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How I use Notion to manage everything

notionthings.com

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Re: How I use Notion to manage everything

#61

Post by jitl »

aluminussoma wrote: post #4

I'm glad it works for them, and I am a little skeptical whenever someone fawns over Notion (is it a paid placement? Is it someone who is trying sell templates?). To me, as someone who uses Notion for work, it is a dystopian vision, like using JIRA for my personal life's tasks. I very much prefer simple, low tech solutions to dealing with my life's problems.

It's also possible to use Notion / Logseq / Notes.app in a very brutalist, low-system way. I work at Notion but a huge system like this that's big on filing would never work for me. I use it like Notes.app, except I create databases for filing stuff like interesting links, furniture shopping, and a few other things, as needed. No upfront big shenanigans, and certainly no filing workflows!

Re: How I use Notion to manage everything

#62

Post by rchaud »

scrollaway wrote: post #46
rchaud wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notion is known for being a laggy web app. It's partially why local-first, Markdown-based solutions like Obsidian and Logseq have exploded in popularity. Logseq is amazing and truly shows the power of backlinked text with a query interface. And the whole thing is FOSS, at least for now.

I was turned off by Obsidian because, much as it is local first, it doesn’t have the more notion like mode where I can invite a team and use it as a shared wiki. Did I miss something? For me, being able to edit things from multiple devices seamlessly and share it with my coworkers so they can edit it too, that is critical.

I think that's because Obsidian is designed for individuals over teams. It uses a local folder structure for organizing MD files and keeping them portable, although the backlinks mean everything can stay in sync. They aren't set up as a SaaS in the way Notion are, and that has a big impact on the design and intended audience for it.

Re: How I use Notion to manage everything

#63

Post by JadoJodo »

mcky wrote: post #53

I’ve been spending a lot of time recently thinking about a similar home for managing “everything”. I find a tool like notion is just too generalised and I’m missing the UX of purpose made tools though, but I still want some kind of ownership and control over my own data The dream is to have interop between services, but I control the data and can easily make my own views onto it / tools to manage it. I think this is…

> I find a tool like notion is just too generalised

This was the reason I stopped using Notion several years ago; it was OK at everything and great at nothing.

Re: How I use Notion to manage everything

#64

Post by fragmede »

clnq wrote: post #58
rchaud wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often times these templates are made by students, who aren't in the workforce but want the trappings of professionalism. For some that is exactly the kind of productivity porn you mention. It's addictive, I can't lie. I would love to have a perfectly designed, neat workflow that captures all my tasks and quantifies my productivity with precision. The reality of work is that I already have to apply these principles to…

Ah yes… Jira and Confluence at home. All that’s missing is a micromanaging product owner.

You could get married and arrange for your mother-in-law to live with you, if that's what you're looking for.

Re: How I use Notion to manage everything

#65

Post by fellInchoate »

scrollaway wrote: post #46
rchaud wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notion is known for being a laggy web app. It's partially why local-first, Markdown-based solutions like Obsidian and Logseq have exploded in popularity. Logseq is amazing and truly shows the power of backlinked text with a query interface. And the whole thing is FOSS, at least for now.

I was turned off by Obsidian because, much as it is local first, it doesn’t have the more notion like mode where I can invite a team and use it as a shared wiki. Did I miss something? For me, being able to edit things from multiple devices seamlessly and share it with my coworkers so they can edit it too, that is critical.

... as long as those coworkers don't use Linux. I was going to give Notion a try, but not having a native Linux app sunk any interest. I understand Linux has a smaller base, but if you're making team software it only takes one member to have an unsupported system to force you to look elsewhere.

Re: How I use Notion to manage everything

#66

Post by darkteflon »

jamesgill wrote: post #11

I just cannot imagine investing this amount of effort into managing my life's details. I feel an energy drain just reading it. But, maybe much younger people think this is how to live a good life. More simply: I'm pretty sick of productivity porn, and the empty promises it makes.

On the one hand, agree that the system outlined in the article is a bit too full-on for me.

On the other hand, I have tens of thousands of words of text files in an Obsidian vault in support of my one hobby: game dev in Blender and Unreal. Workflows, gotchas, footguns, checklists. I have no idea how my middle-aged brain would remember how to, e.g. layer blend two materials after 6 months away.

This complex pursuit would be altogether impossible (for me) without my notes.

Re: How I use Notion to manage everything

#67

Post by Semaphor »

adamcharnock wrote: post #3
Semaphor wrote: post #2

I guess I might as well ask here. I tried notion 1-2 years [0] ago, and the features were great. I'd even have considered paying for it. But the performance was atrocious. It made Gmail seem fast. Have things Improved on that front? [0] I've always been bad at remembering how much time passed, but COVID really didn't help … So those numbers might be off. Edit: Thanks everyone, sounds like I'll at least give it anothe…

I’ve found the performance to be pretty good, and I use it most days. I certainly rarely feel as though I’m waiting for it. The global search can take upto a second to return results, but that is as bad as it gets for me. I recall some blog post about a major refactoring/sharding they did sometime in the last few years. Maybe that helped?

Just tried it again. Slow initial load on pages and worse, even after that almost every action has a few ms delay, not a lot, but enough to feel them. It’s like with Gmail, Facebook or new reddit, everyone else seems to have a far higher pain threshold for slowness.

Re: How I use Notion to manage everything

#68

Post by scrollaway »

fellInchoate wrote: post #65
scrollaway wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was turned off by Obsidian because, much as it is local first, it doesn’t have the more notion like mode where I can invite a team and use it as a shared wiki. Did I miss something? For me, being able to edit things from multiple devices seamlessly and share it with my coworkers so they can edit it too, that is critical.

... as long as those coworkers don't use Linux. I was going to give Notion a try, but not having a native Linux app sunk any interest. I understand Linux has a smaller base, but if you're making team software it only takes one member to have an unsupported system to force you to look elsewhere.

I use Linux. Notion is a web app. This is a you thing, not a Linux thing.

Re: How I use Notion to manage everything

#69

Post by dgb23 »

Semaphor wrote: post #67
adamcharnock wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve found the performance to be pretty good, and I use it most days. I certainly rarely feel as though I’m waiting for it. The global search can take upto a second to return results, but that is as bad as it gets for me. I recall some blog post about a major refactoring/sharding they did sometime in the last few years. Maybe that helped?

Just tried it again. Slow initial load on pages and worse, even after that almost every action has a few ms delay, not a lot, but enough to feel them. It’s like with Gmail, Facebook or new reddit, everyone else seems to have a far higher pain threshold for slowness.

I use it daily. We use it for a mix of documentation, specification, changelogs and so on. Some tables are generated through the API.

I personally wouldn’t have chosen it over something that’s text/html/markdown etc. based with git version control.

For one it’s as you said, slow. And it’s restricted.

But it’s very practical, nice looking, easy to use for less technical people etc.

Re: How I use Notion to manage everything

#70

Post by ravagat »

I like reading things like this. Super niche regarding systems and goals, part self development, part techie. Fascinating read. For me the trifecta of the Notes, Reminders, and Calendar apps works best. While I've tried Notion, Evernote, Roam, Obsidian, etc. the native apps always worked best
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