Ultimate Brain for Notion
p/ultimate-brain-for-notion
The Ultimate Second-Brain Notion Template
Ben Lang
Ultimate Brain for Notion — Tasks, notes, projects, and PARA organization all in Notion
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Ultimate Brain is a complete second brain template for Notion. It’s the productivity system I’ve always wanted, combining notes, tasks, projects, and goals, along with advanced features: recurring tasks, GTD, Tiago Forte’s PARA organization system, and more.
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Gaurav Goyal
I am always a fan of Notion templates. Many congratulations on the launch :) @tomfrankly @aantoszek @yomartholomew
Tam Pham
Looks like a beautifully designed and effective product. I see how much passion you have had with Notion and general productivity/organization over the years. Love to see it come to life with an elegant solution like this. Congrats Thomas and team!!
Thomas Frank
@mrtampham thank you so much Tam! Glad to have your support 😄
Thomas Frank
Hey all! 😁 I'm Thomas Frank, and I'm a YouTuber and Notion creator. I'm pumped to share my template, Ultimate Brain, with you. (Thanks so much for hunting it, @benln !) I've been using Notion daily since 2018, and since then I've wanted to create a truly all-in-one system for my personal productivity within it. I wanted a place to track my tasks and projects, take notes, clip web pages and highlights. and plan my day. Ultimate Brain is that system. It's a template that you can drop into your Notion workspace to create a complete productivity system. My team and I launched Ultimate Brain in April of this year; since then, we've sold over 7,500 copies, made several tweaks and updates, and answered over 830 threads in our support community. I'm confident Ultimate Brain is the best productivity template you'll find for Notion, and here are a few reasons why: 🦸‍♂️ Active Support - Highlighting this first! Ultimate Brain comes with an active support community led up by the absolutely fantastic @aantoszek , who does a fantastic job of answering every question in detail. 📚 Comprehensive Beginner's Tutorial - Including written guides, an interactive demo version of the template with tons of example content, and over 6 hours of video tutorials. The videos cover everything from how to get started, to how you can deeply customize the template and add to it. 📄 Update Guides - when Notion releases new features, we make detailed, step-by-step update guides that show you exactly how you can upgrade your template to include them. 🗃 P.A.R.A. Organization (12:55 in the video) - I'm a big fan of @fortelabs PARA system, so it's deeply integrated into Ultimate Brain. ✅ GTD Dashboard (27:37 in the video) - Ultimate Brain supports a complete GTD workflow ➡ Inbox, Next Actions, Calendar, Snoozed Tasks, Someday/Maybe List, etc. However... the GTD features are completely optional - you're not forced to use them. You can practice GTD, or follow a more traditional (and simple) productivity workflow. 📅 Recurring Tasks (32:50 in the video) - Ultimate Brain has an extremely robust recurring tasks system, allowing for complex intervals: End of the Month, Last Workday of the Month, Mon/Wed/Fri, etc. @yomartholomew spent two full months developing the most monstrous Notion formula I've ever seen in order to make it all work seamlessly. Our docs even have a guide showing you how to automate your recurring tasks - for free - using Make.com. 🥅 Quick Capture Dashboard (03:12 in the video) - an always-clean page that lets you quickly capture notes and tasks. 🧹 Auto-Cleanup Features - one problem with task and note apps is that we often capture and schedule too much, and then end up with tons of overdue tasks and irrelevant notes. I know I deal with this messiness myself, despite my best efforts to do weekly reviews. So I built in auto-cleanup features to help with this problem. - Cold Tasks (25:50 in the video): Tasks that are more than 2 weeks overdue and non-high-priority go to a safe "cold tasks" page and disappear from your normal due lists (this is also easily customized). - Fleeting Notes (35:02 in the video): Ultimate Brain has a special area for notes that are "fleeting", i.e. only relevant for a short period of time. After a month, they go to your safe Archive and don't crowd your inbox or other folders. --- There are a lot of other features I could list, but I'll wrap up this comment by mentioning that Ultimate Brain has a no-questions-asked refund policy. I set out to create a world-class customer experience with this template, including active support, multi-modal tutorials, and help docs. I believe a great refund policy is part of that experience as well. If you try it out and decide it's not for you, we'll refund you. Just like that. If you have questions, I'll be here (along with some of my team) to answer all of them! P.S. - I'm always happy to answer questions and nerd out about the biz/marketing side of selling Notion templates as well. Don't hesitate to comment here or reach out on Twitter 😊
Porush Puri 🇮🇳
@benln @aantoszek @fortelabs @yomartholomew @tomfrankly Super resourceful. Congratulations on the launch!
Marie Ng
Looks awesome! Love the quick capture!! And also smart use of Toggles - makes mobile VERY usable (which is often not the case with other Notion templates 😃)
Alex Antoszek
@threehourcoffee Thanks, Marie! Yep, making UB optimized for mobile was one of our most important goals! This is so often overlooked when building Notion systems.
Leandro Zubrezki
Congrats to the entire team! You can tell all the effort you put into building not only the template but the documentation and resources around it 🙌
Alex Antoszek
@leanzubrezki Thank you, Leandro! Always good seeing you here 🙌 We're all huge fans of your work 🎉
Paisano
I have been a productivity junkie for many years and I recently dumped all of my tools for Notion. Thomas Frank is the ultimate expert when it comes to Notion so I am biased towards everything he creates. His videos and templates have been very helpful and instrumental in my success with notion which I use for everything personal and professional. I just love it so much.
Thomas Frank
@paisano thank you so much for the support Paisano!
Akhil Gupta
Great product, the greatest struggle is how do I become disciplined to use this system consistently. Any tips on this?
Alex Antoszek
@akhil_gupta3 Hey Akhil! We've got a bunch of resources in our Circle: https://community.thomasjfrank.c... and in our help center: https://support.thomasjfrank.com I'll have to mention that it's definitely *not required* to use every part of the system super frequently. Grab what works for you well, feel free to not use the remaining features. For example, I've not yet really started using Goals because I tend to work on habits rather than goals. However, I do use the other parts of the system daily. If there's anything specific that makes you feel stuck - be sure to ask around in our Circle community! We'll be happy to help there.
Andrew Fiebert
@tomfrankly I love the whole idea of this, my team lives in Notion. If we’re already using Notion heavily can we still use your Ultimate Brain in our workflow?
Thomas Frank
@andrew_fiebert thanks so much Andrew! Ultimate Brain is a template that's focused on personal productivity, so you won't find team-specific features built in right away. You can absolutely add them, though. I'll share what we do though; I use a copy of Ultimate Brain for myself, and then we've got a more custom team area in our Notion that everyone uses for team projects. One day, I'd love to totally merge them - but we've found (from very extensive testing) that Notion's current permissions tools make it difficult to use the same set of databases for both personal and team use. This isn't an Ultimte Brain limitation, it's a Notion one. But I'm hoping that we'll see some new permissions features in the near future that will fix this! The main thing we're waiting for is the ability to set database permission based on a linked view of a database - i.e. "Teammate A has access to this filtered view of the database, but not the whole database". Hope that makes sense!
Andrew Barry
Thanks to his amazing YouTube videos, most people know how much Thomas knows about Notion. What a lot of people don't realize is how comprehensive, hard-working and thorough he is. In every interaction I've had with him, I've been blown away by the level of effort and excellence he puts into things. On top of this incredible ethic, he's also just a good dude (see the support services that come with this product). I cannot endorse Thomas, his team, and his work product highly enough.
Thomas Frank
@andrewbarry5 thank you so much Andrew! And thank you for being a huge influential figure on my path to finally launching my own products. I'm not sure if I told you, but Creator's Companion (my first product) was inspired by everything I learned in your course creator's fellowship. I intended to create a course (which is why I joined), but ended up making a product instead!
Andrew Barry
@tomfrankly that's very kind of you to say my friend, and sounds like you made a wise choice back then!
Khe Hy
@tomfrankly -- it's so inspiring to watch you develop and build these tools that help so many people. Keep being you!!!
Thomas Frank
@khemaridh thank you Khe! And thanks so much for the support 😁
Sun Kim
Congrats on the launch! Although I've been obsessed with Notion for a couple of years now, the second brain concept is still new to me. Excited to learn more about Ultimate Brain!
PhD. Vinicius Covas
After reading dozens of great reviews and testimonials I decided to move forward and buy the Ultimate Brain. I'm a huge fan of Thomas and I'm sure that this tool will support me in my journey. Thanks everyone.
Alex Antoszek
@vinicius_covas Fantastic! Do let us know how it goes. If you encounter any issues/need some help, be sure to ask in our Circle community!
Chad Woolley
So, I've been looking literally years for something that would implement a GTD-based workflow in a way I could live with. And now, after reading Building a Second Brain, I realized that that was the missing modern-digital-age organizational component for the "Reference" area of GTD. I've tried Evernote, Google Keep, Nirvana, Todoist, ClickUp, and plain Notion, and a couple of others. They all either lacked: 1. the features I needed, or 2. the flexibility I needed When I found Thomas' Ultimate Brain template, I was initially skeptical, because I'd tried out Notion, and found it clunky and unwieldy. I loved its configurability, and pretty rock-solid syncing and eventual-consistency support. But I didn't want to climb the learning curve of trying to build my own acceptable GTD system out of it. ENTER ULTIMATE BRAIN. Thomas has put SO MUCH THOUGHT AND WORK into this template. He REALLY UNDERSTANDS how GTD and BASB work in practice, and has implemented the workflows in a very knowledgable and effective way. And most importantly, when GTD/BASB DON'T work or may have holes/oversights, and you need to be provided the flexibility you need to actually do what you really need to do.. But what really sold me is the documentation and support. EVERY FEATURE has context-specific in-app documentation, separate docs in the support site, and a detailed, very professional and polished video explaining everything about it. Is it perfect? Hell no, if you are the type of person to use a system like this, you're a perfectionist and nothing will ever make you completely happy. Is Notion still clunky? Yeah, although they are executing pretty well, and it's "good enough" for me to deal with the warts. But those cons don't matter much because Ultimate Brain as implemented as a Notion template: 1. HAS THE FEATURES I NEED 2. HAS THE FLEXIBILITY I NEED (see what I did there?) So, I'm a happy paying subscriber, and looking forward to seeing how it works out for me going forward. Great job, Thomas! Good luck on the launch!
Aruna Chawla (she/her)
This is so exciting. I am going to go very deep in my review simply because of how much I've gained from the Ultimate Brain. I've been using it for the last ~3 months now. I'm a founder-in-the-making and working on launching my company very soon! I've used UB in this context. My why: I am a learner for life but it's impossible to remember everything. It's worse when I need to access specific data but don't know where to find it. This means I need a system not just to record data when I'm consuming it but also to bring it back up when I need it. What else did I try: Google Docs, notebooks, notes, paper notes, planners, heck even my own notion workspaces. But the system itself was always broken. Either I felt overwhelmed with the amount of info, drowned in the guilt of not being able to manage it well, or just simply that I'd lose the physical notes. UB: ultimate brain helped me synthesize not just note-taking but also note-using. I hadn't read Tiago Fortes' before this but the template itself was so intuitive that I didn't need to do anything beyond. It's also a super efficient system to manage life. I don't record everything (for ex: i don't record books, recipes, etc.) except for work stuff + my day planner, but that itself has been such a benefit. I know I'm happier, more in control, and less stressed about my knowledge consumption and utilization. Recommendation: if you're just starting your journey, don't rush to 'fill' everything. Use it regularly. Maybe you'd need 2-3 diff note-taking systems but you want to aim for moving to your UB eventually. If you rush to fill it in instead of using it, productivity inertia will come in! Excited about @tomfrankly 's work and vision to make knowledge workers' life more manageable and productive :)
Alex Antoszek
@tomfrankly @arunachawla Thank you so much for sharing your story, Aruna! It means a lot to us (Thomas especially), knowing that after such a long journey, you found UB, and actually, it was **the** solution. Appreciate the tips, I definitely agree! It's better to take things slowly rather than rush everything at the same time. We're honored to have you as part of our community 💚
Rohit Kumar
I have been following Thomas' work for years now (website content plus videos). All I can say about his work is that he NEVER disappoints. Can't really wait to use this second brain Notion template.
Thomas Frank
@new_user_2191949ee8 thank you so much for all the support Rohit!
Bassel Ghazali
At first I was hesitant to get the template. It seemed super useful but I thought I could do something similar myself. However, seeing the level of thought that went into it made me realise I’d be saving weeks of work for a very low price. I bought it and it’s been incredible so far! I especially love the book tracker and how it can be linked to the other resources.
Thomas Frank
@bassel_ghazali thanks so much Bassel! Really happy you like the book tracker too. That was a fun addition. Is there anything you'd like to see added to it?
Bassel Ghazali
@tomfrankly Thanks Tom! I’ve transferred over from using a physical planner since I felt the way things connect in this template were next-level. I’ve been slowly adapting it for personal preference (you’ve made it very easy to do so, thanks for that) e.g. I prefer a weekly journal page divided into days, instead of a daily journal page. One thing I’m going to add, which I’ll share in case you find useful: In my physical planner, there is a calendar view for the month, which I found myself using to briefly summarize each day (e.g. “went to x restaurant with sister”, “saw cool new park”, etc.). I liked having that view of the month so I can remember what I did. I can’t speak for everyone regarding if they’d like this, but I personally would and I’ll be working on adding it to my workspace soon!
Thomas Frank
@bassel_ghazali oh yeah, that would be a great addition to the journal page!
Łukasz Lot
Simply the best template and accompanying tutorials on the market for both personal and business use! You can see author's deep and practical understanding of Notion and that he actually uses it on regular basis for few years.
Alex Antoszek
@lukasz_lot Thanks Łukasz!
Rachel Barno
Love this template pack so much- really happy to have stumbled across it a few months ago! Of all the Notion templates I've purchased, I definitely use and love this one the most so far- and that's saying a lot! I tend to buy the packs and stop using the majority of them because they don't make sense for my workflow. The videos are also super helpful in explaining how to use everything- esp if you're not a Notion pro yet. Super comprehensive and perfect for managing my days/notes/business/life.
Thomas Frank
@rachel_barno thanks so much Rachel! We definitely went hard on the tutorial videos 😁
Jack Smith
Congrats to you and the team on this launch!! I LOVE my Ultimate Brain and the CREATIVE Companion add on and integration. Well done and I hope others love it as much as I do! Cheers!!
Thomas Frank
@jacksthebomb thank you Jack! So glad you're enjoying the bundled template 😁
Ben Lang
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Hunter
This is an incredible resource, go Thomas! 🙌
Thomas Frank
@benln thanks so much Ben!