People who use Notion to plan their whole lives • Hacker News Board

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#191

Post by iamacyborg » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:44 PM UTC

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?

Slightly different context, but similar enough.

I wear a Garmin sportswatch so keep an eye on the subreddit. If you go there you’ll see daily threads about arbitrary metrics like “sleep score”, “body battery”, hrv and vo2 max. People obsess over the numbers without really thinking to take a step back and thinking about how accurate the data is and whether or not it’s actually meaningful in any real terms.

Definitely a lot of folks out there becoming slaves to this sort of thing.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#192

Post by rs_rs_rs_rs_rs » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:45 PM UTC

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…

>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.

This is me with emacs.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#193

Post by creamyhorror » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

eitland wrote: post #152

creamyhorror wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm using Logseq for the same reasons. .txt was never going to cut it for me, I always include images like drawings, photos and screenshots etc. Logseq is open source, reasonable file format, stable, extensible, has a reasonable plan for funding itself without lock ins, and, for me, is among the smoothest I have used. Notably missing from old OneNote 2016: - shared notebooks w/indication of updates - smoother syncing…

Yep, good reasons to use Logseq. I picked Obsidian over Logseq because of the larger community, and because I thought the former's UI looked suitable for hierarchical notes in main categories, which is my usual approach. I go to the right folder and append to the end of the relevant note. I do like Logseq's more free-flowing, block-tagging, hypertext-journal approach, but thought I didn't really need the journal format for now.

If Logseq can also do hierarchical organising/browsing with a simple sidebar interface, I think I'll give it a go. Does it work well for that use case? What's nice is that you can run both Logseq and Obsidian on the same Markdown files, since they're (mostly compatible) Markdown, so I'm not too worried about switching as needed or even using both.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#194

Post by nuancebydefault » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

Macha wrote: post #172

nuancebydefault wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you use Jira and Confluence to track what you are doing and make handy reference notes, they work super good. About showing burn down chats: usually they are shown a few times in early stages of the project, but don't get any attention anymore once they start showing unwanted or erratic results. Also story points estimations/tracking (as opposed to time in real world units) : never saw it work in practice.…

I would argue that the performance of Jira being what it is along makes it pretty unsuitable for just taking reference notes. Our onprem hosted instance is pretty slow, which you might blame on server provisioning, except last time I used Jira cloud it was even worse with an empty instance (compared to our at least multiple million tickets instance)

Well Confluence is for the handy notes, which can grow into quality documents if you have them reviewed and updated. Personally never experienced performance issues.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#195

Post by ralfd » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:50 PM UTC

… His secret is the workspace app Notion…

… the reason Notion has such a devoted fan base is its flexibility…

… Notion’s most devoted fans say they’re unlikely to jump ship to any other promising platforms anytime soon…

Is Notion so good, or is this product placement PR?

See: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#196

Post by nyarlathotep_ » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:51 PM UTC

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…

> perfecting my .vimrc instead of actually working on projects. Messing around with static site blog generators when I should actually just be writing content.

I feel attacked.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#197

Post by mywacaday » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:51 PM UTC

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 presume you were scratching your own itch but maybe you can answer a question for me, why are the majority of productivity apps on here only available on IOS?

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#198

Post by spondylosaurus » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

spondylosaurus wrote: post #25

karles wrote: post #2

As a Notion-user, this just seems excessive to me. I love Notion because it gives me the ability to make "lightweight" notes/pads fast. I've since learned to utilize the linked database features which makes it easier to organize notes, tasks and projects. At some point however, it feels like it just becomes busy-work to make new boxes to check, new links, relations and what-not. To me the beauty is in the simplicity,…

Same and same. My most effective Motion pages are the big ugly bullet point lists to quickly jot down to-do tasks or grocery lists or writing ideas or albums I want to listen to; what makes it all work is the ability to offload my brain into an external source as quickly as possible (and retrieve it later when I need it). Some of these really fancy setups look nice, but they strike me as adding too much friction to t…

Just realized I meant to say *Notion and not Motion... note to self, don't leave HN comments when you're sitting up at 4AM with acid reflux :P

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#199

Post by crossroadsguy » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:53 PM UTC

idlephysicist wrote: post #187

Maybe I am the weird one but I use a diary / planner what ever you want to call it. I'll never get locked out of it, I don't have to pay a monthly fee. Personally I think that I have enough screen time as it is. Ok yeah the search feature is somewhat lacking but from the sounds of it most of these organise your life SaaS products have the same issue. Sure I could lose it but I'd argue that losing your access to Notio…

There is nothing weird about it. I have been doing it, and many others I personally know have done it since forever. It seems for boarding school folks, at least around where I am from, diary is really a companion right from the beginning; for me it has been since really young. However I also happily use one or two clean/simple note taking apps and it is on my phone at any given time (paid or free; but strictly non-subscription).

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#200

Post by alhirzel » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:55 PM UTC

I use ClickUp[1] in similar ways. I have three spaces: family, personal development, professional development. All of the side projects I have are under personal development, various work commitments (including e.g. rental house management) under professional, and family varies from "scoop the litter box Mon/Wed/Sat" all the way to 10 year goals. I have not (and may not) reach steady-state on the way it's organized, and I may end up splitting some of it off into a dead tree some day, but for now it's accessible, consistent and actionable.

[1] https://clickup.com/

I'm surprised I don't hear more about ClickUp on HN. Generous free tier, can share lists with other people, support for automations...