in the original source of the idea, here's the link!

But basically, when you need to add a new task in, you click for a new item in the inbox. You then enter all the information you need in, including the due date and whether it's a high priority task, and once you assign it to a specific project in the last column, it disappears from the inbox. You won't then see that task again unless you look forward on the calendar or unless it's due that week in which case it'll show up in the "Tasks Due This Week" table.

I've added some example tasks to the week to show what it may look like when you have some tasks in your "Tasks Due This Week" section. Notice "random task 2" is missing? That's because I've ticked it as "Done", at which point it automatically removes it from the table. That way, I only see my to do list for the week with items that haven't been done yet!

At the very bottom of this front page, is a link to the master list page for the tasks, in case you want to view all the tasks you've created, past, present and future.

And that just about covers my main dashboard for my PhD template! Now onto the individual specific pages from further up the page.

First up we have "Meetings / Seminar Notes". This is a pretty self explanatory one. Every time I have an important meeting, I type up my meeting notes that I took on my iPad into Notion. I can then tag for specific meetings, the meeting date and who was in attendance. This last feature is particularly great, because I could then say for example filter for all meetings where my supervisor was or was not present.

If you go into each meeting's page, you can then take or type up your notes. I've created a few different templates for different types of meetings / seminars, but you can take this one step further. If you know a particular set of people are always in your team meeting for example, you can edit the "Team Meeting" template so that it automatically lists those people as being in attendance when you use that template.

I also need to shout out to Jacqueline Beaulieu's Youtube channel , which has talked about using Notion as a student multiple times. In particular, I want to mention the video I've linked below, which was the genius behind some of the templates in this part of my PhD workspace.

The next page is pretty self-explanatory too, in that it's where I store my various protocols. As scientists, we can use a lot of different techniques, and it's easy to lose track of the protocols for it. So I use this section to make a page per protocol, and write it up so I have them stored in one place!

Next up is the "New Papers to Read" page. I use this as a dashboard to put in new papers that have come out that I'm yet to read but need to read. I've left in two papers from my HUGE reading list, one research and one review, so that you can see what it would look like with papers inputted in. At the very end of the table is a spot for the URL, so you can easily link, but you could also make a file heading and upload the PDF instead so you already have that ready to go for later.

Following on from this is a "Publication Record" page to store all of your publications. Simply write up each citation and embed the papers beneath, and voilà , you have an easy place to find all the papers you've published! This may seem like overkill, but you don't know how many times I've searched for my own publications in Google Scholar because I needed to find something out from them...

Next is the "Thesis Figures Tracker". This might be my favourite page of the whole thing! Basically, I use this page to keep track of my figures in my thesis within each chapter. The headings for this table are: "Finished?", "Chapter", "Figure Title", "Image" (which is basically a place to upload your figure), "Data or Schematic?", "Created on?", "Date Started", "Date Completed", "Based on..." (for if you've based your figure on another papers and need to cite), "Figure Legend" (yes/no), "Scale Bar" (yes/no), and "Comments". This may sound a lot, but it really helps you keep track of what stage your figures are up to.

But the pièce de résistance is when you view the figures tracker in "Board View" rather than "Table View". This allows you to actually visualise all of your figures, as the figure images you upload become the display pictures, and you can see all the information you need beneath!

The last main page is "Literature Notes", which is exactly what it sounds like, a place to make notes on the literature. I've put in an example article so you can see what it looks like, but basically the headers are "Title", "Authors", "Year", "Journal", "Type of Article", "In vitro or in vivo", "Species", "Tissue", and "File" (so you can upload the PDF if you want to).

If you actually go into the article's page, there is a template to use, with headers for summarising the paper, noting what the key findings were, and writing down your critiques of the paper. Overall, this part of the template is great for new PhD students, but if you're already established and have written the bulk of your lit review, it may not be of much use!

Finally, we have the pages for specific papers. These are all the same as each other, so I'll just go through one of them.

Within each paper, you have a space to write the paper title, and the core aims / hypotheses. Then there are two pages within, a figures tracker and an experiments tracker.

The figures tracker is much the same as the thesis figures tracker, with the same headings and the same "Board View" effect option. This is just a way for you to keep track of the figures for each paper, so that you don't lose track.

Last but not least is the experiments tracker, which is useful for keeping track of experiments. You can go into each experiment's page and write down the information about the experiment you need, such as antibody concentrations or suppliers / manufacturers. Then when you come to write up the paper, you have all that information at hand.

My favourite thing to do is view this database in "Board View" again, so that I can just glance at it and see which experiments are at which stage in the experimental process. I've made the tags so they're applicable to my immunohistochemistry experiments, but you could change them to be whatever you need them to be!

UPDATE 16/1/21

I've now added a "word count" page to my Notion template! It's really easy to use, and it's just a way to keep yourself accountable for how much writing you've achieved each day. You can find it under the main "pages" section on the template, and it's really simple to fill out. My goal is to write 500 words a day over the rest of my PhD, as I'm now in my final year and need to be making daily progress on writing up.

In the template, I've added some example days of writing so you can see how to use the template. Basically, you put the word count for each of your papers / chapters in for each day. For example, on day 1 you had only written 100 words of your first PhD paper, but on day 2 you had a total word count of 200. Don't add in these columns the amount of words you wrote each day, just the total word count you can see for each document.

Then, at the end of the table, it will tally up your total word count across all your documents. In the next column, just write in what the word count was the day before, and then in the next column it will automatically calculate how much you've written specifically that day. Since my goal is to write 500 words a day, I've included a formula checkbox that ticks itself when I've hit my writing target.

It's important to note however that you can change that word goal if you'd like. Just go in to edit the formula, and change the "500" value to be whatever you'd like your word goal to be. Then it'll automatically tick the box when you've hit your daily target!

UPDATE 1/3/22

I've now also added two professional development pages to my Notion template - "Opportunities" and "Professional Contacts"! These pages are there to simply make your life easier when trying to optimise your CV and network connections ready for applying for work when you graduate from your postgraduate degree. Let's start by looking at the "Opportunities" page...

This page is great because it is a place for you to store all professional opportunities you encounter. I've made it to encompass volunteering and internships, although you can edit the tags to include any other opportunity types that are applicable. The opportunities are grouped into two sections, "Apply Now" and "Future Opportunity". This means that not only do you have somewhere to store opportunities that you want to actively apply for, but if you also stumble across something that would be great maybe more towards the end of your degree that you don't want to forget about, then that can also be housed here!

Inside each page, you can then also include any extra things you need to know, such as any eligibility requirements or anything you may need to apply for the opportunity, eg. your resume, cover letter, academic transcripts, etc. There is also a place to directly link to where the opportunity is being advertised, as well as attach a relevant file, eg. an advertising flyer.

The other new page in this template is the "Professional Contacts" page. This is the place to collect and store information about all of the important professional contacts you meet during your studies and beyond. This includes their name, their association, their field of work, their relationship to you, and two emails (in case you have both a professional and a personal email for certain people). There is also a checkbox that you can tick if you have connected with them on LinkedIn, as well as a checkbox that you can tick if you believe they would make a good referee for you on future job applications. Finally, there's a place to record the last date you contacted each person to ensure you don't leave it too long before reaching out, as well as a place to write a brief update from the last time you spoke.

So that's it for my Notion PhD Dashboard. I hope that me stepping through my Notion was of some use to you all! If you have any questions, or any improvements you want to suggest, definitely reach out to me! I'm always happy to talk all things Notion.

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for, the template download! When you access the template, just go to the top right hand corner and click "Duplicate" to copy it into your own Notion account!

To access the most up-to-date version of this template, head over to my new website at:

Amazing explanation of Notion and such a helpful template to get me started. Thanks so much, Lily. ☺️

Thank you sooooo much for this. I am just starting my PhD and this is just brilliant. Well done you and thank you again.

Academic Writing in Notion (with Template)

You’ve got that paper to write but no idea where to start? You are drowning in literature that’s scattered all over the place? And you just don’t have a system to turn all your research into some tangible results? Whenever I had some sort of Academic Writing to tackle, it usually started with the feeling of being overwhelmed. So much literature to go through. No structure in place to sort what I’ve found. And certainly no time to take a deep breath and look for a good system to do it all. I usually ended up writing notes in Word while copypasting links to sources in a frantic attempt to organise all my readings. Needless to say, it wasn’t a very effective approach. Luckily, Notion is absolutely amazing at organising any Academic Writing project. And with this Academic Writing in Notion Template, you can easily master your reading list, set your writing project up for success and start connecting the dots .

Read on for more explanations or jump to the bottom of the page to get this ( free ) Academic Writing in Notion Template

Your Academic Writing Hub in Notion

The main page of the template is designed to be the command center of your writing projects.

Up top, you’ll find the the Navigation Bar that will let you jump quickly between sections.

You can customise your Quick Links section according to your most used resources. Quick Notes lets you create a new note without interrupting your workflow. And with Active Writings , you never lose track of what you’re working on.

Next, you’ll find your Inbox that will keep track of all new readings that you’ve collected.

Tip: Use the Save to Notion Webclipper instead of Notion’s native clipper to customise how you import your sources.

And directly below, there’s your reading list, sorted by priority, so that you always know what to work on next.

Your Readings List in Notion

If you’ve ever struggled to organise your readings list or deal with all the material you’ve already worked through, then this is the section for you.

Your Readings shows you various views of your sources, so that you can focus on what really matters: working through the list and using your insights for your writing projects.

It contains an Inbox for new material that needs to be sorted and a Reading List that shows you what you should read next.

Further down the page, you’ll see your Most Used Readings . If you write a lot of articles, then this will become a treasure trove of your most useful resources so that you don’t have to sort through piles of documents to find that one article that you keep referencing everywhere.

See where you stand at a glance with the Status View. What are you currently reading? Which articles need to be summarised? Track your progress and make sure that nothing falls through the cracks

Lastly, the Master Table provides you with a comprehensive overview. Add the correct citation so that you can easily export your readings list to your literature cataloguing software of choice. Add a short summary and the relevance of this reading to sort through them quickly at a later time.

Think of your Readings section as your own personal knowledge management system , dedicated to a specific purpose: producing great writing.

Most importantly, add the Topics of the Reading to make some magic in Notion happen. How? We’ll get to that in a moment.

Your Topics in Notion

Topics are one of the coolest features of this Academic Writing for Notion Template.

Everyone who’s ever written an academic paper knows the struggle: how do you best match your readings to the content that you want to write? Your sources rarely only cover one aspect. Most of the times, a reading is relevant for several parts of your paper and on top of that, it might be useful for a different writing project too.

Enter Topics .

Simply tag each writing with the topics covered in it. Go as granular as you need – you can always delete topics later or add more, but try to get the gist of them.

This has three major benefits over the traditional let’s-take-notes-in-word-and-hope-we-find-it-again-later-when-we-need-it-approach.

First, you can open the My Topics to sort through your Topics and see recurring themes immediately. What topics keep popping up? It’s the first step to start connecting the dots.

Second, you can use a Topic to write so called Evergreen Notes . Evergreen Notes are notes that – like evergreen songs – are timeless and can be reused in a variety of ways. If you keep referencing certain concepts in your articles, then you can simply use your Evergreen Notes on that topic to quickly insert text snippets instead of having to start from 0 every single time.

Each Topic comes with it’s own dashboard to show you every single reading, writing or note that you’ve ever created for this topic. That way, creating your Evergreen Notes is a breeze.

The underlying concept for this part of the Academic Writing in Notion template is called Global Tags in Notio n and it’s super powerful.

The third thing is the magic we’ve talked about above and you’ll find it in the next step.

Your Writings in Notion

Now to the heart of the template, your personal Writing HQ.

First of, you have a general dashboard to keep track of all your writing projects.

Use the Master Table to add information to your projects. You can both create standalone Articles as well as Books and their respective Chapters for longer projects.

The Status View is your personal project management tool. Never forget an idea for a writing project again. And simply drag & drop a project into a different status once you’re ready to take the next step.

What’s even better though is the specific dashboard for each writing project. Any time you add a new project in your Academic Writing in Notion Template, the system will create it automatically.

Once you pick all related Topics for a writing project, it will automatically pull in all the relevant information that you’ve ever collected. Never dig through your notes again or frantically try to remember where you saved that paper that could come in handy now. They will all resurface on their own.

Like Magic.

( speaking of magic: have you tried my method to replace Siri with ChatGPT ? )

Your Notes in Notion

Lastly, no template would be complete without a dedicated section for Notes .

The Academic Writing in Notion Template comes pre-loaded with two types of notes:

• Meeting Notes to keep track of talks with your supervisor or colleagues, so that you always have their input within arms reach
• Brainstorming Notes to quickly jot down some thoughts that can be sorted later

Just remember to assign a Topic or Related Writing and your notes will automatically appear in the right context, wherever you need them.

Don’t forget to use the Quick Note feature on the main page of the template to make a quick note without interrupting your workflow.

Tip: You could easily integrate this part of the Academic Writing in Notion Setup with another template of mine: Zettelkasten for Notion , a simple tool for networked thoughts. If you need help setting this up, just tweet me @mfreihaendig .

Get Your Free Academic Writing In Notion Template Now

Streamline your workflow and start connecting the dots with my (free) Academic Writing in Notion Template:

You want more resources on how to improve your learning, waste less time and get more out of your study sessions? Check out the Effective Learning Hub.

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PhD and Productivity Notion Template (BOTH PhD & Productivity Content in this version)

The Ultimate Notion Template for PhD students including planning, motivation, and how to keep track of all of your thesis and transferable skills.

TRY BEFORE YOU BUY: https://www.notion.so/PhD-Planning-VIEW-ONLY-195c6bd44d0d42ac8c9866c662986625

Check out a video on how my template looks and works. 

Dashboard 1.0  https://youtu.be/ze0y1vetrj0

Dashboard 2.0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtxuMlARxhM&ab_channel=PhDandProductivity

Lifetime access to the PhD and Productivity Notion Template!

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The 40 Best Notion Templates for Students in 2024 (Aesthetic & Functional)

Notion is a must-have if you’re a student in 2024. With how versatile the platform is, you can use Notion to do everything from planning out your semester, taking notes, tracking grades, organizing your extracurriculars, and more.

Starting a Notion workspace from scratch can be a time-consuming process, especially if you have a busy school schedule to begin with. To make your life easier, we’ve curated a list of the best Notion templates for students, that have already done the heavy lifting for you. Easily pick one that works best for your academic lifestyle and personal aesthetic!

Are you a teacher looking to streamline your semester in Notion? Check out our blog post featuring the best Notion teacher templates !

Looking for more productivity tips and tools? Subscribe to The Flow — our quick, snappy, value-packed focus and recharge newsletter. Also, don’t miss our several other  Notion template round-ups and guides !

• First Name First

Table of Contents

• All-in-One Notion Student Templates

Notion Study Templates

Notion student planner templates, notion class & assignment templates & trackers, notion student note-taking templates.

• Notion Templates for PhD & Grad Students
• Notion Medical School Templates
• Notion Law School Templates

Free Notion Student Templates

Aesthetic notion student templates.

Get the all-in-one Life OS template , the only Notion template you’ll ever need — with over 25 integrated templates built in.

All-in-One Notion Student Dashboard Templates

Manage every aspect of your student life with a Notion student dashboard template, where you can plan out your days, prioritize your daily to-dos , manage projects , take notes, and lots more!

For more dashboard templates, visit our roundups featuring the best Notion life OS templates and Notion dashboard templates !

Student OS: All-in-One Student Template

With over 15 templates in a centralized dashboard, Student OS by yours truly is the ultimate all-in-one workspace for everything you need for your academic career – both in and out of the classroom! Use the class planner, assignment and deliverables tracker, automatic grade calculator, study zone with flashcards, job and internship application tracker, reading tracker, and so much more to set yourself up for success for the next school year and for your whole degree.

Student OS template is available in two different themes, offering the same functionality:

• Template Available Here  [Aesthetic Edition]
• Template Available Here [Minimalist Edition]

Advanced Student Dashboard & Knowledge Base

Template Available Here

ADHD Student Daily Dashboard

Available in multiple themes!

For more templates like this, don’t miss our full round-up of ADHD-friendly Notion templates — and check out the ADHD FAQ section at the bottom of this very guide.

Template Available Here  |  Plus Version

Acadashboard: Notion Studio OS

Green University Student Notion Dashboard Hub

Academia – Academic Management System for University Students

Aesthetic University Student Productivity Hub

Notion x Student Workspace Template

Notion for University Students

Student Planner Hub

Ultimate Notion Template for College Students

Keep your focus and refine your study routine with a Notion study template. Create a healthy and efficient study routine with Notion, and ace your exams!

Tomato: The Ultimate Pomodoro Notion Template

Check out our full round-ups of Notion Pomodoro templates and Notion Pomodoro timer widgets to deck out your setup!

Notion Study Kit Template

Simple Flashcards Template

Check out our full post on Notion flashcards for more templates and a tutorial!

Notion Flashcard Template for Learning & Studying

Flocus is a free browser-based dashboard for both focus and ambience. Featuring aesthetic themes, personal greeting Pomodoro timer, and lots more! Get early access to Flocus here .

The balance between your social life, academic performance, and mental and physical wellness can be overwhelming during a busy semester. Use a Notion student planner template to help you organize your life and prioritize the things that need to be focused on first!

For more templates, check out our post rounding up the best Notion planner templates .

Notion Semester Planner & Tracker

academia – Notion School Organizer Template

Simple Notion Course & Class Schedule Template

Simple Notion Thesis Planning Template

It’s tough to keep track of all of your deliverables when you have a full class schedule and a life outside of school to balance. Thanks to these templates, you can be sure you don’t fall behind in class with Notion! Monitor your progress and stay up to date with assignments and marks with these templates.

For more templates like these, check out our full round-up of Notion assignment tracker templates !

Notion Courses Manager Template

Notion Syllabus Template

Notion Grade Calculator Template

Notion Advanced Grade Calculator Template

Notion’s beautiful UI makes it easy to jot down notes and organize your documents in databases so you can revisit information for each class easily! Depending on your note-taking style, here are some great Notion student note-taking templates that use beloved techniques such as Cornell, Zettelkasten, and more.

For more templates like this, check out our full round-up featuring the best Notion note-taking templates .

Note-Taking OS

Academic Research Hub – Notion Research Template

Zettelkasten for Notion – Personal Knowledge Management Template

Notion Cornell Note-Taking Template

FlexiNote Note-Taking Template

Simple Aesthetic Lectures & Class Notes

Smart Notes for Students

Notion Student Notes Index

Notion Spaced Repetition Notes Template

Synthetic Notes Template

Basic Notion Class Notes Template

Notion Templates for Grad & PhD Students

There are some great Notion student templates out there, and some even go as far as creating solutions specifically for grad, post-grad, PhD, and master’s students! Plan your thesis, set grad school goals, store notes, track your progress, and so much more with these grad school-ready templates.

Templates Available:

• Grad School & PhD Notion Hub
• Simple Notion Grad School Template
• Notion Academic Dashboard for PhD Students
• Minimal Notion Grad School Dashboard
• Graduate School Applications Template for Notion
• Notion Grad School Application Planner
• Academic Notion Website Template
• Academic CV Notion Template

Notion Templates for Medical Students

If you’re a med student, you know that between all the classes, resources, placements, exams, and everything else, life can get unwieldy. With the right Notion template, organize and centralize everything for your med school journey in one spot!

Check out our full round-up of the best Notion medical school templates for even more options!

• Simple Aesthetic Medical Student Template
• Medical School Dashboard Template
• Notion Medical School Student Dashboard

Notion Templates for Law Students

For the up-and-coming lawyers, these are the templates for you! Organize your law school courses, track firms you want to work at or have applied to, store the hundreds of resources and links you need as a law student, and so much more with these Notion templates for law students.

• Notion Template for Aspiring Solicitors | Video Tutorial
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If you’re looking to use Notion for your studies, but don’t have the extra coin to pay for templates, there are a ton of simple free Notion student templates to meet basic needs. Here are some of our favorites!

Looking for more free templates? Check out our full list of free Notion templates .

Bright & Airy Aesthetic Student Dashboard Template

Simple Notion Student Homepage

Notion Academic Dashboard Template

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Notion University / College Hub Template

JaniceStudies Student Notion Dashboard

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The beauty with Notion is that you can personalize your student setup with your favorite visuals, colors, and themes! For inspo, check out these aesthetic Notion student layouts.

Interested in more aesthetic templates? Check out our detailed blog post showcasing the most aesthetic Notion templates !

Cafe Themed Student Planner

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Notion for Students: A Quickstart Guide

New to Notion? Get to grips with this popular productivity app with our quick guide to Notion for students!

Is Notion a good tool for students?

Yes, Notion is one of the best and most popular productivity tools for students! Thousands of real students use Notion to enhance their academic experience.

Here are a few reasons why Notion is a good tool for students:

• Track every element of your student life — from your assignments and notes to extracurriculars and chores — in Notion’s powerful, connectable databases.
• Features like Notion’s toggle blocks are great for active recall and spaced repetition, helping you take study sessions to the next level.
• Notion is fully customizable, letting you create minimalist or aesthetic spaces — whatever suits your brain and keeps you motivated!
• Collab with other students in real time on Notion — ideal for group projects.
• Use third-party tools to sync your Google Calendar , access helpful widgets , and much more.

Want to learn more about how Notion works? Check out How to Use Notion as a Student: A Full Guide !

What about Notion for ADHD and neurodivergent students?

Notion is an excellent organizational and productivity tool for ADHD and neurodivergent students. On Reddit, you’ll find dozens of posts ( like this one ) from neurodivergent students looking for the best ways to use Notion.

Here are a few reasons Notion is good for ADHD and neurodivergent students:

• Storing your notes, assignments, and other essential info in Notion can prevent distractions and tab-switching.
• Filters, statuses, and other database features help combat “time blindness”, helping you better prioritize tasks.
• ADHD-friendly organization systems like Zettelkasten can be easily set up in Notion.
• To-do lists, calendars, progress bars , and databases let you break big tasks down into small steps — and organize your academic life in a way that makes sense to your brain.
• Dozens of specially-made, ADHD-friendly Notion templates make setting up your student hub quick and easy.

Is Notion free for university and college students?

Notion offers a free plan for everyone that gives you all the functionality needed to help you conquer your coursework.

Students at US-accredited higher education institutions are eligible for a free Notion Plus Plan. The Plus Plan lets you share your Notion pages with up to 100 guests, access 30 days of page revisions, and more.

Unfortunately, Notion does not offer its free Plus Plan to high school students.

You can access Notion Plus for free as long as you have access to a valid educational email address. (Notion doesn’t accept student IDs as proof.)

To redeem your Plus Plan, make sure the email address of your Notion workspace matches your student email. To change your email address, open Settings & members from your Notion sidebar, then select My account > Change email .

To learn more, visit Notion’s help center .

Is Notion AI free for students?

Notion AI is a separate paid add-on. You can test out Notion AI for free with a set number of complimentary responses.

Many students find Notion AI useful for summarizing text, creating bullet points out of class notes, and highlighting key points.

It’s worth noting you shouldn’t use Notion AI to generate essays and assignments — doing so almost certainly breaches your university’s policies on plagiarism.

Which Notion templates for students would you recommend? Are there any Notion student templates that we’re missing from the list? Let us know in the comments below!

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A Guide to Dissertation Planning: Tips, Tools and Templates

Dissertations are a defining piece of academic research and writing for all students. To complete such a large research project while maintaining a good work-life balance, planning and organisation is essential. In this article, we’ll outline three categories for dissertation planning including project management, note-taking and information management, alongside tools and templates for planning and researching effectively.

For both undergraduates and postgraduates, a dissertation is an important piece of academic research and writing. A large research project often has many moving parts from managing information, meetings, and data to completing a lengthy write-up with drafts and edits. Although this can feel daunting, getting ahead with effective planning and organisation will make this process easier. By implementing project management techniques and tools, you can define a research and writing workflow that allows you to work systematically. This will enable you to engage in critical thinking and deep work, rather than worrying about organisation and deadlines. 

To get prepared, you can do two things: First, start your preliminary readings and research to define a topic and methodology.  You can do this in summer or during the first few weeks of university but the sooner, the better. This gives you time to discuss things with your supervisor, and really choose a topic of interest. Second, begin preparing the tools and techniques you’ll be using for your research and writing workflow. You can use the preliminary research phase to test these out, and see what works for you. 

Below, we’ll cover three key aspects to consider when managing your dissertation, alongside some digital tools for planning, research and writing. 

The 3 Categories of Dissertation Planning

Project Management and Planning 

Your dissertation is a project that requires both long and short-term planning. For long-term planning, roadmaps are useful to break your work down into sections, chapters or stages. This will give you a clear outline of the steps you need to work through to complete your dissertation in a timely manner. 

Most likely, your roadmap will be a mixture of the stages in your research project and the sections of your write-up. For example, stage 1 might be defined as preliminary research and proposal writing. While stage 3 might be completing your literature review, while collecting data. 

This roadmap can be supplemented by a timeline of deadlines, this is when those stages or chapters need to be completed by. Your timeline will inform your short-term plans, and define the tasks that need completing on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. This approach, using a roadmap and timeline, allows you to capture all the moving parts of your dissertation, and focus on small sub-sections at a time. A clear plan can make it easy to manage setbacks, such as data collection issues, or needing more time for editing. 

Note-taking 

Whether you use a notebook, or digital tool, it’s ideal to have a dedicated research space for taking general notes. This might include meeting notes from supervision, important information from informational dissertation lectures, or key reminders, ideas and thoughts. It can be your go-to place for miscellaneous to-do lists, or to map out your thought processes. It’s good to have something on hand that is easy to access, and keeps your notes together in one place. 

Beyond this, you’ll also need a dedicated space or system for literature and research notes. These notes are important for avoiding plagiarism, communicating your ideas, and connecting key findings together. A proper system or space can make it easier to manage this information, and find the appropriate reference material when writing. Within this system, you might also include templates or checklists, for example, a list of critical reading questions to work through when assessing a paper. 

Information Management 

It’s important to consider how you plan to organise your literature, important documents, and written work. Note-taking is a part of this, however, this goes a step further to carefully organise all aspects of your dissertation. For example, it’s ideal to keep track of your literature searches, the papers you’ve read, and their citations but also, your reading progress. Being able to keep track of how many passes a paper has been through, how relevant it is, or where it fits within your themes, or ideas, will provide a good foundation for writing a well-thought out dissertation. 

Likewise, editing is an important part of the write-up process. You’ll have multiple drafts, revisions and feedback to consider. It’s good to have some way of keeping track of all this, to ensure all changes and edits have been completed. You might also have checklists or procedures to follow when collecting data, or working through your research. A good information management process can reduce stress, making everything easy to access and keep track of, which then allows you to focus on getting the actual work complete. 

Digital Project Management and Research Tools for Dissertation Planning 

Trello is a project management tool that uses boards, lists and cards to help you manage all your tasks. In a board, you can create lists, and place cards within these lists. Cards contain a range of information such as notes, checklists, and due dates. Cards and lists can be used to implement a digital kanban board system , allowing you to move cards into a ‘to-do’, ‘in progress’ or ‘complete’ list. This gives a visual representation of your progress.

This is a flexible, easy to use and versatile tool that can help with project management of your dissertation. For example, cards and lists can be used to track your literature, each card can represent a paper and lists could be 1st pass, 2nd pass, or be divided into themes. Likewise, you can use this approach to organise the various chapters or stages of your dissertation, and break down tasks in a visual way. Students have used Trello to manage academic literature reviews , daily life as an academic , and collaborate with their supervisors for feedback and revisions on their write-up. 

Notion is an all-in-one note-taking and project management tool that is highly customisable. Using content blocks, pages, and databases, this tool allows you to build a workspace tailored to your needs. Databases are a key feature of Notion, this function allows you to organise and define pages using a range of properties such as tags, dates, numbers, categories and more. This database can then be displayed in a multitude of ways using different views, and filters. 

For example, you can create a table with each entry being a page of meeting notes with your supervisor, you can assign a date, person, and tags to each page. You can then filter this information by date, or view it in a board format. Likewise, you can use the calendar to add deadlines, within these deadlines, you can expand the page to add information, and switch to ‘timeline’ view . This is perfect for implementing project management techniques when planning your dissertation. 

Although this may sound complicated, there are many templates and resources to get you started . Notion is an ideal tool for covering all three aspects of dissertation planning from project and information management to note-taking of all kinds. Students have used Notion for literature reviews , thesis writing , long-term PhD planning , thesis management , and academic writing . The best part, these students not only share their systems, but have also created free templates to help you build your own system for research. 

Asana is a project management and to-do list tool that uses boards, lists, timelines and calendars. If you’re someone who prefers using lists to organise your life and projects, Asana is ideal for you. You can use this tool to manage deadlines, reading progress, or break down your work into projects and sub-tasks. Asana can integrate with your calendar, which is perfect if you already use other calendar tools for organisation. If something like Notion is too overwhelming, using a mixture of tools with different purposes can be a more comfortable approach. 

Genei is an AI-powered research tool for note-taking and literature management. Your research and reading material can be imported, and organised using projects and folders. For each file, genei produces an AI-powered summary, document outline, keyword list and overview. This tool also extracts key information such as tables, figures, and all the references mentioned. You can read through documents 70% faster but also, collect related articles by clicking on the items in the reference list. Genei can generate citations, and be used alongside other popular reference management tools, such as Zotero and Mendeley . 

This tool is ideal for navigating information management and literature notes for your dissertation. You can compile notes across single documents or folders of documents using the AI-generated summaries. These notes remain linked to their original source, which removes the need for you to keep track of this information. If you find it hard to reword content, there’s also summarising and paraphrasing tools to help get you started. Genei is a great tool to use alongside project management solutions, such as Trello and Asana, and note-taking tools like Notion. You can define an efficient research and writing workflow using these range of tools, and make it easier to stay on top of your dissertation. 

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