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.
Get the Template
I've published the template with sample data so you can see how it works before replacing rows with your own conferences.
Duplicate it into your workspace, delete the sample rows, and you're tracking CFPs in under 2 minutes.
What's your system for tracking conference submissions? I'd love to hear if you've built something similar.
