Collection to Notion Inbox

I have tried many different tools to organize the information collected online. Services like raindrop.io, App List, Cubox, etc. They all have their own use cases and scenarios. And Cubox can support tags, date, sort, and other more functions. Comparing to these apps, Notion is a good replacement that can serve the collection very well.

Result

This is the view of my current inbox (Table View). The links are added to the inbox by sharing function from my iPhone when I browse the technical articles or news. And they are also from my EDGE browser on MAC or PC. When I browse online for news or technical topic, or work-related items, I will simply click share the link and put them to the Notion/Inbox.

The table in Notion is a type of database, so we can add any column we want. I added one checkbox column called “To Obsidian” (Check Notion and Obsidian), tags, and create date. At the bottom, for each column, we can also define the summary for each column.

Switch to Gallery View

Understand

Now let’s try to build the Inbox page in your Notion. In the Inbox or Collection, you can put anything you want, an article link, an apple store app link, a piece of an idea, a text message, and so on. This is easy to be done by just click the share button on the smartphone. Since we are building a read later database, so we can put any property we want to each item. I have uninstalled several apps on my iPhone, what about you?

Create a new page

Click the “+” button next to the WORKSPACE or PRIVATE. And then give the new page a name, for instance, “Inbox” or “Collection”.

Add “Table” database

Create a table for the new page

Then you will get an empty page like this.

Customize Columns

Now, we can define the columns in our collection table. I want to add 2 more columns, one is “To Obsidian” and the one is “Create Date”.

“To Obsidian” is a checkbox to tell which would be going to the Obsidian, transfer the knowing to knowledge.

“Create Date” is the date and time when each row is created. This will tell me when did I snap the article in.

Improve

Now we have the table, by installing the iOS or Android Notion app, click any share button, and save the content to the Notion -> Collection. All the Notion with the same account will update the table, and then start to do the close reading, transfer the knowledge, etc.

The table column also has the sort and filter function. Please play around with the followings:

1. Add a “Read” column. Once the article is read, mark it.
2. Filter the column “Read”, only display “Unread” items.
3. Sort by “Create Date”
4. Try the summary of columns, show the count, date duration, etc.
5. Add a new property for the data item per the need and it will apply to all the items.