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Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#21

Post by ajonit »

It's a great tool. I use it for almost everything

- Bookmarking. Notion downloads the complete article not just links to it.

- Idea dump.

- Notes dump for any new learnings.

- Health records.

- Simple inventory Management. ...

Idea is to have a single app for all references. Works great across Desktop and iOS.

What I want?

1 click backup/restore.

Given that a lot of my data goes in it, and companies these days have a poor record of kicking-out users (and not telling them why) for the slightest of mistake. I would like to have some automated way to back-it-up on a daily basis.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#22

Post by rufius »

Not well and mostly disappointingly. It’s a nice enough UI but I don’t find it substantially better than OneNote - at least not enough to replace that use case.

I finally am getting my head wrapped around Tinderbox and it clicked. It’s a better tool for thinking for me. No sharing beyond sharing a file but that’s fine. I don’t tend to like collaborative software for that sorta thing.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#23

Post by cupofpython »

tymerry wrote: post #8

I have never used it for business cases, but I am in notion for at least an hour a day for personal uses. I use it for a daily planner, personal wiki, and ticker(getting things done) I am naturally unorganized, so I overcompensate. I don't think much of what I do is outside of Notion's primary use case, but maybe it is??? Daily planner - Every morning I do gratitude, "single most important task", and quick retro on t…

does it actually help to confine all of this into a single app?

outloud personal reflection:

I much prefer using simpler tools dedicated to specific tasks (todo, calendar, notes, pictures, websites, etc)

> I chuck random things into this so I can pull them out of my active memory and come back to them later.

I feel like maybe this is the heart of it, having a personal cache to make a temporary mess in until you have time to clean it up later. I could see that being useful - though id want to move everything out of that place and not organize things within it

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#24

Post by vgel »

ajonit wrote: post #21

It's a great tool. I use it for almost everything - Bookmarking. Notion downloads the complete article not just links to it. - Idea dump. - Notes dump for any new learnings. - Health records. - Simple inventory Management. ... Idea is to have a single app for all references. Works great across Desktop and iOS. What I want? 1 click backup/restore. Given that a lot of my data goes in it, and companies these days have a…

There is a data export to .zip option buried in settings. I haven't automated it, though.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#25

Post by vgel »

pigtailgirl wrote: post #19
systemvoltage wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? :=) --

sure maybe (not gp), but i think it's a contraindication to your original statement -- i think organizations that use google drive instead of notion or a wiki tend to be disorganized and have information siloed away to people who create docs.

if an organization happens to be very organized on gdrive because they put in the heroic level of effort (if it's not just being constantly done as glue work by 1-2 people at the expense of recognized/rewarded work), that just shows the competence of the organization that would be true regardless of using gdrive / notion / a wiki / clay tablets.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#26

Post by vgel »

I have a big personal workspace I use for everything, but I really like it for writing fiction (sci-fi short stories, specifically). I can pop open a new page, start jotting down snippets of scenes or ideas without any order or cohesion, drag them around to reorder them, start fleshing one bit out, move it into a subpage and turn the original page into a project folder as the story grows, it's quite nice and organic compared to trying to manage things in a traditional filesystem based word processor or worse, Google Docs.

I don't use any community templates, though. Are there any people have found particularly useful? My Notion pages are generally just text and I'm happy with the default styling so I haven't felt the need to go out and search for anything specific.

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#27

Post by CarrieLab »

ajonit wrote: post #21

It's a great tool. I use it for almost everything - Bookmarking. Notion downloads the complete article not just links to it. - Idea dump. - Notes dump for any new learnings. - Health records. - Simple inventory Management. ... Idea is to have a single app for all references. Works great across Desktop and iOS. What I want? 1 click backup/restore. Given that a lot of my data goes in it, and companies these days have a…

How do you use it to bookmark?

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#29

Post by arduinomancer »

Have used it for many years as a personal wiki/database

I pull out the app all the time to answer various questions

For example:

* What kind of oil does my car take again? When was the last oil change?

* How much did I weigh in 2015

* What's the square footage of my apartment?

* What was my start/end date of job X?

Lots of random details like that I may need to reference later

I use the tables a lot for anything that changes over time

Stuff like this is pretty unstructured so I like having arbitrary hierarchies to keep it organized

Re: Ask HN: How do you use Notion?

#30

Post by ponyous »

Company docs (onboarding guides, developer wiki, guides for maintenance, decision log...), scrum board, ticket prioritization/estimation list, idea archive, ...

Endless. It serves as our source of truth.

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