Clarity in Complexity
Frances Odera Matthews - Certified Notion Consultant
Frances is a Certified Notion Consultant, Notion Ambassador and founder of The Notion Bar, where she designs aesthetic, high-impact work systems for individuals and teams. She also hosts Coffee & Oysters, a business and lifestyle podcast for London’s Business Babes.
Q: You've worked in-house as a project manager across fast-moving teams. What does the day-to-day reality of modern work feel like now?
I think the biggest pressure is that there’s too much pressure. With the cost-of-living crisis, leadership is in a three-way struggle to find new customers, pay salaries and/or pay back their shareholders. This pressure often leads to high-demand, often unrealistic, targets at work. Almost everyone is over-capacity right now. That’s where a solid operating system can either make or break you. In teams with choppy systems, people aren't just drowning just because there’s a lot work - they're drowning because they're spending half their energy just trying to "find" the work, understand the work, or remember where they left off. That friction compounds when you're working across time zones or in hybrid setups where half the context lives in someone's head from a conversation you weren't in. And the thing is, most teams know this. But they're too busy firefighting to step back and actually redesign how they operate.Q: Many organisations invest heavily in tools and technology. Where do you see the biggest gaps when it comes to supporting the human side of work?
Despite all the investment in tools the biggest gap is forgetting the human fundamentals. Technology cannot replace someone picking up the phone and asking “Hey how are you doing”. Many managers are technically strong but have not been trained in the people stuff. They struggle with difficult conversations or supporting someone through stress burnout or family challenges. These moments do not follow a script and no app is going to solve them. There is also an over reliance on digital communication. We default to emails messages and templates. I always say technology should enable more human connection not become a barrier to it. One of my biggest pet peeves is canned responses. I would much rather receive a slightly imperfect message written by a real person than a polished generic reply. Imagine reaching out about something personal and getting a ChatGPT style response. That feels uncaring.
Q: How can leaders think about work systems less as 'productivity hacks' and more as infrastructure for sustainable, human-centred work?
When you think of systems as “productivity hacks”, you're thinking short-term. You're asking: "Does this get things done faster right now?" When you think of systems as infrastructure, you're thinking long-term and think holistically. You're asking: "How does this new tool plug into your other processes?", "Does this reduce cognitive load or is it actually creating more work? Is it genuinely moving the needle, or is it a shiny distraction?"
Q: Where do projects most commonly break down: people, processes, tools, hybrid work or the way all interact? What are your best tips for collaborating remotely?
It's the interaction. You can have brilliant people, a solid process, and the right tools, but if they don't talk to each other properly, it all falls apart. Operational design is an "artform". One that requires you to have a good stronghold on your values, ideal way of working, and how your information flows together. Often, teams won’t spend time on this. It’s in every team’s interest to complete a bottom-up assessment of your operations where you complete a full discovery and map it all out - this is what I do with my clients. It honestly feels like therapy! Most breakdowns happen because there's no single source of truth, information is scattered, accountability is fuzzy and people are left guessing. Remote work just magnifies this because you can't tap someone on the shoulder. The goal should always be to increase visibility of important information/decisions while designing a system that’s easy to navigate. The biggest influence on this will be mapping out your system architecture - if a house doesn’t have good plumbing, it doesn’t matter what colour the walls are - it’s useless!
Q: You're known for building thoughtful work systems. Why do so many teams still struggle with systems that genuinely support focus, clarity and wellbeing?
Because most teams are used to constant reporting and manually updating spreadsheets. To answer your question - this is largely down to lack of awareness and not knowing there's a better way. You can design interconnected systems in tools like Notion that give instant visibility to the things traditional manual reports and spreadsheet updates would show, but they update in real time. This removes all the busy work. No more chasing people for status updates or spending hours copying information between documents. The issue is that many teams have never seen what's possible. They assume the friction is just "how work is" when really, it's a design problem waiting to be solved. These “new era tools” definitely have a learning curve, but the return on investment in the long run is without a doubt transformative. The other issue is that teams treat "productivity systems" like a one-time setup. They implement something, don't iterate, and wonder why no one uses it. But work evolves. Teams change. A system that worked six months ago might be completely wrong for where you are now. Good systemsneed to be living things. They need maintenance, care and a genuine commitment to designing for how people actually work, not how we "wish" they worked.
Q: What role can shared learning, soft skills, and craft workshops play in helping teams support one another more effectively when it comes to more operational tools?
Craft workshops put people in a learning mindset where it's okay to experiment. That mindset is what you need when you're adopting new operational systems. They also build vital “soft skills” such as communication and vulnerability that are vital in project environments. You can have the most beautiful system in the world, but if people don't feel comfortable using it or asking for help, it's useless.
Q: How do you see the role of project management evolving particularly in relation to wellbeing and trust?
Good project management and system design are wellbeing. Good systems protect focus time, notice when someone's overloaded before they burn out, and design processes that respect people's energy levels. Additionally, gone are the days of micro-management - asynchronous work environments allow for people to know what they’re working on without being told what to do.
Q: Where do you see AI agents adding the most value inside teams and what needs to change in processes or culture to integrate them responsibly?
The value isn't in replacing humans. It's in giving humans their brains back to do higher level thinking. AI excels at low-stakes work: first drafts, summarising meetings, doing scheduled research, pulling information from scattered sources and automating status updates etc. But high-stakes decisions that require nuance or context still need a human touch. But before teams can even implement AI, teams need to design a solid system architecture first. AI can't automate chaos. If workflows and information are all in people's heads, AI just becomes another layer of confusion.
Q: If you were designing the ideal work system for a modern team today, taking into account how AI can support teams, what principles would sit at the core?
The first would be intentional system architecture. You need to treat your operations like you would treat building an app. Map out every flow, template everything and make the connections where they matter. AI can help surface information quickly, but humans need to define what truly matters and set the priorities. Secondly, you need to have one source of truth where everyone knows where to find the information they need. Clear ownership means people understand their responsibilities and who's accountable for what.
Q: What are your top three practical tips for teams looking to improve how they work in the next year, without adding more tools, meetings, or noise?
The first thing would be a system/workflow audit:
- Ask everyone about their workflows
- what are common themes popping up? How are you prioritising any changes that need to be made?
- Where could manual work be reduced?
- Is there any “busy work” that is not moving the needle?
- Create a single source of truth and assign clear ownership
- Are there any meetings that could be replaced with async reporting?
Q: The amount of AI tools to support teams is getting saturated. It's overwhelming for people to choose. What should leaders be thinking about as they choose their work system?
The problem is that most teams jump straight to evaluating new tools without doing the foundational work first. They see something shiny, get excited about the features and before they know it, they've added another layer of complexity to an already messy system. Start by defining the actual problem you're trying to solve and map your current state of how work flows today. Identify every point of friction, delay, or confusion. Measure the real cost: how much time is being wasted? What's the cognitive load? How is this affecting morale? At this point, you can define your requirements from the ground up - what must the solution do at minimum? Return to this requirements list and workflow map every time you you want to integrate something new.
Q: How much time do you think a company should dedicate to soft skills like candle painting, card making and knitting, etc? Why is teambuilding important for us to collaborate together effectively online and IRL?
I actually, think “soft skills” should be rebranded as “core skills”. In which case, fostering a solid foundation of “core skills” should be something that you’re working on all the time. With smaller teams, this may look like having a strong core value system that you look to on a daily basis with a couple of workshops a year. As the size of the company grows, so does the chance that things can become lost in translation, so you should be investing active opportunities to awaken these skills more often.
