I began a work journal for my Netflix projects one day after starting the job. I update the journal semi-regularly, documenting everything from daily activities, achievements, feedback, and ideas, to priorities, challenges, and visuals such as prototypes or design critiques.

The journal has been valuable for documenting my work and reflecting on my experiences and growth.

But the integration of Notion AI has taken my work journal to new heights, magnifying its value tenfold.

Before I get into details, I'll briefly address the critics and naysayers: Is a work journal in Notion, paired with Notion AI, really all that valuable? Yes. It has exceeded what I imagined possible and helped me summarize my work, generate insights into my behaviors, identify trends, create a strong outline for a future case study, and much more.

I use Notion AI in my journal to analyze sentiment across projects, extract themes, highlight frequently mentioned projects, and compile blog posts and case studies.

Notion AI has been beneficial in generating insights for self-assessment. Asking the app to "Highlight what strengths the author seems to have, then highlight the areas for improvement" offers an interesting perspective on my work.

The natural language processing capabilities of Notion AI enable time-boxed queries and interpretations, making it easier to assess and identify valuable insights. For example, running a prompt like "Summarize the most impactful things I did this year" provides fantastic results.

Setting goals for upcoming quarters has become more effective, and summarizing specific work periods, like "the last quarter," saves time while providing a unique way to reflect on past work. At the end of each month, I now ask Notion AI to "Summarize the past month of work entries" for a quick and easy overview of the month's work.

Additionally, the AI-generated design case studies based on my journal entries are incredibly accurate and can be enhanced by adding a personal perspective. Asking the AI to "Generate a design focused case study of the most recent project in this journal" returns incredible results. However, asking the AI to then "Make the case study more personal and reflective" amplifies the case study to an exceptional level.

While I can't share specific examples due to confidentiality, I wholeheartedly recommend starting a work journal in Notion. After a few months of logging your experiences, thoughts, concerns, ideas, etc., take advantage of the built-in AI.

Notion AI can seriously help make sense of your work journal, identify themes, summarize your experience, generate case study outlines, set goals for future projects, and much more.