Notion Layouts (11 Ideas & Auto-Generator Templates)

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Notion Layouts

Notion is most powerful when used as a builder; as a tool that gives you, the creator, power and flexibility to shape it as you please.

Layouts—how your Notion page is structured—are a key function of this. They can help you:

  • Organize information;
  • Create a clear hierarchy within your page;
  • Create space and room to breathe;
  • Increase speed of navigation;
  • Improve page (and therefore Notion workspace) aesthetics; and
  • Input new information, quickly.

What is a Notion Layout?

Very simply, when we talk about Notion layouts and layout ideas, we’re talking about how your Notion page is structured.

For example, you might have:

  • A two-column layout;
  • A widget-based layout;
  • A row-based layout;
  • And so on.

The layout for your Notion page can be considered its blueprint—and certain layouts are better suited to particular use cases than others.

Creating Notion layouts

There are a few key building blocks that go into the creation of any Notion layout. For our purposes (and in the linked Notion layout templates), it’ll be worth understanding more about:

  • Columns;
  • Templates;
  • Callouts; and
  • Dividers

Let's start with Notion page columns, then.

How to create columns in Notion pages

The quickest way to create a new column on your Notion page is to:

  1. Hit ‘enter’ twice on a blank Notion page;
  2. This will create two blocks—click on the icon to the left of the second block, then drag it up and to the left of the first empty block until you see a highlighted vertical blue strip;
  3. Drop the block in place;
  4. You can now resize the columns by hovering over the joining point and dragging in either direction. You can also now add any content you like into either column.

Some important things to note about columns in Notion:

  • You cannot have an empty column—as soon as you delete all blocks in a column, it will be removed. So, if you want to keep an empty-looking column, be sure to leave a blank block at the top;
  • You cannot create columns within columns.
  • Columns will resize with different screen sizes, and they will readjust on mobile into rows.

How to create layouts from Notion template buttons

Database templates within Notion are an incredibly handy feature when it comes to speed.

This Layout Kit is made up of 11 essential Notion layouts--and these layouts can be generated as many times as needed from a single click:

  • Browse the list of layouts and select the one you'd like to try;
  • Click the template of choice, and wait for the template layout to generate;
  • Open up the template and start editing directly, or hit 'Move to' on the layout that was created and select the page or workspace where you'd like to start using that layout.

Bonus: The beauty of using template buttons in Notion for layouts is that you can begin to stack templates within one another to create a series of building blocks. Suppose you want the main structure of a new project to be multi-menu; that is, you want to have a left-hand menu for 'Areas' and a top tab menu for specific pages within each.

You can use the Layouts Kit to generate the layouts you need, then mix and match various layouts within the new workspace, rapidly. Think of the Layout Kit as some handy building blocks to help you build your Notion setup quicker.

Personalizing your Notion layouts with callouts and dividers

There are several ways to customize and tailor each Notion layout, but honing in on just 2 can help you create more space and information hierarchy on the page.

Callouts: can be used to highlight specific information, or to create a clearly bordered section on the page. To use the callout box as a 'border', you can:

  • Create a new callout block;
  • Set the color to 'default';
  • Drag the content, text, headings, databases, (anything!) inside.

Dividers: are another useful way to break up the page and create clear areas of information. Common cases to use a divider:

  • Beneath Heading text;
  • Beneath a menu or tabs menu;
  • At the end of a 'section' of page information;
  • To mark a shift between layout styles (e.g. from '3 columns' to '2 columns');
  • To create space

Notion Layouts in this component (auto-generate template buttons inside)

  1. Side-menu layout
  2. Home widget dashboard
  3. Three-column layout
  4. Grid layout
  5. Simple two-column
  6. Right-side menu
  7. Top menu tabs
  8. Dropdown navigation
  9. Gallery layout
  10. Timeline layout
  11. Multi-menu layout

Next block in this ability stack →
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