Upgrade your Notion content calendar with automatic monthly recaps

Managing a content calendar is useful, but getting a clear overview of everything you worked on each month is what helps you improve your strategy.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to add automatic monthly recaps to your Notion content calendar.

Once the system is set up, Notion will create a new recap every month and display all the content associated with that period, grouped by platform.

🚨 This tutorial builds on the content calendar created in the previous guide.

If you haven’t built yours yet, start with that tutorial (or download the free ready-made template) before continuing.

📹 Prefer to follow along visually?

You’ll find a step-by-step video tutorial at the end of this article.

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have:

👉 A dedicated Monthly recaps database

👉 A relation connecting it to your Content calendar

👉 A recurring template that automatically creates one recap per month

👉 A gallery view displaying your recaps in a clean, visual format

👉 A formula summarizing the content published on each platform

For the easiest workflow, place your Content calendar and Monthly recaps databases on the same Notion page.

Under your Content calendar database:

1️⃣ Type /database

2️⃣ Select the inline database option

3️⃣ Choose New empty data source

4️⃣ Rename the database Monthly recaps

Keeping both databases together will make the system easier to configure and use later.

Open the Monthly recaps database settings, then:

1️⃣ Click More settings

2️⃣ Select Sub-items

3️⃣ Click Turn on sub-items

4️⃣ Under the filter options, choose Parents and sub-items

This will allow you to use one parent page as the connection point between your databases while creating a separate sub-item for each monthly recap.

Add the following three properties to the Monthly recaps database:

1️⃣ Content calendar

Create a Relation property and connect it to your Content calendar database. ⚠️ If you have multiple databases with similar names, double-check that you select the correct one.

Turn on Two-way relation, then click Add relation.

2️⃣ Date

Create a Date property. It will be used to identify the month associated with each recap.

3️⃣ Recap

Create a Formula property and rename it Recap. This property will generate the visual summary displayed on each gallery card.

At this point, the basic structure of the database is ready. ✅

Create a new page in the Monthly recaps database and name it All.

This page acts as the central connection between the Content calendar and Monthly recaps databases. Every content item will be related to it, while each individual monthly recap will be created as one of its sub-items.

Next, return to your Content calendar database. In the new Monthly recaps relation property, select All for every existing content item.

To avoid assigning All manually whenever you create a new content item, update your default Content calendar page template:

1️⃣ Click the small arrow next to the blue New button

2️⃣ Select New template

3️⃣ In the template properties, set the Monthly recaps relation to All

4️⃣ Click outside the template to close it, Notion saves your changes automatically

5️⃣ Open the template menu again

6️⃣ Click the three dots next to the template you’ve just created

7️⃣ Select Set as default

8️⃣ Choose For all views in Content calendar

From now on, every content item created with this template will automatically be connected to your recap system.

Return to the Monthly recaps database and create a new database template:

1️⃣ Click the arrow next to the blue New button

2️⃣ Select New template

3️⃣ Name the template Recap

4️⃣ Set the Date property to Today — Date when duplicated

5️⃣ Set Parent item to All

Next, automate the template:

1️⃣ Click Duplicate every in the yellow banner at the top of the template

2️⃣ Select Month

3️⃣ Set the schedule to repeat every 1 month, on the 1st day of the month

4️⃣ Click Save

Notion will now create a new recap automatically on the first day of every month.

Open the Recap formula property and paste in the pre-made formula below:

The formula collects the content connected through the All page, filters it by the recap’s month, and organizes the results by platform.

You can customize the platformColor section to match your own platforms and brand colors. Simply replace the platform names with the exact names used in your Content calendar, keeping each one inside quotation marks.

⚠️ Be careful not to change anything else in the formula’s structure, as even a small modification could prevent it from returning the expected result.

Now create a view designed specifically for browsing monthly summaries:

1️⃣ Add a new view to the Monthly recaps database

2️⃣ Choose the Gallery layout

3️⃣ Name the view Recaps

4️⃣ Turn off Show page icon

5️⃣ Turn on Wrap all content

6️⃣ Set Card preview to None

The, adjust the view settings as follows:

1️⃣ Open Settings, click Property visibility, hide the properties shown by default and display only the Recap property

2️⃣ Go back to Settings, go to Sub-items and select Disabled

3️⃣ Go back to Settings, click Filter, choose Name and add a filter where Name does not contain All

4️⃣ Go back to Settings one more time, open Sort, select Date and choose New to old

Once your view is ready, you can move the original Table view to the right and rename it Backend. If you don’t need it for maintenance, you can also delete it.

Once the setup is complete, the workflow runs automatically:

1️⃣ New content items are connected to All through your default Content calendar page

2️⃣ On the first day of each month, Notion creates a new recap page in the Monthly recaps database

3️⃣ The page receives the current date and becomes a sub-item of All

4️⃣ The formula filters your content by month and displays the matching items by platform

5️⃣ The recap appears at the top of your gallery view

You get a clear record of what you handle each month, without manually assembling reports or duplicating pages. Once configured, the system keeps running in the background. Every month, a fresh recap will be waiting for you, without you having to lift a finger.

Your Content calendar is no longer only a planning tool. It now gives you an automatic monthly overview of your output, making it easier to review your consistency, compare platforms, and spot gaps in your publishing strategy.