Setting up a blank Notion workspace
I’ve done this so many times you’d think I’d have one template I just duplicate. But no — every time I open Notion with the idea of starting a new blog post workspace, I tell myself “let’s just start fresh.” So, I click on the plus sign in the sidebar, create a new page, and instantly fight the default “Untitled” text because leaving it like that makes me itchy. I usually write something like “Blog Draft 7” even though I already have three pages called Blog Draft 7 from different weeks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Blank workspace means I can drop in a toggle list for my outline, a table for the research sources, and a random quote block in the corner just because it feels like I might need it. The thing with Notion is it’s not telling me what to do next — it’s just a blank, quiet room. No prompts, no awkward “What should we write about today?” pop-up. Which can be good if you don’t want AI randomness taking control, but also bad if you’re the type who stares at the blinking cursor like it’s judging you.
Sometimes I even open another window just to drag in snippets from past posts, but by the time I’m done rearranging blocks I’m basically nesting inside my own notes instead of actually writing. Still, the feeling of visual control is solid — I can see every single building block of my post instead of relying on some AI’s sense of structure.
Using Notion AI for first drafts
When I click the spacebar in Notion and type “generate,” it’s both magical and annoying. Magical because it will happily spit out a chunk of text that covers the topic I ask for (say, “how to start seedlings indoors”) in about ten seconds. Annoying because 80% of the time I immediately think, “Yeah but this isn’t how I’d say it.”
One very real trick I’ve been using is to feed Notion AI single keywords rather than full requests. If I type “compost mistakes” instead of “Write a blog post about compost mistakes,” it doesn’t lecture — it lists things. And those lists are way easier to rewrite into my voice than a neatly boxed five-paragraph lecture it would otherwise generate.
The behavior is unpredictable. Sometimes the AI responds to a vague keyword like “morning writing habits” with a friendly tone, other times it turns into a corporate memo. If you’re not ready for heavy editing, those misses can eat your time. But if you actually treat the output as raw clay rather than something to publish directly, it’s pretty handy. 🙂
Combining manual writing and AI prompts
I’ve ended up in this weird compromise workflow: start the opening paragraph manually in Notion — my style, my cadence, my pacing — then drop in an AI request for the next two paragraphs, then edit those immediately before moving on. That mix works better than having the AI write everything in one go, because otherwise, the tone shift between “my style” and “AI style” feels like slamming into a wall.
I’ve noticed the AI is pretty good at middle sections (explaining steps, giving examples) but terrible at introductions with personality. Even if I beg it to “write in a casual, direct tone,” it either overdoes it or puts in fake-sounding jokes. Editing that part out takes longer than just writing myself.
If you do plan to mix AI and manual writing inside the same Notion page, make use of the /divider block. Somehow, mentally separating the AI-generated section from your writing makes you less likely to keep awkward filler sentences.
Keeping track of research notes
This is where plain Notion beats Notion AI every time. I can drop in links, drag PDFs, paste direct quotes, tag them with properties — all of this without the AI trying to “summarize” my source in the moment. There’s also the tiny but important detail that AI doesn’t know which parts of the research I care about.
I keep one table called Sources with columns like Title, Link, and Quote — then, in a separate view, I filter it to show only the ones I’ve already referenced in my draft. This means that when I’m doing my messy half-finished blog writing, I can still see exactly what’s missing.
AI in Notion can rewrite selected research text into a simpler form, which is occasionally useful when my source is drowning in jargon. But if you ever are researching something sensitive, relying on AI to hold that nuance is risky — I had it turn “specific conditions for plant growth” into “plants need care,” which… is not exactly wrong but is so vague it becomes useless.
Speed differences in real use
On paper, Notion AI should be faster: you type a few words, it spits paragraphs at you instantly. But speed isn’t just typing speed — it’s also how many times you have to stop and fix the course. The first few tries with AI, I ended up spending more time rewriting than if I had just written from scratch.
Pure Notion with manual writing is slower in the moment but smoother over the span of a day because I’m not context-switching between reading AI output and deciding what to keep. The AI workflow feels “bursty” — you get that rush of words appearing, then a long patch of cleaning up formatting and weird phrasing.
In my case, an average article can actually be done quicker with AI if I already know exactly what I want, have the key points outlined, and am prepared to slice its text into little editable blocks. If I go in blind without a structure, the AI’s version of “structure” sometimes derails me so badly I have to start over.
Formatting quirks to watch out for
One detail worth flagging is that sometimes Notion AI decides headings should be in all caps or adds little “Conclusion” titles on its own. If you’re optimizing for readability, that extra editing step can get old fast.
And bullets — oh, the bullets. Notion AI loves bullet points, but if you paste them into a CMS that auto-styles lists, you might get duplicates or awkward indentation. I’ve gotten into the habit of converting AI bullet points into toggles while still in Notion so I can control exactly how they unfold when I move them later.
If you are working with clean HTML output, manual Notion writing already gives you pretty straightforward formatting. AI just… improvises. Sometimes it’s fine, sometimes it’s a mess that makes you feel like your text went to a costume party without telling you.
When AI stops mid thought
This happens more than I expected: it’s happily typing, I’m watching the words pop in, and then it just stops mid sentence. No error message, just silence. I have to type “continue” or re-run the request. Occasionally the continuation is completely unrelated, like I asked it to write about crop rotation and the continuation starts talking about mental wellness in the workplace.
It doesn’t sound like a big deal until you’re six prompts deep and your own mental flow is shot. The log even showed one random internal system note once — “Err code streamInterrupt 52” — which made me feel like I was debugging something instead of writing.
That’s one reason I usually keep a Notion-only backup draft running in another tab, because when AI stalls like that, you can lose momentum fast.
Choosing when each one wins
If I need to get words on the page fast and I don’t care if I spend extra time editing later, I’ll grab Notion AI. If I’m working on something with my specific tone baked in from the start, I’ll stick to manual writing in Notion.
But honestly, the most practical answer for me has been… both. Manual for the intro and closing, AI for the chunky middle paragraphs, and heavy editing for everything AI touches. It’s a messy middle-ground workflow but it’s faster than pure AI when tone matters and way faster than pure manual when momentum matters.