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People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

technologyreview.com

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Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#121

Post by protortyp »

To me, Obsidian really became the killer app overall. I used Notion and Foam before and while the interface there is much more beautiful, I like having my files locally (synced via Syncthing) and being able to write my own plugins easily. The existing plugin ecosystem with instances like Dataview or Templater makes Obsidian such a great solution for personal and work planning, and as a knowledge base.

The only thing that's really missing is a collaborative version of Obsidian to be able to work in teams. I found craft.do that has a very similar feel, but it's quite pricey and, of course, you can't self-host.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#124

Post by jrmg »

These systems always strike me as a failure of the file system and desktop metaphor.

_The computer_ was intended to be the system you stored documents in, with paths to link between them, and any number of applications to do any number of things with them. Extended attributes are available for metadata. There’s not really any reason why things like Dropbox and iCloud couldn’t extend this to the Internet.

But it somehow became too unwieldy to really work this way (for me, too - I’m not arguing that it’s a good way to do things with the systems we really have). It’s a shame.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#125

Post by syntheticnature »

arthurofbabylon wrote: post #69

I built minimal.app as the antithesis of over-planning, over-documenting, over-organizing, and over-thinking. The feature that keeps the mind open is the Note Lifetime, whereby notes die when you don’t engage with them [1]. This is in contrast to notion, evernote, et al where writers collect stuff and live in these information silos, trapped by the confines of their tools. Of course many (most?) thoughtful people can…

Dying notes are a fascinating thought, and relate to some of the cruft aspects I've seen with any sort of task-tracking.

That said, in my usual note-taking app, I have things like recipes I might make once in a blue moon, and I'd be very annoyed if I lost my late grandma's lasagna recipe.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#127

Post by thenerdhead »

Neomania / newness is definitely a thing. How many people use notion to organize their lives only to realize years later not much has changed? How much time is spent obsessing and perfecting your notion workspace that can be spent working on bettering your life?

Systems are beneficial in many aspects of life, but there has to come a point where there’s a moderate use of a tool and the action that tool helps foster.

Perfectionism is a battle many face and few conquer. Notion makes you feel productive, but how productive are you really?

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#128

Post by qbasic_forever »

Ruq wrote: post #118
qbasic_forever wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wish obsidian was better at lists, especially on the mobile client. It's really painful moving things around tab levels, reordering items, etc. I can't even manage a grocery list without it devolving into complete chaos and broken markdown. There are extensions that help but extensions on mobile are really bad (just an enormous toolbar to scroll through, no real UI... the whole mobile app feels designed to be…

In my experience lists are great but for reordering which can be awkward. Even there, there ought to be a plugin that makes reordering easier. Have you checked out the mobile toolbar? It makes indent/unindenting list items easy.

Yeah the toolbar badly needs context awareness. If my cursor is on a list item then show me the list actions right there, not a global fixed list of things that never changes and almost never has what I need at the right moment.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#129

Post by theFletch »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #24

This just seems like so much work. The obsessive tracking of ever little thing. Does anyone really use this data in any meaningful way other that just admire its detail? What happens if you miss period, does this cause anxiety?

I somewhat envy people who can meticulously plan like this. When I try to do something like this I love talking about the planning and researching, but putting it all together into a detailed plan stresses me because I don't even know where to start. It starts to make it feel like work. Then there's another side of me that loves spontaneous adventure and just going with the flow. If anyone has any tips to find a happy medium, I'm all ears.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#130

Post by leobabauta »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #111

I hate these people. It’s the wrong way to live. Life is not about getting a high score in productivity or financially. I pity the people in their lives who are being optimized like some kind of machine/chore. It sounds so loveless

I wonder if you notice the lovelessness in hating them and pitying them.
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