Common English Grammar Mistakes and How to Track Them in Notion

Most English grammar mistakes aren't ignorance — they're habits. You know the rule for its vs. it's, yet it slips out wrong under deadline. The fix isn't re-reading a grammar book; it's catching your own recurring errors and drilling those specifically. A simple Notion mistakes log does exactly that. First, the mistakes worth tracking. Then, the system.

The most common English grammar mistakes

These are the errors that show up most often in real writing — from learners and native speakers alike.

Its vs. it's

It's is always "it is" or "it has." Its is possessive. The apostrophe trips people because everywhere else it signals possession — but not here. Test: if you can swap in "it is," use it's.

Your vs. you're

Same trap. You're = "you are." Your = belonging to you. "You're going to love your new desk."

Their / there / they're

The triple threat. They're = "they are." There = a place. Their = possessive. Read it aloud expanding they're to "they are" — if it breaks, you've got the wrong one.

Subject-verb agreement

Singular subjects take singular verbs, but distance hides the link: "The list of items is on the desk" (the list is, not the items). Phrases between subject and verb are where this slips.

Comma splices

Two complete sentences joined by only a comma: "It was late, we went home." Fix with a period, a semicolon, or a conjunction: "It was late, so we went home."

Affect vs. effect

Affect is usually the verb (to influence), effect usually the noun (the result). "The change affected morale; the effect was obvious."

Fewer vs. less

Fewer for things you can count (fewer emails), less for things you can't (less time).

Dangling modifiers

"Walking to the office, the rain started." The rain wasn't walking. The modifier needs a subject it can logically attach to: "Walking to the office, I got caught in the rain."

Me vs. I

"Between you and me," not "between you and I." After a preposition, use me. Drop the other person and your ear usually finds it: you wouldn't say "between I."

Why a tracker beats re-reading rules

Here's the thing about that list: you probably knew most of it. Knowing the rule and applying it under pressure are different skills. You don't have a knowledge problem — you have a handful of specific habits that misfire.

That's why a generic grammar course barely helps. It spends 90% of its time on rules you already follow. What moves the needle is isolating your recurring mistakes and drilling only those. A mistakes log does that. It's the single highest-leverage tool for cleaning up your writing.

Building the Notion mistakes log

The log is one Notion database, deliberately simple so capture stays frictionless.

Create a database called Grammar Mistakes with these properties:

• Mistake (Title) — a short label, e.g. "its / it's"
• Wrong version (Text) — what you actually wrote
• Correct version (Text) — the fix
• Rule (Text) — the rule in one line, in your own words
• Category (Select) — Punctuation, Agreement, Word choice, Sentence structure
• Times made (Number) — increment each time it recurs
• Status (Select) — Active / Watching / Beaten

That's the whole schema. Resist adding more; the value is in using it, not designing it.

How to use it

Capture every correction

Whenever something corrects your writing — an editor, a grammar checker, a colleague, your own second read — log it. Paste the wrong version and the fix. This takes 30 seconds and is the entire engine of the system.

Increment repeats

If you make a mistake you've logged before, bump its Times made count instead of adding a new row. This is the most important rule. The count reveals your real problem areas, which are almost never the ones you'd guess.

Build two views

1. Top offenders — sorted by Times made descending. This is your study list. The top three rows are where focusing your attention pays off most.
2. Active — filtered to Status = "Active." Your current watch list. When a mistake hasn't recurred in a few weeks, move it to "Watching," then "Beaten."

Review weekly

Once a week, open Top offenders and read your top three. For each, write one fresh correct sentence. Five minutes. Over a month, your worst habits visibly fade — and you have the data to prove it.

Why this works when willpower doesn't

"Just be more careful" never works because your attention can't watch for twenty rules at once. But it can watch for three. By surfacing your top three recurring errors, the log shrinks the problem to something your brain can actually hold while writing. You stop proofreading for everything and start proofreading for your things.

The payoff compounds. Each mistake you move to "Beaten" is one you'll likely never make again, freeing attention for the next. Six months in, the log isn't a list of failures — it's a record of habits you permanently fixed, and a writing voice that got noticeably cleaner because you stopped repeating yourself.

Start today: think of the last correction someone made to your writing, and log it. That one row is the beginning of writing you don't have to second-guess.