Kassidy Knight loves to build.
In her Los Angeles apartment, she builds furniture, like tiled coffee tables and reupholstered chairs.
On her laptop, she builds custom websites and e-commerce stores.
In 2021, Kassidy left her full-time job to go freelance, whichgave her the freedom to work on personal projects. But, like many solo business owners, she found the lines between personal time and work time became blurry.
Kassidy had always kept to-do lists. The problem was turning them into an actual schedule (and sticking to it).
One tool for work and life
Solopreneurs don’t get clean lines between work and life, and she needed a tool that didn’t pretend otherwise. That’s why she chose Notion.
She built a task-tracking database that captured everything from DIY projects to client work to vacation planning.
Notion lets her keep everything in one place while inviting others into specific projects. She can invite her web design partner, Ryan, to collaborate on active client work—without him ever seeing the European vacation plan she’s building with her partner, Kate.
That database of projects syncs to Notion Calendar, turning her list of tasks into a daily schedule.
The system was everything she needed. It was also, as it turned out, exactly the kind of thing she could spend an afternoon tinkering with.
I know myself. I could spend hours and hours just playing with databases. Notion is so pleasing, it’s like playing a video game.
Kassidy Knight
Solopreneur, Self-employed
Agents run the system while Kassidy focuses on building
Instead of sinking more hours into a system that’s supposed to save time, Kassidy built a Notion Agent called Sundae to protect her from the administrative rabbit hole.
At the end of every weekend, Sundae prioritizes Kassidy’s projects, estimates how long each task will take, and builds out her weekly schedule.
At the end of the day, Sundae looks at each of her projects for any progress. When necessary, it suggests updating the next day’s plan. “I just explain all the steps I used to do and Sundae started working. It took me one afternoon to build, and it saves me so much time every week.”
Kassidy can also give Sundae new instructions just by chatting with it. For instance, Sundae now flags any project where she’s behind schedule.
Agents can be the difference between a system you spend your time maintaining and a system that saves you time.
The measure of a good system isn’t how it looks or how detailed it is. The measure of a good system is what it gives you—more time for the work and the people that really matter.
