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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

#271

Post by sillysaurusx »

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #251
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #224

I don't get the notion hype, I just don't like it. Even worse, is you go on product hunt and there are nonstop 'product' launches which are just notion templates named 'operating systems' being sold at crazy prices for what they are. I don't get what I am missing. I personally love and use Trello, because it's basically just a bunch of lists that I can drag and drop too, i have a boards named 'spark board, where i ke…

Weird that nobody’s mentioned it yet, but the main value proposition of Notion is that is uses mini-relational databases instead of tables. It’s like Airtable baked inside of a note app. It has a ton of downsides like being slow, not having offline access, and no E2E encryption, but there are few tools that execute well on the approachable database concept. I wish there were more, because the standard approach of doi…

Be sure to mention that if you dare venture down the path of learning about this mysterious mini-relational database, emerging with useful knowledge will cost you three quarters of your sanity and the soul of your firstborn.

It’s not quite that bad, but every. Single. Time. that I’ve been intrigued about notion’s advanced features, I’ve slapped myself two hours later and said “get back to work; you could spend your whole life learning about this. Or at least your whole weekend.”

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#272

Post by jitl »

shafyy wrote: post #249
jitl wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I work for Notion) Notion is also "basically just a bunch of lists", plus titles. Pages in Notion are a title, and a list of blocks. Text blocks are a title (the text of the block) and a list, it's indented children. We also have boards like Trello, and you can drag and drop list items between boards, pages, paragraphs, everywhere. Maybe you could see it as everything you like about Trello, but applied to more modal…

What are you talking about? Notion is clearly not just a bunch of lists like Trello is.

Semantically our data model is an infinitely nested hierarchical tree of lists, although the UI might not look or feel like "just a list".

Our editor is more like an "outliner" than a traditional word processor, and before January 2022, you could't even select text across multiple blocks. We rebuilt the editor to work like both an outliner and a traditional word processor at the same time. You can still "feel" the tree/list structure when you select and drag multiple blocks around, or use indent/dedent - you can't indent a block multiple times within another block because that doesn't make sense in the tree structure.

I wrote a bit about turning our outliner into a word processor here: https://twitter.com/jitl/status/1483918085384028163

And also about the data model itself here: https://www.notion.so/blog/data-model-behind-notion

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#273

Post by eitland »

mdhen wrote: post #268
eitland wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've been using syncthing to sync logseq and it works very well.

I'm considering it.

Currently I sponsor the project and use the built in sync but it is a bit rough around the edges still and I have seen a solution for automatic conflict resolution using syncthing.

Do you use a script or something or are you just careful?

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#274

Post by dvzk »

ayewo wrote: post #134
apozem wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> notes die when you don’t engage with them That is an interesting idea, but not something I would ever want in a notes app. A note may be important but never opened. For example, I have a note in Craft with my bike serial number and a picture of me standing next to it. If my bike is ever stolen and recovered, this note is proof of ownership. I have not opened this note since creating it, because my bike has not been…

That's an interesting use case. Why not just include a photo of the receipt as proof of ownership?

For one thing, it's common for enthusiasts to replace stock components. A serial number stamped onto the frame isn't useful all the time, especially if the frame itself is secondhand. If someone takes your >$2,000 carbon wheelset then you're SOL, likely no matter what.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#275

Post by tomrod »

waboremo wrote: post #235
tomrod wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article reads like an ad. Perhaps I live under a tech rock, but I have not heard of notion before today. And I don't like that it is being shilled.

I envy the person who has been able to avoid Notion advertising in the past ~5 years.

Rare is it that I am envied.

Obsidian I've enjoyed, but find it difficult to become fluent with it.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#276

Post by prima-facie »

IceWreck wrote: post #233

I am quite obsessed with keeping a personal wiki, like some of these people described in the article. However, I simply cannot imagine doing that in an application that isn't controlled by me or doesn't work completely offline. I dont want my life to be organized around an application that charges a subscription and my workflow is at the whim of a corporation. I went from Zim to Dokuwiki to Bookstack (where I've been…

Can I ask what determined you to move away from Zim? I'm currently using it and finding it quite good.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#277

Post by hgsgm »

tomrod wrote: post #226
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #224

I don't get the notion hype, I just don't like it. Even worse, is you go on product hunt and there are nonstop 'product' launches which are just notion templates named 'operating systems' being sold at crazy prices for what they are. I don't get what I am missing. I personally love and use Trello, because it's basically just a bunch of lists that I can drag and drop too, i have a boards named 'spark board, where i ke…

This article reads like an ad. Perhaps I live under a tech rock, but I have not heard of notion before today. And I don't like that it is being shilled.

The website is Technology Review. If course it's an ad.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#278

Post by iamthirsty »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #224

I don't get the notion hype, I just don't like it. Even worse, is you go on product hunt and there are nonstop 'product' launches which are just notion templates named 'operating systems' being sold at crazy prices for what they are. I don't get what I am missing. I personally love and use Trello, because it's basically just a bunch of lists that I can drag and drop too, i have a boards named 'spark board, where i ke…

> I don't get the notion hype, I just don't like it.

> I don't get what I am missing.

100% agree. Notion doesn't work like my brain when it comes to documents, formatting, structuring — I ended up spending most of my time configuring systems and formatting than actually inputting information & accomplishing things.

I've tried a few times to get into it, and see what others see in it. I just can't.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#279

Post by courgette »

syntheticnature wrote: post #125
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.

I use the built in note from apple in my phone. The one on top are the most recently touched. It works for me.

The bottom is stuff from years ago. It can be nice to revisit

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