I Built a CFP Submission Tracker in Notion — Here's the Free Template

#notion #productivity #conference #template

Last year I spoke at 12 conferences. By conference number 6, my system of browser bookmarks and calendar reminders was falling apart. I'd discover a great CFP on Twitter, bookmark it, then forget about it until the deadline had passed.

So I built a CFP tracker in Notion. Here's what it does and how you can duplicate it.

The Problem

Conference speaking involves a surprising amount of project management:

Discovery: finding relevant CFPs across Twitter, mailing lists, and sites like papercall.io
Deadline tracking: each CFP has a unique deadline, often 2–4 months before the event
Abstract reuse: you often submit variations of the same talk to multiple events
Status tracking: Researching → Writing Abstract → Submitted → Accepted/Rejected

Spreadsheets work until you hit ~8 active submissions. Then columns start multiplying and things slip through.

The Solution: Two Linked Databases

The template uses two Notion databases:

1. Conferences DB — one row per event

Conference name, location, dates
CFP deadline (date property)
CFP URL
Status: Researching → CFP Open → Submitted → Accepted → Attended

2. Submissions DB — one row per abstract you submit

Talk title + abstract text
Linked to the Conference it's submitted to
Status: Draft → Submitted → Accepted → Rejected

The key formula: Days to Deadline.

if(prop("CFP Deadline") > now(), dateBetween(prop("CFP Deadline"), now(), "days"), -1)

This returns the number of days until the deadline, or -1 if it's passed. Sort the Conferences view by this column and you instantly see which CFPs need attention today.

How I Actually Use It

Every Monday I spend 10 minutes:

Check the "Days to Deadline" sort — anything under 7 days gets written that week
Scan Twitter/newsletters for new CFPs and add rows
Update statuses for anything I submitted last week

The linked databases mean I can also filter Submissions by status to see all my accepted talks in one view — useful for planning travel.