The adventure of drawing a “map of thought” with Notion
The secret of how creativity naturally arises from visualizing information
Have you ever had a thought while using Notion?
“I've organized my information neatly, but will this really give birth to new ideas and concepts?”
“Won't creativity just spontaneously arise from arranging things beautifully?”
If you've ever had these kinds of questions cross your mind, now is the time to reconsider “visual maintenance” from a new angle.
This adventure is a journey into a realm that goes beyond mere decoration.
By skillfully arranging information on Notion and deliberately setting up visual storytelling, a “map of thought” will spread out in your brain, and hidden connections and ideas will spontaneously ignite. A well-organized layout is just the beginning; the real target is the world of “visual thought induction”.
Why is “beautiful” not enough?
From action management to “thought induction”: the concept of thought design
The reason many people use Notion is to “organize information and increase efficiency”. However, there is a potential that is often overlooked.
According to research in psychology and information design, humans are creatures that find unexpected connections in visual patterns, colors, and spatial arrangements. Connections that were not present in simply listed text are brought to light through color coding, icons, white space, and layout.
In other words, the essence of Notion visual organization is to move beyond the stage of improving readability → increasing productivity and advance to a new stage of visual tricks → thought induction → idea creation.
Creating an “intellectual playground” in your brain
Creativity is the act of untying fixed ideas and arriving at new combinations and ideas. When you arrange information artistically and strategically in Notion, your brain will start making playful inferences like “There might be a connection here” or “Do these two pieces of information have an unexpected connection?
In other words, Notion is an ‘intellectual playground’. Adventures of the mind that go beyond organization can happen there on a daily basis.
Practical techniques: Specific steps for unleashing your thinking with Notion
1. Set up a “mental compass” with colors and icons
Color coding:
If you distinguish categories by color, such as high priority in red, reference in blue, and new idea source in green, your brain will instantly understand “where to focus”.
Give meaning with icons:
💡 for ideas, 🔧 for tools, 📚 for reference materials... These visual tags provide small “hints” that go beyond the text and become a compass for your thoughts.
2. Ensure “breathing space for your thoughts” with layers and white space
Layered layout:
Using headings, toggles and indents, information is organized into layers. Using the “law of proximity” from Gestalt psychology, related information is grouped together. As a result, the brain is able to develop thoughts in units of groups.
Utilizing white space:
By deliberately leaving spaces, the brain interprets this as “there is room to think in this space”. Overcrowded information can stifle thought, but white space becomes a space for ideas to ferment.
3. Construct a “polyhedron” of thoughts using the database view
Create a field of inspiration using the gallery view:
If you display your ideas and reference materials in a gallery view, you can grasp the overall picture at a glance. The way the images and icons are lined up is like a “visual dictionary”, and it encourages inspiration that you can't get from a linear list.
Move ideas around using the board view:
Drag and drop tasks and information on a Kanban-style board. The tactile feel of the operation gives the brain the perception that it can be “rearranged”, and triggers the desire to try new combinations. While using it, you should be able to intuitively think, “If I arrange it like this, I might be able to see another possibility.”
4. The relationship function visualizes “knowledge networks
Linking ideas, resources, and customer insights:
By relating different databases, an intellectual network is born, with nodes and edges intersecting. New associations such as ‘this idea came from that customer insight’ or ‘this resource is also useful for another project’ occur naturally.
5. Update your “thinking environment” with a continuous improvement cycle
Weekly review:
Ask yourself questions like “Did this layout inspire new ideas this week?” and “Was there not enough white space?” By repeating this process of self-reflection and improvement, Notion will evolve into your own personal “thinking amplifier”.
Team collaboration:
As multiple people edit the same “map”, layout improvements from different perspectives are born, and unexpected relationships are discovered. Ideas such as “If I put this idea card here, it could also be connected to Project A” fly around, and collective knowledge becomes even richer.
Success Story: The Transformation of Global Startup LUMINAS
LUMINAS is a startup with team members scattered around the world. In the past, they had a mishmash of tools and information, and their weekly meetings were a bit of a guessing game.
One day, the creative director used Notion to visualize all the ideas, market data, and customer feedback in a gallery view. They color-coded them by importance, and linked the evidence behind each idea with relationships.
Then, a UI designer in London suggested, “If we change the color coding a little, it will be easier to see how the new feature ideas are directly linked to customer requests, right?
As a result, the team was able to clearly visualize the flow from ‘customer needs → ideas → prototypes’ and show the implementation schedule in a timeline view, making a strategy that had been invisible until three months earlier clear. This accelerated the generation of ideas, and in two months, they were able to bring the new feature to a test launch.
Comparison with other tools: Notion unifies everything from “idea generation to execution”
There are many excellent visual thinking tools such as Miro, FigJam, and MindMeister, but Notion is an all-in-one tool that can handle information organization, idea generation, task management, and documentation all in one go.
You can turn ideas generated by thought induction into tasks immediately, link them to related materials, and manage project progress. It's a flexible “brain and workspace” that allows you to take action immediately after you've trained your ideas.
Towards a future where creativity occurs naturally
Notion's visual organization is a powerful tool that frees up your brain's resources and builds new thought processes.
Not only beautiful, but also designed to provoke intentional thought
Build a network of knowledge with colors, icons, layouts, and relationships
Evolve your own “thought amplifier” through review and improvement
With this process, information goes beyond mere strings of text and bullet points to become a lively “intellectual ecosystem”. It is full of blank spaces where new ideas can sprout and connections that were previously invisible.
Beyond workflow improvement and efficiency, Notion will become an “intellectual stage” that refines your own thinking and liberates your creativity.
Now is the time to take action
Next time you open Notion, try a few things.
After you've organized your pages, try adding color coding
Try sorting your ideas in gallery view
Try connecting different databases with relationships
Even if it's a small change at first, the accumulation of these changes will open up a completely new pathway in your brain. At that moment, you will realize, “Oh, Notion is not just an organizing tool. It's a thought-provoking device that draws a map of ideas.”
Now, let's take another step forward. Welcome to the adventure of mastering visual organization with Notion and drawing a map of your thoughts. There, you will find a rich intellectual landscape where the flowers of ideas you have yet to see will bloom in full glory.
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