Workspace Overview #
Navigation Links #
At the top of your dashboard, you will find navigation links to each of the sub-areas of your kitchen. Most of the kitchen management was designed to be done on the dashboard itself, but you can also jump into a sub-area if you need a larger space to work in:
- Meals / Recipes
- Planning
- Pantry
- Grocery Items
- Shopping List
Dashboard #
The dashboard includes views of each of your key areas:
- Shopping List
- 1x Only
- Pantry
- Instant Gratification
- Planning
- Meals + Recipes
Shopping List #
This is a view of the groceries that you need to buy.
1x Only #
This is a list of grocery items that you have not designated as “Always keep in stock”. You may occasionally need one-off items from this list. For example, I need hamburger buns for a barbeque that I do not normally buy. Tick the box next to “Hamburger Buns” and it will automatically be added to your grocery list.
After you purchase the 1x item, make sure to de-select the “1x” checkbox or the item will continue to populate your shopping list once you’ve run out.
Pantry #
This is a view of the items that you currently have in your pantry. Uncheck items from your pantry as you run out. If you’ve flagged items as “Always Keep in Stock”, they will automatically be added to your grocery shopping list.
Instant Gratification #
The Instant Gratification section will show you any meals or recipes that you can make right now using the ingredients in your pantry! This is a great feature when you don’t have time to grocery shop and just need to know what you can make without any effort.
Planning #
The “Planning” area gives you multiple view options for planning meals for the days and weeks ahead. Choose whichever view works best for you.
- Next Four Weeks
- This Week
- Next Week
- Next Two Weeks (Table)
You can plan your meals directly from this view on your dashboard by opening the day and searching for the meal in the “Meals” property.
Meals + Recipes #
The Meals + Recipes area gives you multiple view options for browsing and selecting meals for meal planning. You can view by meals you haven’t tried yet, meal type (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, etc), rating, recently added, 6 ingredients or less, or Instant Gratification. Or, try loading in the “Surprise Me” view to see random suggestions. Use all of the views to keep meal planning interesting and fun!
You can plan your meals directly from the recipe by opening the recipe and searching for the date within the “Meal Planning” property.
Getting Started #
Most of the preparations have already been done for you. All that’s left is a little bit of personalization. Follow the embedded prompts to get set up.
Grocery Items #
Clicking the first link will bring you to the “Grocery Items” page. Here you will:
- Set up which grocery items you want to always keep in stock
- Indicate the quantity that you want to keep in stock (if more than 1. There is no need to indicate a quantity if you don’t need more than 1)
- Tick off the items that you have in your pantry right now
- Optionally, add any new grocery items that may not already be in the database
Meal Planning #
Continuing through the setup you will be brought to the “Planning” page. Here you will plan meals for upcoming days using the visual calendar. An icon ⚠️ and text will indicate if no meals have been planned for the day.
- Click to open a day
- Within the “Meal” property, search or browse for the desired meal
- Select the meal to add to the day. You can add as many meals to the day as you’d like
Pro tip: When searching for a meal, click the three dots and select additional items that will help your search, for example, “Rating”, “Instant Gratification”, “Summary”, “Tags”, or “Total # of ingredients”
As you plan for meals, ingredients that you do not already have in your pantry will automatically be added to your shopping list. Note: Ingredients for meals will populate your shopping list once the planned date is within the next three days. This prevents you from buying ingredients too early.
Adding New Meals / Recipes #
You can add new recipes to the database by clicking on “Meals / Recipes” in the navigation menu or by scrolling to the “Meals + Recipes” section of your dashboard.
- Click the “New” button
- Populate the details about the recipe:
Meal Type
Summary
Rating
Tags
Recipe Link - Within the “Ingredients” property, add each required ingredient (grocery item) for the recipe
Pro tip: Use the Notion web clipper to snip recipes from the web directly to your “Meals / Recipes” database. Just make sure to attach ingredients to the recipe afterward.
Adding New Grocery Items + Icons #
You can add new grocery items to the database by clicking on “Grocery Items” in the navigation menu.
- Click the “New” button
- Select the category for the new item
- Select the subcategory for the new item
- Optionally, define a quantity for the item (if more than 1)
- Optionally, add a visual icon to represent the grocery item
Where do I get the icons? #
The icons are sourced from Icons8, and are the IOS Line style.
- Go to Icons8.com. This link takes you directly to the IOS Line style food icon pack, but you can also search for specific food items using the search box, for example, “pineapple”
- Once you’ve found an icon to use, right-click the image and select “Copy Image Address”. The copied URL will look like this: https://img.icons8.com/ios/2x/pineapple.png
- In Notion, click “Add Icon” for the grocery item
- Select the “Custom” form
- Paste in the link to the icon
Pro tip: if you change the size of the icon to a larger version it will create a much better-quality image. I recommend changing “2x” in the icon URL to “4x”.
https://img.icons8.com/ios/4x/pineapple.png
Tips / Best Practices #
Grouping #
It may be helpful to group your grocery items by subcategory in both your Shopping List and Pantry views. Grouping items beneath the parent category makes finding them easier.
- On any view that you wish to customize, click the three dots next to the “New” button
- Select “Group”
- Choose “Subcategory”
- Optionally, drag and drop the subcategories into the order that you want them to appear
Reordering the Categories #
It may be helpful to rearrange the order of the categories and subcategories to mirror your grocery store layout. This means that as you are shopping the grocery items on your list will be ordered along your walking pattern through the grocery store. For example, if your grocery places fresh produce near the entrance of the store, move the “Produce” subcategory to the top of the list.
See step 4 above
Grocery Shopping #
Check off items while you grocery shop, and they will automatically be populated into your pantry!
Pro tip: Load the mobile-friendly view on your mobile phone. Go to “Shopping List” and choose the “Shopping List (List)” view.