The Problem:
You’re experiencing a frustrating issue where items in your Notion database are rearranging themselves unexpectedly, even without any active sorting or filtering. Manually ordering items doesn’t seem to be saved, and the database keeps shuffling things around upon reopening or refreshing. This is problematic because maintaining a specific item order is crucial for your workflow.
Understanding the “Why” (The Root Cause):
Notion’s default behavior doesn’t inherently preserve manually arranged order. While you can drag and drop items to visually reorder them, Notion doesn’t store this arrangement as a persistent property of the database. Instead, this visual ordering is temporary and gets overwritten when the database syncs, refreshes, or is accessed from different devices or browsers. The lack of a dedicated ordering mechanism within Notion is the root cause of this behavior.
Step-by-Step Guide:
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Implement a Dedicated Ordering Column: The most reliable solution is to add a new property column to your database specifically for ordering. This column will store the numerical position of each item. Name this column something like “Order”. This column’s type should be a Number column.
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Assign Order Numbers: Assign unique numerical values to each item in the “Order” column. Start with a small number (e.g., 1) for the topmost item, increasing sequentially for each item below it. To avoid cumbersome renumbering when inserting new items, use increments of 10 or 100 (e.g., 1, 11, 21, 31, etc.). This allows for inserting new entries with values such as 15 or 25.
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Sort Your View: In your database view settings, set the sorting to be based on the “Order” column in ascending order. This ensures that Notion consistently displays the items according to the numbers in your “Order” column.
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Maintain Order Manually: Whenever you add or reorder items, update the “Order” column accordingly. The visual drag-and-drop feature is still usable for rearranging, but only after you update the numbers in the “Order” column.
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Verify the Configuration: After completing these steps, refresh the Notion database and confirm that the items remain in the intended order.
Common Pitfalls & What to Check Next:
- Incorrect Column Type: Make sure your “Order” column is set as a Number type. Using a Text or other column type will likely prevent proper sorting.
- Conflicting Sorts or Filters: Double-check your database view settings for any inadvertently applied filters or sorting rules that might be overriding your “Order” column sorting.
- Multiple Open Views: Ensure the database isn’t open in multiple views simultaneously. Changes in one view may not always reflect perfectly across other views.
- Team Collaboration: If you’re collaborating with others, verify that nobody else has accidentally changed the sorting or filtering settings.
Still running into issues? Share your (sanitized) config files, the exact command you ran, and any other relevant details. The community is here to help!