Who is Ian Pal?
Notion consultant and template creator, founder of Newblocs. Known for Newblocs, Cortex, KashFloo, KoLearner.
This page recognises Ian Pal for what they have contributed to the Notion community. It is written independently, it is not an endorsement, and it does not mean they use thePlus.so.
“You duplicated a Newblocs template, or you are eyeing one of the paid ones, and you want to know who is behind the name before you spend money or book a session.”
Ian Pal, a designer and illustrator with an automation engineering background, has been building in Notion since 2021 and running Newblocs as a business since 2023. Notion lists the @newblocs profile as a recommended creator. The free marketplace catalogue is large enough to judge the craft before you pay anything, and the paid systems top out at $29.
Ian Pal found Notion in early 2021 and used it to organise his own life. By 2023 it had moved into his working day, and he built a business on top of it. That business is Newblocs, and it runs on two tracks: templates anyone can duplicate, and custom workspaces built to order.
He arrived at Notion from illustration. Ian keeps a separate portfolio at souuul.com, a gallery of editorial and magazine illustration alongside poster projects, and he describes building the Newblocs website as part of that same practice as a creative designer. The other half of his background is automation engineering, which he credits with helping him wire Notion to outside apps so a workflow keeps running without someone pushing it along.
Notion lists him as a recommended creator under the handle @newblocs, where the catalogue reaches from a monthly budget planner to a rental booking manager for Airbnb hosts. The paid systems live in a separate shop, and the consulting side takes on custom builds, automation setup, and retainer support for teams that need the workspace looked after once it goes live.
A personal organiser in 2021 became a business in 2023
Ian dates the start himself, on the about page of his own site. In early 2021 he discovered Notion and realised how effective it was for personal organisation, and that held until 2023, when he began using it for work and built a business around it. Sharing what he had worked out followed from that, and Newblocs was the result. The name matches how he talks about the work: blocks someone else can pick up and assemble. The first public output was templates, published on the Notion Marketplace under @newblocs, where the profile now carries the recommended creator badge. What is there covers project and task management, budgeting and cash flow, habit building, study systems, note and resource libraries, and a year planner.
Illustration on the surface, automation underneath
The souuul.com gallery is the part of Ian's work that has nothing to do with productivity software: editorial pieces, magazine illustrations, poster projects, personal series. He treats the Newblocs site as an extension of that practice, which explains the consistent visual identity that carries across the templates and makes his marketplace listings recognisable at a glance. Automation engineering is the other half. He says plainly that the experience helped him build systems around Notion and integrate it with external apps for streamlined automated workflows, and on the client side that turns into its own service line, sold apart from the workspace build.
Everything on the marketplace is free, and the deeper systems are paid
The Notion Marketplace listings cost nothing to duplicate. The paid work sits in a separate shop, priced modestly: $5 for a subscription and bills manager or a financial goals and wishlist tracker, $10 for the project and tasks manager, $20 for Forge, and $29 each for KashFloo and KoLearner. Forge is a habit and routine builder. KashFloo is an all-in-one finance hub. KoLearner is built for students, described as a structure that runs from yearly and semester plans down to individual projects and daily tasks. A separate page on his site bundles six more free templates behind an email address, including Projectify, an AI prompt library organiser, and a year at a glance planner. The YouTube channel is where the same systems get walked through, so anyone can watch a template work before deciding to buy it.
The newer work is aimed at people running something
Cortex is listed as an all-in-one second brain in Notion for founders, holding business, personal life, tasks, projects and reviews in one operating system. Around it sit the Personal Brand Journey Kit, a guided workbook for clarifying identity, audience, voice and content, and a Personal Website Portfolio build. RentalOS goes furthest into operations, tracking bookings, availability, guests, income, expenses and net profit across multiple properties for Airbnb and longer lets. The consulting arm speaks to the same people. Newblocs publishes its method as five steps, clarify, organise, design and develop, evaluate and refine, then launch, and offers a retainer partnership for teams that want the setup maintained afterwards. Coaching runs through an application form: you describe your goals, and a proposed rate, an hour count and a session outline come back by email.
Why Ian Pal is on this list
The bulk of what Ian has published for the Notion community is free to take. The listings under @newblocs cost nothing to duplicate, a separate page on his site hands over a further bundle for an email address, and the YouTube walkthroughs go through the same systems in enough detail to rebuild them by hand. Someone who never hires him and never buys a paid template still walks away with finished, designed workspaces built by a person who sells the same kind of thing next door.
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