their Notion setup looked fine — but it wasn’t working for the team

how I turned a basic template into a custom space that actually worked for 9 creative brains

the messy starting point

SmallStack

started with a Notion HQ that technically worked — but didn’t feel like a real home base. They had a nice landing page, sure, but it was missing that living, breathing “we’re all here building this together” energy.

And with 9 people on the team (all with different brains and workflows), it wasn’t cutting it.

what we built + why

We spent a few months building a space that actually worked for how this team thinks, creates, and collaborates. There was even a full setup we scrapped and rebuilt — because good systems are flexible af and we weren’t gonna settle for “meh, it’s fine.”

Key upgrades:

• a proper sidebar structure for spatial orientation 🧭

• a top nav on every page so folks could find what they needed without rage-clicking

• separate zones for the editorial backend, the library, and the “what’s happening now” bulletin board

• neurodivergent-friendly design: low overwhelm, high clarity, intuitive flows

the new SmallStack HQ

the old HQ. peep how everything had its own page but was tucked away. there’s nothing you can see at a glance

databases are perf for spaces like this because you can store and reference a lot of information. to help with navigation, each page had database template with navigation. so you can go from working on editorial, straight into seeing when the next team meeting was

wanna check out the live library? 👀 click here

what changed

Robin Taylor (he/him)

(one of The Robins 🐦) said it best:

This redesign went beyond changing where links were located — it was a foundation-up rebuild that gave us easily identifiable links on the sidebar and a navigation menu at the top of each page… designed to work well with the brains involved in this project. That includes folks who are neurodiverse, overwhelmed, excited, easily distracted, and even those of us managing a little bit of each sub-group on a regular basis.

The impact?

• the new setup felt like a space, not just a file system

• the team could move through it with confidence (and even joy)

• what started as a volunteer gig turned into a paid one — and an ongoing role

Sue-Jan is the breath of fresh air you and your project need... Working and learning alongside them is a practice in joy, humor, and wonder.

🫶🏾😭🫶🏾

want your own Notion HQ?

I build Notion spaces that actually feel good to use — especially for neurodivergent creatives and small teams. Let’s turn your chaos into something clear, collaborative, and custom-built.