Notion Tutorial: Set Up Recurring Automatic Reminders

This question comes from a reader of the Notion course. It has been organized and shared here. If you encounter similar issues while using Notion, feel free to leave a comment.

Reader's Question

Hi, I have a need to set up recurring reminders for a specific task/page in a database.

For example, in my Health database, I have an entry for CPR. I want to be reminded every month to review CPR. However, right now I can only set a one-time reminder, or use a template to generate a new "CPR" page every month — but without being able to generate a date reminder at the same time. That's because in the template settings, dates can only be set to a specific fixed time, rather than rolling forward based on when the template is generated.

I did some more research, and found that the date in a template can be set to "Today" — meaning the day the template is generated — but it still cannot generate a reminder along with it. If I select a reminder option, the date automatically becomes a fixed date and cannot follow the template generation date.

My Answer

The issue you described does indeed exist. Currently, Notion's template feature cannot set up recurring interval reminders — this is a long-standing limitation. However, you can try using Automation to meet your needs. It can handle more complex requirements, but the only downside is that Automation requires a paid Notion subscription.

Notion's database Automation recently added a new feature that allows you to set a recurring interval, and then perform automated actions:

The time granularity options are the same as those for the template's Repeat feature:

Method 1: Automatically Create a New Page Each Month

We can build the following workflow:

Set the Automation trigger to "Every month"
Create a page titled "CPR"
Send yourself a notification

Method 2: Update an Existing Page and Notify

The method above creates a new page every month. If you don't want a new page generated each month, you can use this alternative approach:

Set the Automation trigger to "Every month"
"Update" the existing "CPR" page
Send yourself a notification

In step 2 of the image above, you need to set up filter conditions — for example, a page whose "title contains CPR" — so that the Automation can identify which page you want to update.