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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

#301

Post by jmcphers »

015a wrote: post #297
jdgoesmarching wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've put some thought into how cool it would be to have a feature similar to Notion databases within Obsidian; probably not integrated into the markdown document, but similar to their new Canvas feature, separate files next to markdown documents which map to SQLite databases with a standard schema that you can browse right within Obsidian. Feels like something an add-on could exist for, but doesn't; and/or I hope its…

I'll second this. I use Obsidian and don't find the Canvas useful at all, but would love a structured way to query data from my vault.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#302

Post by corndoge »

pbueckle wrote: post #290

I've been using Notion at my new workplace and was excited at first, but having used it now for many months I came to hate it. They constantly announce new features but are completely neglecting the basics: - Copy and paste is completely broken. Good luck trying to paste a table. - The drag & drop feature is equally annoying, it just never works and doesn't select the things you intend to select or drop them in the p…

I use, love and evangelize Notion but yes, all of these are valid criticism, and copy-pasting in particular is so busted.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#303

Post by jdgoesmarching »

015a wrote: post #297
jdgoesmarching wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've put some thought into how cool it would be to have a feature similar to Notion databases within Obsidian; probably not integrated into the markdown document, but similar to their new Canvas feature, separate files next to markdown documents which map to SQLite databases with a standard schema that you can browse right within Obsidian. Feels like something an add-on could exist for, but doesn't; and/or I hope its…

Dataview can get you part of the way there, but it’s not an easy learning curve and requires a lot of consistent metadata management. Also Obsidian somehow has a worse mobile experience than Notion, which is also a no-go for me when I need quick data entry.

I remember Federico Viticci at MacStories doing some crazy stuff with extensions and Siri Shortcuts that could address those problems, which might be worth exploring if it’s important enough to ya. I have no desire to go down that path.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#304

Post by PurpleRamen »

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…

There is value in structure and rules, to clear your mind and give you orientation for your work. But everyone is also different, so you also need to first figure out the structures and rules which are working for you and your situations. Which, yeah..it's an eternal trap of bike sheeding. Flexible tools like notion are very helpful and seductive in those regards. They can help you get your things done, but can also led you astray to the wrong roads.

I think at this point it might be useful to have some studies in how selforganization-porn-addicts and mental health issues correlate. I get the impression that people with adhs for example are more likely to search out this kind of tools&systems to get some control over their mind&life back. I know it's at least for me the case.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#305

Post by throwaway675309 »

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…

oof, I feel like this is replicating the worst parts of having a fallible human memory.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#306

Post by iamthirsty »

nonethewiser wrote: post #299
iamthirsty wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> I ended up spending most of my time configuring systems and formatting than actually inputting information & accomplishing things. I end up feeling this way about a lot of “productivity” tools like notion, obsidian, and ESPECIALLY Arch browser. I don’t want to have to learn how to use a tool that I’m using to do something fundamental like visit websites or take notes. Give me the barest abstraction possible over th…

Ironically, the best productivity tools I've used in & for the past ten years has been Things, and my Moleskine notebooks. Incredibly simple system, and while both can be considered a bit expensive, the work every time, without fail, in a way that makes sense and creates the results I expect and require.

I've found the simple things that are high quality work the best for me, in almost all aspects of life.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#307

Post by softsound »

pbueckle wrote: post #290

I've been using Notion at my new workplace and was excited at first, but having used it now for many months I came to hate it. They constantly announce new features but are completely neglecting the basics: - Copy and paste is completely broken. Good luck trying to paste a table. - The drag & drop feature is equally annoying, it just never works and doesn't select the things you intend to select or drop them in the p…

I remember the days before tables, and I think it's come a long way with lots of great features... That said, I don't see it as a replacement for regular tools like Google sheets and docs etc.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#308

Post by PurpleRamen »

015a wrote: post #297
jdgoesmarching wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've put some thought into how cool it would be to have a feature similar to Notion databases within Obsidian; probably not integrated into the markdown document, but similar to their new Canvas feature, separate files next to markdown documents which map to SQLite databases with a standard schema that you can browse right within Obsidian. Feels like something an add-on could exist for, but doesn't; and/or I hope its…

Obsidian is at the moment not really well-equipped for this task, even though some extensions tried to implement it. I think the major problem is that freetext like markdown simply sucks for managing structured data. And even though there is something like dataview, which enable some level of database-like behavior, it's too limited at the moment. But, there is a successor(?) to dataview in work which aims to be more like notion, and Obsidian seems to have some features on their roadmap which might also be helpful in that regard. So may, in a year or two the situation will have improved?

But frankly spoken, I don't think Obsidian is really a good solution for this. IT should be the other way around, based on a structured format like JSON, and enable a freeform-document which can be extended. Notion is doing this, and while their internals kinda suck, it's far easier for them to move their goals and improve their app.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#309

Post by ChildOfChaos »

shafyy wrote: post #283
jitl wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tr…

Thanks for the detailed explanation. But you do understand that from an enduser view, this doesn't really matter? What the original commenter meant that they like the simplicity of Trello, because it's just a kanban board. Notion is much more flexible than that as a user.

Yep can confirm.

I just don't like recreating a kanban board in Notion, it just seems too complex and cluttered, I don't care about all the other stuff, I love trello for how simple it is, but I keep finding different ways to use it, the simplicity is the key as it allows me just to dump what I want into it and use it however I wish, Notion is just overwhelming for me.

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