10 Email Productivity Tips for Notion Users

You use Notion to organize your life, but email keeps pulling you back into a messy inbox. Here are 10 practical tips to bridge the gap between email and Notion — so you spend less time in your inbox and more time in your workspace.

1. Forward, Don't Copy-Paste

Stop manually copying email content into Notion. Use Quicktion to forward emails directly to Notion databases. The formatting, links, and structure are preserved automatically.

2. Create Dedicated Databases for Email Types

Don't dump all emails into one database. Create separate databases for different purposes:

• Action Items — Emails that need a response or action
• Reference — Emails you might need later (receipts, confirmations)
• Reading — Newsletters and articles to read when you have time

Each database gets its own Quicktion destination and property mappings.

3. Auto-Forward with Gmail Filters

Set up Gmail filters to automatically route emails to the right Notion database. This eliminates manual forwarding for recurring email types:

• Receipts from known vendors → Expenses database
• Newsletters from subscriptions → Reading List database
• Emails from specific clients → Project database

4. Use the "Two-Minute Rule" with Notion

If an email takes less than two minutes to handle, do it immediately. If it takes longer, forward it to your Notion task database, set a deadline, and close the email. This keeps your inbox as a processing queue, not a storage system.

5. Build a Personal CRM

Save important emails from contacts into a Notion CRM. Link emails to contact records so you have a complete communication history. The Gmail add-on makes this easy — save an email and tag it with the contact name.

6. Archive Newsletters Instead of Reading in the Inbox

Don't let newsletters clog your inbox. Auto-forward them to Notion and archive them in Gmail. Read them later from your Notion "Reading List" view when you have dedicated reading time.

7. Use Notion Views to Prioritize

After emails land in Notion, use database views to prioritize:

• Kanban board — Drag tasks between "To Do", "In Progress", "Done"
• Calendar view — See deadlines at a glance
• Filtered list — Show only high-priority items

This is far more powerful than Gmail's label system.

8. Set Up a Weekly Email Review

Once a week, review your Notion email databases:

• Process any unread items
• Archive completed items
• Update statuses and priorities
• Unsubscribe from newsletters you never read

This keeps your Notion workspace clean and your email workflow effective.

9. Use Templates for Email Processing

Create Notion templates for common email types:

• Bug Report template with fields for steps to reproduce, severity, assignee
• Feature Request template with fields for priority, use case, requester
• Meeting Notes template to fill in after saving a meeting-related email

Templates turn raw emails into structured, actionable content.

10. Separate Processing from Responding

Use Notion for processing and tracking. Use email for communicating. Don't try to respond to emails from Notion — that's not what it's built for.

The workflow: Read email → Forward to Notion → Respond from email → Track in Notion.

Get Started

Most of these tips work with Quicktion's free tier. Set up one destination, forward a few emails, and see how much cleaner your workflow becomes when Notion handles organization and email handles communication.