How to Use Notion as a Research Lab Notebook for Ph.D. Research

Notion is one of my favorite tools for organizing my research lab experiments, notes, data, and tasks! Notion is a free and premium cloud-based app that allows you to create highly customizable and visual pages and dashboards for keeping your life organized.

I first started using Notion in 2021 during my Ph.D., when I created the free Simple Graduate Student Notion Dashboard. As I learned more about using Notion, I developed this Research Lab Notebook template to keep track of all my research lab-related tasks, protocols, and notes, all while storing important information like literature reviews and data. This research lab notebook is an excellent Notion template for Ph.D., master’s, and undergraduate students engaged in research. Sign up for a Notion account here if you don’t already have an account!

This Research Lab Notebook template is only for organizing research lab experiments. I currently do not have this template integrated with any manuscript, thesis, or dissertation writing tools aside from literature review. But this template is certainly designed to be used and referenced during the writing process!

What is Notion?

Notion is freemium software that allows you to create pages, templates, and databases for organizing information. This app is more than a basic note-taking app! It allows you to customize your pages and databases to what you need to work smarter and more efficiently. Notion is available across devices, so you can always access your Notion from your phone, computer, or tablet. Notion offers several subscription levels. The free version offers all basic tools for using and creating Notion templates. The premium subscriptions provide more tools and functionality for small and large teams or even entire organizations. The free software is sufficient for individuals, but if you work on a small team, like with a research group, the Plus subscription offers features like unlimited file uploads and more!

In addition to signing up for Notion, you can add on the Notion AI tool as well. This newly launched tool integrates the power of AI into your Notion workspace. I’ve enjoyed using Notion AI for summarizing, paraphrasing, brainstorming, and organizing my thoughts. The AI tool is seamlessly integrated into Notion and works very well!

Sign up for a Notion account here!

Why do I love using Notion?

I’ve been using Notion for several years now and have found it to be one of the best (and most fun) software to use for note-taking and organizing. Firstly, it’s plain fun to organize and design your template! You can easily create your own Notion aesthetic and design pages to fit your needs. I also love how I can use it across all my devices. It’s also very affordable for students, as there is a free version. And Notion AI is well-priced at just $8 a month.

Research Lab Notebook Notion Template Features

What is included in the Research Lab Notebook Notion Template?

The Research Lab Notebook Notion Template includes

• Homepage with daily and weekly experiment and task trackers
• Daily lab notebook database for tracking the day’s experiments and taking notes.
• Project management database views so you can manage all your research projects in a single view
• Detailed literature review template/literature review database
• Data management plan page
• Protocols database that can be related to lab notebook tasks and entries so you never forget which protocol you used!

Research Tasks and Experiments Database – The Brain of the Notion Template

The Daily and Weekly Tasks and Experiments databases are linked copies of the “All Research Projects Tasks and Experiments” database, so I will start by explaining this database first. The “Research Projects Tasks and Experiments” database is where you can input all of your research-related tasks and experiments. Each task or experiment can be labeled with the project, the goals, the due date, and the status.

After you input this information, if the date is “Today” the tasks will populate the Today’s Tasks and Experiments Table. And if the date is “Today or within one week from today,” it will populate the This Weeks Tasks and Experiments Table! On the master Research Projects Tasks and Experiments database, you can create additional views by simply adding a view along the top of the database. I’ve included views by project, status, or the calendar view. The project view is beneficial when you want to look at everything you’ve completed for a single project.

Daily Research Lab Notebook

Now, once you’re in the lab and working, you’ll want to keep track of everything you do during the day! You can do this in the Research Lab Notebook. Here, when you create a new entry, custom template will be generated so you can begin planning and tracking your day! The “Tasks and Experiments” property allows you to link to the associated tasks you created in the Research Projects Tasks and Experiments database. This way, your tasks and lab notebook are always linked! In this column, you can link to multiple tasks and experiments in case you do multiple experiments in one day.

n the next column, you can similarly link to any protocols stored in the protocol database. And when you go back to your protocol database, you can see all the lab notebook entries that used that protocol! Cool right? Everything links together so you can easily reference your experiments, lab notebook, and protocols from multiple pages on this template. You can also use different views to visualize your lab notebook by project.

Protocols Manager

Literature Review Template

Like the protocols database, there is a designated page for reviewing literature! This database uses properties that will guide you through your reading, offers a space for file uploads and note taking, and a property for relating your entries to lab notebook entries and protocols!

I hope this template is helpful for you to keep all of your research notes organized in Notion! Let us know in the comments what other ways you use Notion to keep your research life organized!

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Learn more about She Science’s Notion Templates

• Simple grad student Notion template
• All-in-one grad student Notion template for grad school, personal life, and professional development.
• Ph.D. Degree and Dissertation Planner template

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