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Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#11

Post by BoorishBears »

Notion is the new Rainmeter.

It gets a lot of talk because people invest tons and tons of time in elaborate aesthetically pleasing set ups which can be very satisfying. But then the messy nature of "every day life" slowly erodes the ability of said setup to (cleanly) contain the information, and eventually a lot of people give up on it.

Notion used in that way is essentially trying to make a database for your mind. Except programmers know that writing a schema for a well defined business case is hard. Writing a schema for your knowledge of the natural world is somewhere between an endless task and an impossible task, yet that's what Notion will require of you to take on that role..

-

If you want to get actual value out of it, keep it simple. But if you keep it simple, imo you're better off using something like Evernote, which drops the whole "database of your mind" pretense and just focuses on letting you write.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#12

Post by pigtailgirl »

systemvoltage wrote: post #9
pigtailgirl wrote: post #4

-- having consulted to many startups who use either Notion or Google Drive - I strongly feel that business who run on a well organized google drive are considerably more productive than those who are running in notion - Two general reasons I see - Notion itself isn't particularly snappy for everyone - especially team members on weaker internet connections - plus - it encourages strange rabbit holes of information in…

> google drive I've been using Google Drive for years (at work). I still don't know where my files are and what the UI is doing. It is like a black hole of files that are shown in various ways. Google Drive IMO is one of the worst products out there. I hate it with a passion. I can pretty much say, in the list of 100 apps that I use, it ranks at the very bottom. Last.

-- sounds like my local hard drive ;=) - jokes aside - it can be a huge pain - but it requires only two things to be successful - you're extremely disciplined about using folder structures - you're extremely disciplined about using the "my drive" function - Company Folder Name (add to my drive) Sub folders > Marketing (don't add to my drive because I don't work in marketing) > Personas > Persona Iteration > a/b testing.doc | Sub Folders > Engineering (add to my drive, I work in engineering) > Release Planning > shipit.doc - etc - you can use notion this way - however in my experience most orgs don't --

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#13

Post by hastes »

Just started using, feels amazing and really snappy to use (I've seen many complaints in the other direction). Started organizing all my projects and persona things into kanbans, added some tables for subscriptions and other things I rarely keep track of. Loving it so far, especially how many features are for free.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#14

Post by tchock23 »

Depending on your use cases you may want to check out Clover (cloverapp.com).

They’re a YC alum making something a little more ‘streamlined’ than Notion. Doesn’t have as many blocks, but the ones it does have work well.

(No affiliation, just a happy user that moved over from Notion because it got a little too ‘bloated’ for my taste).

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#15

Post by systemvoltage »

pigtailgirl wrote: post #12
systemvoltage wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> google drive I've been using Google Drive for years (at work). I still don't know where my files are and what the UI is doing. It is like a black hole of files that are shown in various ways. Google Drive IMO is one of the worst products out there. I hate it with a passion. I can pretty much say, in the list of 100 apps that I use, it ranks at the very bottom. Last.

-- sounds like my local hard drive ;=) - jokes aside - it can be a huge pain - but it requires only two things to be successful - you're extremely disciplined about using folder structures - you're extremely disciplined about using the "my drive" function - Company Folder Name (add to my drive) Sub folders > Marketing (don't add to my drive because I don't work in marketing) > Personas > Persona Iteration > a/b testi…

They get shared at work and there is like a giant labyrinth of files. I have no idea who owns what, whose folder structure I am looking at, what files are mine and which ones aren't.

Good lord. What a piece of shit. I'm sorry to vent here, but I wish I was not forced to use this thing.

In Dropbox, the file structure is prominent UI feature. In Google Drive, I feel like I just don't have the brains to use it. I am not smart enough. I don't have what it takes. I accept complete defeat and I surrender.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#16

Post by anon2020dot00 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #15
pigtailgirl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-- sounds like my local hard drive ;=) - jokes aside - it can be a huge pain - but it requires only two things to be successful - you're extremely disciplined about using folder structures - you're extremely disciplined about using the "my drive" function - Company Folder Name (add to my drive) Sub folders > Marketing (don't add to my drive because I don't work in marketing) > Personas > Persona Iteration > a/b testi…

They get shared at work and there is like a giant labyrinth of files. I have no idea who owns what, whose folder structure I am looking at, what files are mine and which ones aren't. Good lord. What a piece of shit. I'm sorry to vent here, but I wish I was not forced to use this thing. In Dropbox, the file structure is prominent UI feature. In Google Drive, I feel like I just don't have the brains to use it. I am not…

I think links are helpful to navigate in Google Drive. The normal navigation via Folders and clicking is slow and so I prefer to just use links as well as reducing the number of folders to a minimum.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#17

Post by esel2k »

I recently started a new job where notion is the company wiki. Think of it like a confluence or sharepoint page. The ones how painfull it is to create a clean and beautiful sharepoint is, will love it. Compared to confluence I liked the snappyness but overall it is not really such a big gain, in my view. Storing and finding documents is good for presenting them to go read an article, I however prefer the good old folders on gdrive or onedrive - might be taste. So I use OneDrive as summary and explanation of our team and whats ongoing but store the docs on onedrive.

For personal organizations and notes I have stick with OneNote for years and still find it superb especially to search notes and screenshots. Just missing a better todo list and planning.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#19

Post by pigtailgirl »

systemvoltage wrote: post #15
pigtailgirl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-- sounds like my local hard drive ;=) - jokes aside - it can be a huge pain - but it requires only two things to be successful - you're extremely disciplined about using folder structures - you're extremely disciplined about using the "my drive" function - Company Folder Name (add to my drive) Sub folders > Marketing (don't add to my drive because I don't work in marketing) > Personas > Persona Iteration > a/b testi…

They get shared at work and there is like a giant labyrinth of files. I have no idea who owns what, whose folder structure I am looking at, what files are mine and which ones aren't. Good lord. What a piece of shit. I'm sorry to vent here, but I wish I was not forced to use this thing. In Dropbox, the file structure is prominent UI feature. In Google Drive, I feel like I just don't have the brains to use it. I am not…

-- maybe an issue of organization within your organizations - not the tool? :=) --
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