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Comment by arcosdev | Hacker News Reader

Please someone help me get Notion. It's slow, it's missing big features like offline mode and localization. What is the attraction to this app? I've tired it 3 times now and I just don't get it.

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For me, it's the mix of markdown documents and Airtable-like databases. It's much more productive than the various Excel-based "trackers" and Word documents in multiple folders that my team uses at work. Being able to automatically link relevant procedures and documents to specific work items, keep track of the status of those items, and having an all encompassing, interlinked "homepage" of all the relevant information related to my job keeps my cognitive load minimal.

I've used Obsidian and Dendron for a lot of this previously, but the real killer feature of Notion, IMO, is the databases. I'd kill for a local/offline-first alternative that also has mobile support, but I have yet to find anything as easy (other than Craft, but it's Apple only and the web version is still in beta).

For me, it's simply better than Confluence. I much prefer creating my documentation in Notion.

Also, it's just generally a good note taking app IMO.

I was in the same boat, until I started watching YouTube stars demonstrate how to use it as

- a Kanban Board (abandoned Trello)

- a Confluence replacement

Now I love it for task- and project management.

I use it in combo with Roam Research. Roam for writing, Notion for task- and project management.

For me, it's two things.

The first is the keyboard shortcuts. The forward-slash shortcut for adding blocks is both simple and powerful. Along with AutoHotKey, I'm able to format and navigate around without ever leaving the keyboard.

The second is the block based system. With the block system, it's really easy to reformat a page or move items to new pages. For example, if there's a bulleted list that needs to be moved, I can just grab the top node and move the whole thing at once (because the other nodes are nested blocks)

Marketing. However, there is value in it but you’re mainly seeing the power of marketing at play here.

I'm sure they have good marketing but that's far away from why I use it. At this point my whole life is in Notion. It's by far my endgame note taking app. The value is that it's so dynamic and infinitely nested and can absorb any messy unstructured thoughts or notes I have without having to stop and think about where it should go.

Like say I make myself a todo list using a List database. Need to set a reminder for myself about some part of it? Just add it in the list item with @. Have some documents or code output that you want to remember? Just throw it in there! Crap, have a billion tabs open from researching and have to stop for the day? Just create a list inside the page and throw all the links in there. Need to take notes on some of those links because the SO answer wasn't quite right, just add it right that list item. All the context for the card is right there in the card. It's a project management board that actually bings value to me as a dev. It's not the thing I have to use to track time, it's a thing I want to use because it's where I can store all my thoughts instead of having to have two systems and keep them in sync which is always a chore.

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