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- Do you need a processing page in Capacities or Notion?
Do you need a processing page in Capacities or Notion?
How this simple page keeps everything running smoothly.
Capacities is the backbone of my digital system. Having used many apps before, I moved to Capacities in 2022 mainly because of its object types, which allow me to filter and sort my content by its properties. Giving this structure to my knowledge work was truly life-changing, but that’s a story for another day.
Today I want to talk about something very specific in my Capacities research space: my processing page. This is how all these filters are maintained, and it’s what allows me to use Capacities in line with my research goals. I have a similar set up in Fibery, and I had one in Notion too before I stopped using it. I think it’s a useful idea and I hope it can inspire you to create such a page if you need one!
Let’s go..
Across Capacities, I have lots of queries set up for different use-cases, but the correct properties need to be filled out in order for content to show up in them. Therefore there is a small amount of maintenance required from me so that these queries work.
For example, for the “who was alive in 1920” query to work, every person needs to have a date of birth and death property filled in. To know who doesn’t have a date of birth or death, I create a query and fill in the empty dates from there. Then my “who was alive in 1920” query will work! So I have a maintenance query to help the main query work.
I have many pairs like this, and I combine all the maintenance queries onto one page, so I can process everything in one place, knowing it’s sending what I want to where I want, for me to use how I want later. This is a processing page. If I don’t do this, the content I want to show up in relevant queries simply won’t show up.
I have this set up in Capacities, in Fibery for my tasks and I had many of them in Notion too when I used it. In short, if you use databases, these processing pages can help you keep everything working smoothly.
Here’s how mine look:

Capacities in my research space

Notion - I no longer use it but I did use this page for years!
Why is it helpful
People less chaotic than me might simply remember to fill in all relevant properties in a given page or object. However that probably isn’t realistic all the time, and certainly isn’t how my brain works.
My processing page is my one go-to page to update everything I need. This makes maintenance so easy and means I don’t have to think about it across my space. So all in all, this page supports me in achieving my knowledge goals, which is what our systems should do!
Plus, they only take seconds to set up (it’s just embedding queries or linked views) but I have used them again and again, so the time investment is instantly worth it. It’s also super easy to add new queries you might need, or delete the ones you no longer need, so it’s always relevant to you.
A closer look at my Capacities processing page
I actually have a section of a video about this here 👇🏻 but I’ll briefly summarise some use cases here too.
In this processing page I have queries that help with
Maintenance
Research-specific things
Maintenance
As mentioned above, most of these queries are for maintenance.
One example is the query that helps me decide if I need all the objects I create, or if they’re just clutter. This query looks for objects without backlinks, and I review the list created to choose to work further on an object or to delete it for now.

I can’t see myself taking many notes on the Nile…
Similarly, I use a general media/source object type, so I use tags to differentiate the type of media/source it is. So I look for any sources without a type tag via a query, and I embed it into this page so I can easily fill them in.

Another example is my ‘Add DoB’ query which means my queries about who was alive during a certain time period work. If their dates of birth/death aren’t filled in, I won’t see them at all. So by adding this information the objects are more useful for my research!

I also make sure I fill in the countries involved in relations between countries (former IR student!).

Intersections are another useful things I added to my Capacities space a while ago.
Anyone interested in hearing more about this? |
Research
But as well as maintenance, I like to put some extras into this page to develop my learning further. I do this with the randomise function that queries can have to encourage me to learn about new things.
Whilst I want most objects to be linked to my active knowledge work (hence my first maintenance query), I take a different approach with countries. I eventually want to know something about all of them, and this query prompts me towards specific research. It’s good fun!

Summary
By embedding all these queries (and more in the future I’m sure) into one page, I can edit my properties super fast, meaning my content shows up where I want it, and the rest of my system and my practices work as I intend.
I really recommend playing around with a page like this to see how it can benefit your workflows. It will work in any app with databases and an embed function. From experience I can vouch for it working well in Capacities, Fibery and Notion 🙂
Would love to see any processing pages you create!
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