This essay is lightly adapted from a talk I gave about the system behind Rootfolk’s first Kickstarter.
Is there an idea that has been bouncing around your head for months—or even years?
From the initial idea through writing, creative production, and crowdfunding my comic Rootfolk, I managed the work in a custom Notion system that adapts across mediums. It supports screenwriting, worldbuilding, comics, board games, and the logistical work required to move any of those things into the world.
This is how I use Notion first and foremost as a creative tool: to remove friction from getting an idea into motion, anticipate the creative and logistical challenges ahead, and finally ship.
Rootfolk and the problem behind the system
I’m the writer of Rootfolk, a fantasy comic with art by Marco Defilo. It follows Alva, a woman adopted by a living forest as an infant who has grown up quite literally half tree and half human. Despite only knowing life inside the forest, she has never been fully accepted as one of the Rootfolk. When a human army arrives, bent on razing the forest, Alva sets out to prove her loyalty while learning there is more human in her than she thought.
For the first Kickstarter, we set a funding goal of $1,500 and passed it in about two hours. That was a wonderful surprise. It was also the visible end of a much longer process: developing the story, coordinating the art, tracking approvals, preparing a campaign, and building a path for readers to find the work.
Depending on the day, I may be working as a novelist, web developer, screenwriter, board-game designer, or comic writer. That creates a lot of context switching—not only between stories, but between entirely different workflows. The system has to help me change contexts without repeatedly reconstructing how the work is supposed to happen.
Begin by making capture easy
I can tell you exactly what my first Notion page was: a novel idea called The Sinking City of Magic. I woke up from a dream, desperately needed to record it, reached for my phone, and immediately opened…Evernote.
I already had Notion installed, but I reached for the tool that was easiest because it was the one I knew. Since then, I have deliberately made Notion that easy tool.
The first step is not an elaborate dashboard. It is removing the distance between a thought and a place where that thought can survive. You can begin at three levels:
- Use Notion directly. Make a new page anywhere. You can move it into the right database later and let the destination’s template supply the structure.
- Use the desktop launcher. Notion’s command search can open a page or create a new one without first navigating the workspace.
- Build intentional shortcuts. My phone’s writing Focus exposes links to active projects and quick-capture surfaces. On my computer, I use Raycast to reach the same system.
The implementation matters less than the principle: a useful creative system respects the moment when an idea arrives. Capture should require as little classification and ceremony as possible.
Four databases power the system
Most of my creative setup rests on four related databases:
- Projects contains the work I have committed to delivering.
- Tasks contains the actions required to move those projects.
- Notebook contains ideas, research, snippets, and working notes.
- Keywords connects and gives behavior to the material in the Notebook.
Projects relate to Tasks and Notebook entries. Notebook entries relate to Keywords. I use a related Keywords database instead of a simple select property because a keyword can become more than a label: it can have its own page, explanation, views, templates, and workflow.
Turn “idea” into a function
My “Idea” keyword is designed around one logistical challenge: how do you keep promising ideas visible and continue building on them without treating every stray thought as a full project?
The page contains two views of the same Notebook database. Both show notes tagged as ideas, while excluding snippets—small pieces of story, character, gameplay, or design that might be repurposed but do not yet constitute an idea.
One view gives me quick access to ideas that could become the next project. Another lets me review the larger pool and add “stars,” my version of an upvote. I add a star when I return to an idea and still find something alive in it. Once an idea has accumulated enough interest from its most important first audience—future me—it moves into the more prominent view.
This creates a deliberate middle state between capture and commitment. Ideas remain available without crowding the list of things I have promised to finish.
Let ideas evolve before deciding what they are
I used to create separate templates for different kinds of ideas. That asked me to decide too early whether a story concept was a comic, screenplay, or novel—or whether a mechanical idea belonged in a board game or video game.
Now I begin with one flexible idea template. It uses prompts and expandable sections to help me explore the paths I naturally take when developing something: character, world, theme, player experience, form, and scope.
There are progressively more structured ways to build this:
- Dropdowns can hold the questions that matter to your creative practice without forcing you to answer all of them.
- Buttons can add the next useful structure only when an idea needs it.
- Nested buttons can turn a note into a related project, update its idea status, and open the new project in one action.
The objective is not maximum automation. It is anticipatory design: reducing the small administrative decisions that interrupt creative momentum.
A project deserves a medium-specific workflow
Ideas can remain freeform. A project carries an expectation of delivery, so I pay much closer attention to the structure and needs of its format.
I keep one Projects database, with different templates for recurring kinds of work: novels, screenplays, comics, board games, video games, and applications. Not every template is equally mature, and I do not constantly retrofit old projects to match the newest version. The current template reflects the best practice I have learned from the projects receiving my attention now.
Rootfolk was the first comic I managed this way, so much of its production system had to be built from the ground up. The reusable parts should not be lost when the issue ships. They become the starting point for the next comic.
Structure the story without replacing the writing
Across story projects, I maintain related databases for characters, character arcs, main story arcs, and themes. Characters have arcs; those arcs are challenged by the story; and themes help me keep that movement coherent.
I also maintain definitions for the storytelling terms I use. Notion’s page previews let those references remain close to the work, so I do not have to leave the project or rely on memory when a concept matters.
I do not use Notion for drafting individual scenes or chapters. That work belongs in Scrivener, where scenes can take on shapes of their own and I can improvise in the actual language. Notion holds the commitments that should survive that improvisation. I do not begin drafting until I have defined the central arcs and themes clearly enough to know what the scene is meant to serve.
A workflow is useful when it protects creative judgment. It should not flatten the creative act into database maintenance.
Production becomes a different kind of creative system
When it was time to produce Rootfolk, I needed a level of tracking I had never used before: artwork moving through script, thumbnails, inks, colors, letters, and layout, with review and feedback between many of those stages.
Assets were arriving in replies to old emails, new email threads, and Instagram messages. My local filesystem was becoming a maze, and it was increasingly difficult to know what had arrived, what I had reviewed, and what still needed a decision.
I built a dedicated art-tracking database. It is large, and it continues to evolve, but it made the production process legible. More importantly, it captured a workflow I can reuse across the remaining issues instead of rebuilding it from memory each time.
The features matter less than the path
The full system uses many Notion features, but the ones I return to most are page templates, buttons, and related databases. Together, they support four stages:
- Idea capture: How quickly can the idea get out of your head?
- Idea surfacing: How can it remain visible without becoming an obligation?
- Idea evolution: How can structure appear as the idea grows?
- Shipping: How does the project become a real deliverable instead of a beautifully organized intention?
That is the center of my creative workflow: capture an idea quickly, keep it visible, give it a path to evolve, and build enough structure around it that it can actually ship.
If you are building a creative operation of your own, the right system will not look exactly like mine. It should reflect your mediums, recurring decisions, collaborators, and natural ways into the work. The measure is not how sophisticated the workspace appears. The measure is whether more of the right work makes it into the world.