Read Time: 3 Minutes

Fam, let me tell ya - I used to loathe the tedious work of manually generating Notion pages for each of my workflows. 😑

Sure, I could see the value of having a standardized template all dialed in to keep my process consistent and professional.

But then I’d feel that pit in my stomach when I thought about the busywork ahead…painstakingly reconstructing essentially the SAME folders and pages from scratch each time.

Sound familiar at all? I felt your pain, I really did!

As an efficiency nerd I thought, “Surely there’s a better way! Some shortcut to help me skip the friction slowing my workflow to a turtle pace??”

Well, turns out there is - and they’re called Notion buttons, baby!

These underutilized little elements are what helped me finally transform my system into a well-oiled client onboarding machine.

Let me walk you through exactly how they leveled up my efficiency big time:

First things first - we need to build sturdy page templates to form the foundation here.

I put on my interior designer hat and dialed in templates for all the crucial pages like:

And more!

I included the precise sections, fields, links, etc. that I wanted all my pages to contain.

Then, once I finished building all of my page templates, it was time to figure out how to configure the buttons to create those pages FOR me.

OK, with my beautifully designed page templates locked and loaded, now for the real magic…

I made a set of linked buttons that allow me to instantly generate pre-configured pages based on my templates whenever needed!

So for example: When I get a new client and we kickoff a project, instead of manually remaking a project page with all the necessary tasks…

I just click my “New Project” button, and it automatically builds me a page using that template I already customized with sections for milestones, tasks, due dates, and more!

This consistency keeps me on track while skipping the grunt work. Love to see it!

Set aside some time to make buttons for:

It’s a small investment that pays back exponentially.

Alright, now that I can swiftly generate consistently configured pages, navigation was still a pain.

I found myself getting lost in all those nested pages and having to open the sidebar to dig around and find where I needed to go next.

So to solve this, EVERY page template I create automatically includes a “back” button.

It’s really easy to set up.

Just label it, add an icon, choose the action as “open page” and then select the “full page” option.

Voila! You have a navigation button.

But the real secret is…

You can use these buttons anywhere.

I add one to the top and bottom of every page.

But I also use them to create dynamic “menu” widgets that allow me to link to all of the key pages for each workflow.

For example, each project page links to buttons taking me directly to:

With one click I seamlessly surf between all key pages - no more endless scrolling or hunting!

Set aside 30 minutes mapping your ideal navigation flows via linked buttons.

I know…one more thing. But you’ll thank me later!

Now for the cherry on top - when you combine buttons with tools like Notion automations, it unlocks next-level potential!

This is especially useful if you run a team or have assistants/VAs working with you.

Here’s what I mean:

If you trigger a button to generate a whole new project folder, there might be other tasks that are associated with kicking off a new project, right?

For instance, your VA might need to do some configuration work within your Notion workspace to prepare for that new client.

So, you can create an automation that says:

“Hey! When I create a new project that fulfills [XYZ] criteria, create new tasks in my VA’s database so they know they need to onboard someone.”

This can be applied to SO many things:

These are all things I used to set up when I was running a content team of 12+ people and it make the whole system run so ~ s m o o t h ~ that I barely had to do anything.

All of the tasks moved themselves through the funnel until they were complete.

As long as everyone did their part, the system moved things right along.

And now that Notion Automations exist….

The sky’s the limit!

Phew, that was a journey! But I hope you now see why buttons are an absolute game changer.

They empower me to whip up consistently configured, professional pages in seconds while skipping the manual grunt work.

And paired with tools like Zapier they take my systems to the next level!

I’d seriously encourage you to explore how you can integrate buttons more in your workflows.

Feel free to hit me up on Twitter (X) anytime too if you have any other questions!