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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

#311

Post by PurpleRamen »

gherkinnn wrote: post #212
tombert wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use Notion, but I kind of fell down the similar Obsidian rabbit hole. Obsidian is interesting because it makes you really feel like you're being productive, creating links and little "mini wikis", but it didn't seem like I was actually accomplishing more. I still use the app for notes, but now I mostly use it for just a "relatively easy to search" notes app.

At the end of the day, Obsidian is a specialised file explorer operating on text files, links, and images. It is about as simple as it can get. It doesn’t offer a fraction of what Notion does. The rabbit hole is so much shallower.

Obsidian's rabbit hole is hidden in the extensions, which are going far deeper than Notion extension-options. It's really such a shame that Notion has no local native extension-ability.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#312

Post by lemiffe »

015a wrote: post #120
_fat_santa wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually starting to do this but with Obsidian. I love notion but one of my issues with it (and this is purely on principle) is that you don't "own" your data. This got me thinking, what would happen to my data in 5-10-15 or 20 years down the road? My solution to this is to have a bunch of markdown files in a git repository and use obsidian to manage it. I assume that in the next 5 years something better than Obs…

I've extensively used both. The problem I have concerns this part: > I assume that in the next 5 years something better than Obsidian will come out though the idea is that is really doesn't matter in the end because the data stays the same. Something better already is out, and the data has already changed. A ton of the power of Notion is in the structured formatting of note metadata; Notion calls them Databases. This…

Indeed, as long as we can export data I wouldn't mind too much. Worst case you can write your own tool to represent the data in a visual format you desire. I think the columnar structure of Notion (which collapses on mobile) is quite neat.

The only thing I'm scared of is I've started writing a book (in Notion), and it would be a shame if something happens to it due to unrecoverable data loss...

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#313

Post by renjimen »

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…

Even trying to select text is a nightmare. Notion can’t make up its mind between selecting text or selecting the objects that contains the text.

I wish there was a markdown mode with a live preview, then I would never use the rest of the Notion interface.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#314

Post by bradgessler »

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…

Their native app wrappers also have issues.

- On macOS the "Sync dark/light mode with OS" settings constantly get reset

- I'm frequently logged out (and have to log back in)

- No effort for basic integration has happened, which makes drag & drop in and out of the app awkward, no sharing extensions, etc.

If I'm being honest, I envy them for being in the position of being able to completely ignore this stuff and still have a product that people love. That said, it feels like an easy thing to throw 1-2 people on with the task of, "make this integrate deeper into the host operating system with Electron basics"

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#315

Post by pcthrowaway »

iamthirsty wrote: post #285
tomrod wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rare is it that I am envied. Obsidian I've enjoyed, but find it difficult to become fluent with it.

It is almost unbelievable to me that anyone who's been able to become aware of & use a niche app like Obsidian has never come across Notion. Obsidian is definitely a power-user tool, which one would usually use after considering the other options, with Notion being almost as default as a choice as Evernote once was. Additionally, a lot of apps now are even using it as their support bases. It almost feels unavoidable…

This is equally bizarre to me, and I haven't used either. I definitely hear about Obsidian more on HN and at work because coworkers use it.

But knowing what Obsidian is and not Notion is sort of like knowing what Markdown is but having never heard of Microsoft Word.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#316

Post by PurpleRamen »

ralfd wrote: post #195

… 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

It is that good, but more specifically, it has a very specific and innovative concept. There is not much competion yet, even though some have finally emerged in the last years. But with tools like this, it's also so specific in its ways and features, that it's hard to switch because of your habits. Think of it like vim, and how hard people seek for similar modal interaction in all other tools they use.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#317

Post by 015a »

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'm going to be a little mean here, but I think it needs to be said: "How to be productive in Notion" videos and template sales sites and such are always made by boringly unsuccessful people. I would love to see a broader intensive study on this topic, but just from my observations: its youtube and tik tok creators with a few thousand viewers, people who may actually be rather busy but don't drive much success from what they do. Running on a treadmill (and spending hours a week planning that run) so to speak.

Subsequently: Go ask the CEO or other leaders of your company the systems they use to stay organized. I bet twenty bucks that the most common answers to that question, when limited to the note-taking space, are: Nothing, and Apple Notes. If that definition of success isn't your cup of tea, then go ask who you perceive as the most productive person you work with. I did that very specifically with this extremely talented and productive engineer on my team, and his answer: markdown files in a big folder, grep, and vim. Ok greybeard :)

But point being: Its almost never Notion or tools at a similar power level. Its simple shit. Physical journals, Apple Notes, Google Keep, Google Docs, for the technically inclined just markdown files.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#318

Post by codpiece »

iamthirsty wrote: post #306
nonethewiser wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Me too. I spent New Years Eve reviewing my journals (wife was sleeping) all the way back from 2013 and found some very enlightening arcs that would not be available with transient data. Some things just need to be read rather than presented.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#319

Post by lmm »

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…

People have been trying to turn the file system into a database for decades at this point. It was supposed to be the killer feature of Windows Vista.

IME the filesystem is both too complex and too simple; it's completely underspecified, has no memory model or semantics, and all the advanced features like extended attributes are unportable to the point of uselessness. There's literally one filesystem metadata feature that actually works reasonably reliably and it's the one most of HN hates: Windows three-letter extensions to indicate file types.

It would be great to have a portable, standardised, database-like layer - SQL isn't it either - but I think it would have to be something ran as a userspace layer rather than built into the filesystem.

Re: People who use Notion to plan their whole lives

#320

Post by jen729w »

Spivak wrote: post #206
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing happens in the workplace, too. My last two jobs have had groups that adopted Notion and tried to use heaps of rules and templates and emojis that they wanted everyone to use to structure and document everything in Notion. It turns into an exercise where the Notion document becomes the goal, rather than a tool to help get work done. The Product Management group at my last company was the worst at this.…

That's why you have someone whose job is to make that Notion/Confluence/Dokku who is part designer, part technical writer. They're sometimes called company historians. It is the only solution I've ever seen for the "documentation always gets cut" problem with SWE. Someone's whole work stream is thorough documentation and knowing everything. How features work, what customers requested them, what technical trade-offs w…

Yes! I'm Johnny.Decimal and I'm starting to advocate for the idea of 'the Librarian' at work. You need someone to organise your stuff. That person needs the right skills -- passion, even -- to do that job.

Today that role is filled by either a) nobody or b) the lowest lackey who doesn't give a hoot about the concept.

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