How are you stretching Notion beyond docs & task lists?

I'm using Notion to build dashboards, client portals, content systems, and even product roadmaps—turning it into a flexible no code workflow.

Hot take: beyond a text-based CMS and database tool, Notion creates work.

I LOVE Notion, it runs my life. But to the title of the prompt, how am I stretching it?

I'm not. All my docs are pretty basic.

I just love Notion because both the content itself and the file hierarchy is super easy to organize and navigate.

Other than that, I use some modest database linking functionality, and that's about it.

Still, despite using a small fraction of it's functionality, if my Notion got deleted, I'd be in TROUBLE

Notion serves as our central hub for project planning, product roadmaps, and team collaboration. Its adaptability has made it indispensable for our operations.

Built a lightweight client‑portal CRM in Notion using synced databases + buttons—clients see only their own filtered dashboard. Also rigged an automated content calendar that fills itself via Zapier when a brief is approved .

I’ve been using Notion to host temporary, shareable templates for startup enthusiasts.

Each one is designed to deliver quick value - like this week’s: a conversation-based framework to help validate your idea in 5 minutes. Super simple, super actionable.

I used Notion to create a 1300 item Histamine Intolerance Food list and use it like an app on the go. I'm also preparing to sell it via subscription.

We built @NotionApps to help people build apps & portals from their Notion databases!

I run a small software development studio. Before I met Notion most of my projects, I used to receive was about Business CRM, retail operations management and employee tracking. We had a framework which was scalable but the execution process was slow.

Now after I got to know about Notion, I started creating automated business CRMs, Business Operation OS with the Notion blocks and other features. I have never looked back. I recommend 70% of my clients Notion, because we don't need to build a robust software from scratch when Notion already does that with just a weekend of setting up databases, dashboard and automations with Notion AI and Zapier.

Recently I build a Yoga Studio system on Notion for a business based in New York.

Usual operations setup for a fitness studio business would include:

1. create petty database automations and actionable buttons that are required on a day-to-day basis.

2. I have around 50+ Upselling Prompts using the Notion AI which I helped the business owner with recommending services during the offline booking process.

3. automated emails to remind customers about Subscription Payments, Upcoming classes, change in schedules, etc. I use Zapier for this.

4. emails for sending Vendor Invoices and Subscription Receipts.

I'll paste the link here. If someone wants to try out our services.

PS: Tag a fitness studio owner who needs this!

Great question — Notion is becoming the creative workspace for everything now 🔥. We use Notion mainly for planning our projects and keeping everything in one place.

It’s where we map out product ideas, write specs, and track launch tasks. Honestly, it’s one of the top tools we’ve stuck with that doesn’t get in our way.

It was especially helpful during our recent launch for OneClickDeploy — we kept our Product Hunt to-dos, and timelines all in one shared workspace. Made things a lot smoother.

I used Notion for maintaining my product backlog: capabilities -> features -> tasks, as well as for sprint planning and road mapping.

I love how flexible Notion is. For example, for product requirement documents, I can freely write and structure things using a markup kind of approach, attach mockup pictures (and links to them), links to external documents, and make links to other PRDs. And make "sub pages" on the spot when I want to dive deeper into details.

However, that can become quite messy pretty soon. I have used a few backlog management systems in my past life, and to me, Notion was more delightful and easy to use quite often. I'd guess that for serious work (i.e. with a team), using Notion as a backlog management system would require quite strict rules and conventions.

Loving Notion fully!

At Lifetoon, Notion is our go-to workspace - we use it to plan, document, track, and keep everything organized. It’s a huge time-saver. And we try to be creative with it and use it to speed up things - for example, we launched our MVP, we used Notion to quickly draft our terms of use, cookies, and privacy policy pages.

When it comes to templates, I rely on the content calendar template from their template library. It does the job perfectly - clear, simple, and flexible enough for what we need.

In the beginning, we actually lost a bit of time trying to over-optimize and over-organize. Now, we’ve embraced simplicity. If it’s not helping us move faster, we’re not doing it.

A while back I built a whole automated KPI dashboard and reporting system using Notion and really complex formulas and triggers. You could fill out a form using @Fillout.com and it'd auto update the tables/database in @Notion. Once updated the conditions I set would update the progress bar with color-dynamic responses. So the bar would be yellow if at 70% progress for a certain KPI weighted against the estimated deadline.

It was pretty complex and really robust but made me think it was overkill.

Dominik, founder of @HelpKit Knowledge Base here :) We utilize Notion to allow companies to turn their Notion docs into a fully professional help center and documentation site 🙋‍♂️ We have been powering 500+ knowledge bases for over four years now with some household names trusting us such as Softr, MIT, Opal, Thomas Frank, Railway and more.

Happy to chat if anyone wants to get started with HelpKit :)

I've transformed Notion into our entire client onboarding system! Saved us $400/month on specialized software and clients love the seamless experience. Anyone else using it for customer journeys?