A plain to-do list in a document has one annoying habit: every time a task moves forward, you delete "in progress" and type "done". With more than a handful of tasks, it also gets hard to see what is still open.
TL;DR: In Notion, type /board on an empty line and pick the board view. Each column is a status, so moving a card is the update.
Steps
- On an empty line in a Notion page, type
/boardand choose the board view. - Three columns appear straight away: Not started, In progress, Done.
- Click New page in a column and write the task.
- When you start the task, drag the card to In progress. When it is finished, drag it to Done.
There is no status text to retype, because the column the card sits in is the status.
Same data, table layout
Open the view settings at the top right and switch the layout to Table. The same tasks appear as rows, and the Status column already shows whatever you set by dragging. In my test, a card called "Weekly report" moved from Not started to In progress to Done on the board, and the table showed Done for it without any extra step.
I checked this in Notion on the web with a free account. Menu labels above are translated from the Korean interface, so the English wording may differ slightly.
If you want it automated
Notion has a public API, so cards can also be created or moved from another tool. For a personal list or a small team, the built-in board is usually enough and needs no setup at all.
Written with AI assistance. The steps were tested by hand before publishing.
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