I do all my writing in Notion, thousands of words each week.

Speed isn’t the main skill of a good writer. But thoughts turn into characters on the screen faster, writing flows better.

This is the main role of a creative tool: making creation effortless.

Never stop touching the keyboard

The Notion editor supports markdown and a lot of keyboard shortcuts.

By combining them, you can write, format, edit, and add special content without touching the mouse. The main shortcuts I use are:

• “-” to add a bullet list item

• “1.” to add a numbered list item

• “#” to add an H1 headline (”##” for H2, “###” for H3)

• “/” to add pages, tables, quotes and other special types of content available in Notion

• “Esc” to select an entire block of text

• “Tab” and “Shift+Tab” to change the indentation of a text block (without having to place the cursor at the beginning of the line).

Treat text like LEGOs

Text blocks are an editor's dream.

Every time you type “Enter” you close a block and start a new one. You can drag blocks to rearrange and indent them.

To delete one block, you just type “Esc” and then “Delete”. No need o select the text.

Create your second brain

Every page in Notion is an item inside a database.

You can add fields to enrich the information, for example with tags. You can connect items together. This way, every piece contributes to the evolution of your second brain.

This way, old content helps you create new content more quickly and your insights become more profound.

Read all my other tips about creating content while keeping sane on my profile.

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