What One Organizational Wizard Knows About Notion

I'm fascinated with how the smartest people in the world get their work done. We're inundated with platitudes about productivity, but rarely do we get to see the nitty-gritty details of a person's daily routine. That's what Superorganizers is about: diving into the details, to see all of the little habits that make up a great work day and a great life. Artificial intelligence has changed what it means to be productive and efficient at work, so we decided to revisit some of our most poignant interviews  to understand how their routines might have changed in the era of large language models. First up: designer, teacher, and organizational wiz Marie Poulin.—Dan Shipper

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In 2020, Marie Poulin gave Dan a tour through the most impressive Notion setup he had ever seen. Nearly five years later, we decided to revisit it.

Poulin, a designer and teacher, helps entrepreneurs build “digital ecosystems” around their work, and is perhaps best known for her Notion Mastery course. And it was clear when she and Dan initially spoke that, yes, she had indeed mastered Notion—a digital space where she organized every aspect of her life.

But a lot can change in five years. In the years since their first conversation, Marie discovered her intricate relationship with Notion was partly driven by then-undiagnosed ADHD. She's watched AI transform how we think about creative work. And she's learned that the best organizational systems are the ones that can adapt and evolve.

We caught up with Marie to see how her digital life has changed, what she thinks about AI's role in creativity, and what happens when you build a system that grows with you.

Why did you first start organizing your life in Notion?

It started when I was trying to wrangle the chaos of my permaculture design certificate program [an approach to designing environments—including digital ones—sustainably]. It was in person, and there were handouts, long emails with requirements, and reference materials. I was really struggling to keep the project in my head because there was so much to learn and so many different content format types and places to sift through information. 

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I'd been using Evernote and Asana at the time, but I had a lot of ”stuff” that didn't fit neatly into notes or tasks, and I needed something that could help me see the bigger picture and details all in one place. Notion seemed to give a lot of that flexibility and optionality.

How have your processes changed since you and Dan last spoke in 2020?

A lot has remained, but the processes are a lot more refined these days. I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2020, which actually opened up my eyes to why I had been so drawn to Notion's flexibility, and why some tools really felt like a struggle for my brain!

I used to try to manage everything all in one dashboard, but over time I found it much more helpful to design a few key dashboards that are designed to focus on specific contexts. 

Templates are more refined—processes are less rigid and designed for more flexibility!

Has AI changed the way you do your job or stay organized?

I can say that AI helps me clarify and give structure to my thinking, or gives me starting points. I use it to improve writing, format thoughts and ideas, and help me elaborate on concepts more deeply.

My ADHD means that I'm great at seeing connections and concepts, but I really struggle with structure and linearity. AI tools help me with layout out things in a more orderly fashion to help communicate my ideas.

I use it a lot in my personal life as well, even for things like planning my garden, which takes a lot of executive functioning when you're still a budding learner.

Let’s pull these strands together. Have Notion's AI tools made your life easier?

I can't say I've been terribly impressed with Notion's AI functionality just yet. I will sometimes use it to improve writing, but the fact that it doesn't (yet) interact with databases is a huge missing piece for me. At the moment, I use it for batch formatting, but I can't yet say it makes my life easier. I look forward to seeing improvements on the horizon.

Is there anything you think people misunderstand about AI and work?

I feel like there's so much I don't know about AI, personally, so I am certain that I too am misunderstanding a lot...But I think people don't understand how AI works, so they misunderstand what it can do and then wonder why they get really general results.

I also hear a lot of pushback around how AI is stealing content from creators and artists. As a trained designer, I went to university during the time that WordPress themes were beginning to become popular, and I remember some people thinking that was “cheating,” like using technologies that made our life easier based on shared components was somehow wrong. And yet, we are not rewarded for doing things the long way. 

Clients want the end result. They aren't paying for a totally custom wordpress site for the sake of it being custom. They want a beautiful website, but we don't need the foundation to be built from scratch when a starting framework will do. I saw this again when Canva came out, and all my designer friends felt that it was going to steal their jobs. Now Canva feels like a companion tool that would be foolish not to use—and I say this as a designer!

As tools make our jobs and work easier, there's a question to ask ourselves: For which activities does it make sense to lean on AI, and where does it make sense to leverage our own intelligence?

I have no idea what will happen in the future. I'm not 100 percent all in with AI, because I do have some reservations, but I am using it mindfully with discernment, asking myself, “How can I use this to support my creativity?”

I'm curious what happens when everyone is using and has access to these tools and creating content becomes easier and easier. How do we separate the signal from the noise?

The burden on users to do that “sifting” becomes greater and greater, and I'm curious what that will mean for sense-making in the long term.

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