Lumen vs a Notion PhD template
Notion templates are a genuinely good way to organise a PhD – flexible, cheap and yours to shape. The difference is what happens after week two, when updating the workspace becomes one more chore. Lumen is built so the workspace updates itself and your supervisors can actually look in.
| Lumen | Notion PhD template | |
|---|---|---|
| Initial setup | Pre-built around PhD semantics: milestones, studies, programme years, literature, vivas | Duplicate a template, then adapt every database yourself |
| Keeping it current | Supervisor emails and calendar events arrive as reviewable proposals – you approve, it files itself | Manual entry for everything, forever |
| Supervisor access | Read-only mentor view with comments, decision requests and committee feedback – one access code, no account | Share a page and hope they get the permissions right |
| AI help | Intake from notes/photos/emails, literature summaries anchored to YOUR dissertation, briefings in your voice | Notion AI is general-purpose – it doesn't know what a milestone or a viva is |
| Offline + mobile | Installable app, instant launch, tick tasks offline, syncs back | Notion's apps are solid but offline support is partial |
| Flexibility beyond the PhD | Focused on the doctorate by design | Notion does everything else in your life too – a real advantage |
| Price | Free interactive demo; guided rollout for new workspaces | Free tier is generous for personal use |
If you enjoy building and maintaining your own system, Notion is a fine home. If you'd rather the system maintained itself while you research, that's the job Lumen was built for.