Why I stopped building Notion dashboards with twelve databases
Most Notion templates fail for the same reason: they model everything. Here's the simpler structure I use now.
Every Notion template I bought in my first year had the same problem. It was beautiful, it was thorough, and it was dead within a month. Twelve linked databases, four rollups deep, and no clear place to start on a Monday morning.
The turning point was auditing my own workspace. I had a projects database, a tasks database, a content database, a clients database, and a separate database for 'areas.' I spent more time maintaining the links between them than doing the work they were supposed to track. So I deleted half of them.
What survived was a single projects database and a single content database, with a lightweight tasks view filtered to whatever project was active. That's it. The rule I use now: if a database doesn't get opened at least three times a week, it's decoration.
When I build templates for the shop, I ask one question — what's the smallest structure that still answers 'what am I doing today?' If a page can't earn its place in that answer, it gets cut. Fewer pieces, more use.