How I Used Notion to Launch an Online Course (Step-by-Step)

So, I recently relaunched my flagship program, Getting Things Done with Notion.

But with a full-time job and a family that takes up most of my free time, I needed to plan my launch meticulously to leverage that time correctly.

To do that, I planned the entire relaunch—comprising three project phases and fifty-nine tasks—in Notion. 

The result?

Not only did I rebuild and relaunch the entire course stress-free, but I also achieved my best launch to date.

In this article, I’ll share how I use Notion to launch an online course. I’ll also cover how to go about planning similar-sized projects in your life and at work.

How to Launch an Online Course Using Notion

• Step 1. Scope the Project
• Step 2. Split the Project into Phases
• Step 3. Plan Each Phase’s Tasks and Deadlines
• Other Learnings

Step 1. Scope the Project

I first created a new page in my “Projects” database and scoped the project as thoroughly as possible.

If you don’t know, scoping involves determining and documenting a project’s goals, tasks, and deadlines.

I saved a lot of time here because I’ve launched the course several times before and always do a post-mortem after each launch. 

I’d also captured most of my thoughts in the months leading up to the launch, which made scoping much easier.

Here’s a summary of how I do that:

How I journal on important life decisions:

• Step 1. Create a new @NotionHQ page
• Step 2. Timestamp the day’s date in the text area
• Step 3. Write down my thoughts

Later, when I have more thoughts, I revisit the page and repeat steps 2 and 3.

You’ll soon know what to do. pic.twitter.com/mng0E97ekh

— Sam Thomas Davies (@SamThomasDavies) October 1, 2022

Step 2. Split the Project into Phases

After scoping the project, I had an overview of almost everything I needed to do to complete the project. 

But I also had, more importantly, an overview of when I would need to complete certain tasks.

For instance, I couldn’t record, say, Lesson 3 until I had written Lesson 3 as the former was dependent on the latter’s completion.

I realized, then, that I needed to split the project into multiple phases.

I first needed to write the scripts. Then I needed to record, edit and upload the videos. 

Finally, I needed to plan the launch itself, which involved tasks such as: 

• Updating the product page 
• Uploading files to Podia, my online storefront;
• Update the landing page and more. 

Once I knew the project’s three phases, I could better plan how long to spend on each. 

For instance, I gave myself a month to write the video scripts, which would require most of my time.

Similarly, I gave myself sixteen days to record, edit and upload the videos, adding a weekend as a buffer in case I couldn’t record one lesson a day.

In my experience, having launched many planned projects with several phases, it’s always helpful to remember Hofstadter’s law: 

Projects always take longer than you expect, even when considering Hofstadter’s Law.

I learned that first-hand, especially after following the next step.

Step 3. Plan Each Phase’s Tasks and Deadlines

With my launch scoped and split into phases, I was finally ready to start with phase one, “Write Scripts for GTDwN (4).”

As you can see, I use a few Notion properties to help me manage my projects. 

Let’s go through each in turn.

First, I have “Sprint,” which is a short, time-boxed period during which I aim to complete a given project. 

For each project I run, I assign a start and end date, which, as you can imagine, is especially important when running projects with multiple phases.

Due to the importance of phase one and the amount of time I estimate for each task (more on that below), I gave myself a month to complete this phase. 

Next, we have “Area(s),” which reflect what I’m responsible for, or focusing on, in my life and work. 

I assigned “Sales” as the project’s goal was to drive revenue for my online business.

Next, I have “Completed Actions” and “Total Number of Actions,” which are both rollup properties. 

Next, I have, “Completed Actions” and “Total Number of Actions,” which are both rollup properties. 

Without getting too technical:

• “Completed Actions” looks up the number of tasks I’ve marked as done (using Notion’s checkbox property); and
• “Total Number of Actions” looks up the total number of tasks I’ve linked to the project (including the above).

For instance, if I check a task as “Done,” the “Completed Actions” property updates, as does the “Progress Bar” property. 

Here’s how it looks if you want to build something similar of your own:

Lastly, I have “Related Quarterly Goal (If Applicable),” which I link from if the project is related to a personal OKR, which, in this case, was true.

Now that I’ve covered an example of a project phase let me share my other learnings.

Other Learnings

As mentioned above, projects always take longer than you expect, even when considering Hofstadter’s Law.

But what doesn’t take longer than you expect is the duration of a project’s phases.

For instance, I gave myself thirty-one days to write scripts. And because it was the most important part of the project, I worked up to the deadline. 

But the deadline was arbitrary; I could have given myself thirty-two days, and the result would have been identical. 

By contrast, I gave myself fourteen days to record, edit, and upload the videos but completed that phase in nine days—days that I added to the final phase.

Maybe it’s the activation energy that comes from working on a project of this size, But I noticed I pushed myself harder as I neared the project’s finish line. 

Another learning I had was your energy level greatly influences the tasks you want to do. 

And as such, it’s sometimes worth overlapping phases with different energy requirements.

For instance, because I could only record at my office in the morning before starting work, I could spend my evening working on tasks relating to the final phase. 

I also found reviewing video scripts the night before recording the next day gave me a chance to remember things I hadn’t captured when I first wrote the scripts. 

This made lessons better than they would have been if I hadn’t given myself time between the two phases and improved the final product. 

Conclusion

Launching an online course is a big undertaking, especially if you’re only one person, need to do everything yourself, and have limited free time to work on it.

However, by planning the launch as a project and splitting it up into multiple phases, each with its own tasks, you can make meaningful and measurable progress without feeling overwhelmed.  

How you do this is up to you, of course. But I’ve found, having planned and managed many big projects in my personal life, there’s no better system than Notion.

And that’s it! You’ve heard from me. Now I want to hear from you: are there any questions you have that I didn’t answer in this post? Leave a comment below and let me know.