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People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

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Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#141

Post by cyberpunk »

freedomben wrote: post #89
winstonprivacy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My secret weapon is a "to do" list in notepad. One list which has everything. No apps, no workflow, no SaaS fees. Works better than anything else I've tried.

Same, except s/notepad/vim. One big file. Easy to keep in version control (I keep it in my dot files repo), easy to search/grep, Currently has 10 years worth of stuff (well over 10,000 lines) but is still instantaneous to open and search. I've recently started trying out Logseq and there's a chance I may actually switch, but the single-text-file approach has served me very well for a long time.

I was the same, I've been on logseq for a while and I'm pretty much a convert. Syntax highlighting, embed images, todo/now/done -- all a bit more effortless.

And it all went into the same git repo as my previous vim based .plan ;)

I just wish it had a decent vi mode!

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#142

Post by fogoflove »

Jackevansevo wrote: post #30

The 23 minute video linked on the "ultimate notion setup for 2023" sounds like a great trap to fall into to not actually get anything done. I get the impression some people spend more time configuring these productivity tools instead of actually being productive. Although I admit I've been guilty the same thing, perfecting my .vimrc instead of actually working on projects. Messing around with static site blog generat…

I have diagnosed ADHD and I have struggled with this, but like someone else said, you have to make sure you don't fall into a hole trying to make one of your pages perfect -- I mean, go for it if that's what you're interested in, but I have accepted that something perfect for me will take refinement and delayed gratification.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#143

Post by rchaud »

Invictus0 wrote: post #78
rchaud wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notion's biggest market is students that have grown up with Google Docs. The idea of local storage is long gone for the "digital natives" generation. There was even this story from a couple of years ago from an engineering professor who had to change how she taught basic concepts because her students weren't familiar with folder-based file systems [0]. [0] https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc.…

That idea will come right back when one of their favorite services pulls the plug.

The majority won't. I have seen this myself, as I did not like the SaaS nature of Roam Research, and wanted a local-first solution. There is a large community of people using Logseq or Obsidian, but they are still a tiny monitory as these products don't have name recognition and there aren't as many polished videos about them on YT.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#145

Post by swalling »

jrmg wrote: post #124

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 someh…

It’s true that the organizational model of the file system and desktop metaphor should be usable for this.

There’s another huge gap though: documents in your local machine don’t have easy to use hypertext. Apple Notes app is very nice, but neither it nor TextEdit nor Pages can do what a Notion document can do. The OS needs a HyperCard to make it adopt Web-native tools for thinking.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#146

Post by waynesonfire »

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…

save your notes so you can train chatgpt on them.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#147

Post by slaven »

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…

I love this! I'm starting to feel this is a solution to a lot of info-overload stress in our lives. I'm making an iOS app with the same slant: every day has its own list, so you start fresh every day, or you can add to your tomorrow's list at night so you start the day prepared. I also added a bullet-journal-like view for the month and it all adds up to a lot less stress than what I've been doing before (the testflight is at https://testflight.apple.com/join/t5ZpRV2l )

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#148

Post by citizenkeen »

creamyhorror wrote: post #95
dmd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the last 20 years or so I've tried: index cards, wunderlist, todo.txt, remember the milk, Asana, Any.do, Evernote, Google Notebook, Simplenote, Trello, Workflowy, Google Keep, Bear Notes, org-mode, and probably a dozen others. Three years ago I started using Apple Notes and told my wife "if you see me trying anything else at all, yell at me". I've been pretty happy with it and am much more productive just using…

I started with text files in Notepad, then learnt from a friend how to use Freemind to organise notes as hierarchical mindmaps instead. It worked great, but search was broken (DFS but only able to find results in one treepath?!). Years passed, and I needed something to take notes with on mobile, and Google Keep was the simplest fit. But Freemind and Keep were both still too inconvenient on desktop, so at some point I…

Obsidian's ecosystem is incredible. You can make Obsidian a queryable database, a longform book editor a la Scrivener, or a gilded tabletop RPG campaign book.

Half of what makes Obsidian so great is that they've encouraged modding so heavily.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#149

Post by philosopher1234 »

leobabauta wrote: post #130
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.

Tru. Or maybe I hate them because I love them enough o want better. Or maybe I am just cruel and loveless.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#150

Post by waprin »

12907835202 wrote: post #32
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've long dreamed of tracking every little thing. I don't know why but tracking everything I do, what I eat or drink or wear, how many hours I watch TV or sit on Reddit, how often I urinate, my work life balance, literally everything, the of having it all is exciting to me. Beyond the thrill of acquiring and holding it, it would no doubt be more useful than simply admiring it. Compare it to say a sports trophy, that'…

This is a passion of mine as well , and is called “life logging” or “the quantified life”.

I have a long term passion project called Navigoals (Navigoals.com) built around the concept. It’s like a habit tracker but I organize all my habits/actions into a massive DAG so if I track something at a low level it also bubbles up to a high level goal. I can track instances of things or durations of things (time tracking).

I also have an unpublished iOS version with Apple Watch support, using the Watch is quicker to track stuff.

I realize to many this sounds insane but PLEASE email me waprin@gmail.com if you’re down to watch a demo over video chat.

As far as the people who think I’m crazy, here’s why I’m passionate about this project. I really had trouble focusing my whole life so as an adult I bit the bullet and got ADHD meds. Those helped a LOT at the immediate problem of focusing but literally made me crazy, very crazy, almost ruined my life. During recovery I decided I would meditate 5 minutes every day and journal one paragraph every day, which I used a habit tracker for. This was a key part of my recovery. That got me thinking - if a little tracking saved my life, what can a lot of tracking do? I also needed to better manage my time and goals without the usage of any medication.

People will say the data is pointless if you just admire it, not the case. I noticed in weight loss subs , people strongly advocate starting with food tracking. Just the act of forcing honesty with yourself about what you’re eating will change your relationship with food. In a completely different domain, the most important step to playing pro or semi-pro poker is diligently tracking all results. Same reason - forces honesty. And also in both cases, surfaces trends (e.g. I eat or play poorly certain times of day).

I track over 200 of my actions every day and I strive for my apps to make it quick to do. However it’s important to understand this does not turn me into a robot. My brain is so naturally all over the place , I wander and do random things so much, that just forcing myself to use apps to have _some_ structure and discipline puts me in the balance of a rigid life and an improvised one.

I am realizing I’m in the minority, most people I demo my apps to say, “that seems cool…for a certain type of person.” So, open to connecting with certain types of people.

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