How I use Notion to manage everything | Hacker News Reader

How I use Notion to manage everything

notionthings.com

71 pointsbeauHD71 comments

I’ve been spending a lot of time recently thinking about a similar home for managing “everything”. I find a tool like notion is just too generalised and I’m missing the UX of purpose made tools though, but I still want some kind of ownership and control over my own data

The dream is to have interop between services, but I control the data and can easily make my own views onto it / tools to manage it. I think this is what the MIT solid project is all about, but I'm a bit lost with the RDF and pods stuff.

I often begin tracking something in a text file, then notion or a spreadsheet, but eventually run into issues with the flow and UX, where custom made apps win out, e.g. Todoist has a better task management UX than notion, my habit tracker sends me timely reminders and has a better UX again, and all the other services which are basically CRUD apps with some extra UI/integrations (bookmarking, Goodreads)

I’m currently trying to make Obsidian my storage layer for all these things, since notion is completely closed source & non extensible. The current set of tools I'm working on are - A sync engine to pull 3rd party api data into my obsidian vault - A SQLite vtable/Postgres fdw to expose it as sql so other apps can interop - A notion/obsidian "quick add" app for on the go, like the "intake" part of the OP

If anyone else has a similar itch to scratch, or experience in the area I'd love to hear more (email in profile)

> I find a tool like notion is just too generalised

This was the reason I stopped using Notion several years ago; it was OK at everything and great at nothing.

I'd like to offer you a different view of how to solve your problem. So let's say your problem is:

> a similar home for managing "everything". Notion is just too generalised and I'm missing the UX of purpose made tools though, but I still want some kind of ownership and control over my own data.

What you're doing is looking at your tools, or rather solutions, available completely wrong. What you're looking for is a dedicated software solution but I suggest looking at your computer as the true solution. I know it's very convenient to contain everything within apps like Notion and Obsidian but I think you're better off looking at your computer's OS as the solution. You can do everything you've noted plus you have the bonus of compatibility and portability if you're already using Apple devices. You can definitely control and create your own views+tools this way plus you have the technical choice with various programming languages

How would that look to you?

I might’ve given the wrong impression - the obsidian part is really just a load of files with some metadata (a collection of flat file system databases), exactly for the same portability reasons/tooling reasons you mentioned

I think what you want to do is entirely accomplished with what the Personal Computer is. You have a plethora of options with the many types of operating systems available. You already have a lot of functionality built-in. Like you noted you have trouble with the flow and UX but really you're using apps that aren't meant to work with one another. Why not move the abstraction up a level? Instead of containment in apps use your OS

I guess I might as well ask here. I tried notion 1-2 years [0] ago, and the features were great. I'd even have considered paying for it. But the performance was atrocious. It made Gmail seem fast. Have things Improved on that front?

[0] I've always been bad at remembering how much time passed, but COVID really didn't help … So those numbers might be off.

Edit: Thanks everyone, sounds like I'll at least give it another chance.

I’ve found the performance to be pretty good, and I use it most days. I certainly rarely feel as though I’m waiting for it. The global search can take upto a second to return results, but that is as bad as it gets for me.

I recall some blog post about a major refactoring/sharding they did sometime in the last few years. Maybe that helped?

Just tried it again. Slow initial load on pages and worse, even after that almost every action has a few ms delay, not a lot, but enough to feel them. It’s like with Gmail, Facebook or new reddit, everyone else seems to have a far higher pain threshold for slowness.

I use it daily. We use it for a mix of documentation, specification, changelogs and so on. Some tables are generated through the API.

I personally wouldn’t have chosen it over something that’s text/html/markdown etc. based with git version control.

For one it’s as you said, slow. And it’s restricted.

But it’s very practical, nice looking, easy to use for less technical people etc.

We use it daily. It's way, way better than it used to be, but there's still times it feels a little sluggish. I'd definitely recommend giving it another go though.

What feels sluggish? Load speed, and/or something else?

Load speed is generally fine (but then I tend to have it open in a pinned tab). On occasion you're clicking and waiting, or you're typing and everything is just a second/fraction of a second behind what you're actually doing.

I don't think it ever hits frustration point, it's just not magic.

Performance has improved noticeably, particularly for the mobile apps, but it is still slow. I am a heavy Notion user and happily pay for it, but I really wish they would support local sync so that it would be more responsive.

The performance is better than it was at that time. At that time performance was the #1 item for improvement on their roadmap.

I currently pay for Notion and I don't usually mind the performance. However, things like opening a new window and changing it to a new document with the "quick" search (command-p) is still almost unacceptably slow (it's an Electron app). The benefits for me do outweigh the costs though.

I've never seen native apps anywhere in their stated plans.

Native vs electron is probably not the thing that makes notion slow - AFAIK (last used notion ~2 years ago) everything has to go through the web, nothing is local, and the performance bottleneck is their server.

I use it daily for kanban and as a scratch pad and the performance is horrible. I’m on a 2015 mac

What feels sluggish? Load speed, and/or something else?

When I type '/todo', I type '/', and sometimes it just hangs for like 10 seconds. Then I type 't'... and then I can usually finish 'odo' quick

Also when I click to maximize a notion page, that is often quite slow

Notion is known for being a laggy web app.

It's partially why local-first, Markdown-based solutions like Obsidian and Logseq have exploded in popularity. Logseq is amazing and truly shows the power of backlinked text with a query interface. And the whole thing is FOSS, at least for now.

I just started using Logseq and I am blown away with how amazing it is.

They are also far from notion in how powerful they are.

I was turned off by Obsidian because, much as it is local first, it doesn’t have the more notion like mode where I can invite a team and use it as a shared wiki.

Did I miss something? For me, being able to edit things from multiple devices seamlessly and share it with my coworkers so they can edit it too, that is critical.

Obsidian just uses whatever files are in the directory you point it at. So you could just pair obsidian with any folder syncing product that does everything you need as far as ability to invite team members. OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.

I think that's because Obsidian is designed for individuals over teams. It uses a local folder structure for organizing MD files and keeping them portable, although the backlinks mean everything can stay in sync. They aren't set up as a SaaS in the way Notion are, and that has a big impact on the design and intended audience for it.

... as long as those coworkers don't use Linux. I was going to give Notion a try, but not having a native Linux app sunk any interest. I understand Linux has a smaller base, but if you're making team software it only takes one member to have an unsupported system to force you to look elsewhere.

I use Linux. Notion is a web app. This is a you thing, not a Linux thing.

It's pretty responsive, and I use it everyday.

But note the search is HORRIBLE. Unless you know the title of what you want to find, don't both with the search.

Its bugs are gradually being fixed (like the ability to just arrow-key straight out of a comment box and be deposited at the end of the document), but I still wince every time I have to use Notion… for work… every day.

Silly things like opening a Notion page in a background tab doesn’t actually load its page title, which requires a reload to fix.

And the page-nesting (instead of the traditional documents-in-folders approach of something like Google Drive) which makes restructuring files an absolute nightmare.

Maybe I’m just too old and stuck in my ways :)

> opening a Notion page in a background tab doesn’t actually load its page title, which requires a reload to fix.

I think we fixed that one a while ago; I can't reproduce it anymore (Chrome 109.0.5414.119 arm64 on macOS)

I'm going to leave the obligatory "Org-mode better" comment that inevitably pops up on these posts. I used to enjoy Notion. But it's closed-source, tiered and feature-limited, needs internet, and runs like a sloth.

If what you need is a collaborative environment, Notion obviously wins. If you need a first-class mobile app, Notion wins. If you don't check either of those boxes, Org-mode is awesome. Genuinely one of the coolest "pieces of software" (I'm growing to hate that phrase) that I've ever used.

I don't see how there even is a comparison between the two. Regardless of internet connectivity, collaboration, mobile apps or a hundred other features (which are all pretty important in themselves), Notion will still appeal more to 99% of people looking for a note taking app than org mode just for its basic interface.

Org mode is always one of the first/highest rated comments I see on these submissions, which really makes me wonder about the number of people using Emacs. This creates a weird sort of oxymoron in my head: in a world where seemingly most people use VS Code, most people also seem to be using Org mode.

Org mode isnt something an average user can manage no matter how many times comments like that are written

Sure, approachability isn't its strong suit. Anyone arguing against that is lying. I'm mostly referring to the HN crowd reading this article.

But thats why you cant compare a ready product to use like Notion to org-mode. I’m somewhat an advanced user and I cant be bothered fucking with org-mode. Obsidian is just perfect for my needs.

I use Whatboard.app and airtable for this very purpose. Notion is great, but I can't seem to integrate it into my life.

I love the idea of notion but could never get myself to use it due to their privacy policy.

Is it any different from all closed sourced services?

(I work at Notion)

It's not; I actually think the policy is better than the average cloud service but I'm biased. We really don't sell your personal information, although we do require explicit opt out to avoid telemetry we use to track application performance, error rates, and effective use of features.

Did they figure out the perf? I tried a while ago with three team members and I struggled after a few months. We ended up switching to confluence since at least the page loading wasn’t horrible.

yeah, it's reasonably snappy now (it used to be dog-slow).

I like reading things like this. Super niche regarding systems and goals, part self development, part techie. Fascinating read. For me the trifecta of the Notes, Reminders, and Calendar apps works best. While I've tried Notion, Evernote, Roam, Obsidian, etc. the native apps always worked best

I like Notion but every time I come back and try it I find it very clunky and that key feature is missing. For example, I wanted to make a recurring notification on Mondays. Nope – not possible. A lot of other apps have these features and are free... so it just seems odd given the rest of the features.

You can do this now; although you need to use a database: https://www.notion.so/releases/2022-11-08

Ahhh that is good to know -- thank you

I just cannot imagine investing this amount of effort into managing my life's details. I feel an energy drain just reading it. But, maybe much younger people think this is how to live a good life.

More simply: I'm pretty sick of productivity porn, and the empty promises it makes.

I feel exactly the same. How the hell people have time foe all this?

It’s procrastinating in a fashionable way to make yourself feel like you’re productive.

Check out Hobonichi. It's a whole cottage industry dedicated to making your notebook/planner look nice. I like looking at the designs, but, like most people, I never have a need to re-open notebooks, so there's no point in trying to convert my idea scratchpad into art.

I think there’s immediate gratification in this. You feel like you’re making progress towards your goals by planning them out, even if you don’t actually progress. You just add a superfluous step of documentation and complete it. A small industry has formed around this feeling.

I think one can achieve a lot in life with much more rudimentary planning tools, like pen and paper. I am yet to find a situation where that doesn’t get the job done for me personally.

I think you're right with the immediate gratification in this sort of thing. Then I think that's the problem right there.

Yes, I'd like to see how this tool would function under the weight of three kids, an aging brain, and a few life-crises.

That's pretty much a perfect description of me, and my only planning/organizational tool I use as a regular part of my life is setting alarms, timers, and reminders on my phone so I remember I was supposed to do a thing. Usually I just rely on myself to figure out why the hell my phone's bugging me, don't even bother to record what it is. It's working pretty well for me.

Every other tool I've tried to use has been about 20x more effort than it's worth, and remembering to keep whatever-thing with me or to check it is harder than the entire rest of what I'm trying to accomplish with it. I always have my phone, and I don't need to check it because it'll scream at me when it's time for something. "WTF is that noise? Wait, what time is it? Oh shit, time to get so-and-so ready for practice!"

Often times these templates are made by students, who aren't in the workforce but want the trappings of professionalism. For some that is exactly the kind of productivity porn you mention.

It's addictive, I can't lie. I would love to have a perfectly designed, neat workflow that captures all my tasks and quantifies my productivity with precision. The reality of work is that I already have to apply these principles to documenting things at my job. The last thing I want to do is to also need to maintain a perfectly manicured to-do list for myself.

Ah yes… Jira and Confluence at home. All that’s missing is a micromanaging product owner.

You could get married and arrange for your mother-in-law to live with you, if that's what you're looking for.

I think some people (like myself) just like some order to things, or at least the feeling of it.

Fiddling with my notion calendar of how many gym sessions/runs I made/missed is easier than actually going to the gym of course, but I like to think it helps me stay on track in a “what gets measured gets managed” kind of way.

But maybe when I’m older and more wise I’ll see it for the fallacy it is

On the one hand, agree that the system outlined in the article is a bit too full-on for me.

On the other hand, I have tens of thousands of words of text files in an Obsidian vault in support of my one hobby: game dev in Blender and Unreal. Workflows, gotchas, footguns, checklists. I have no idea how my middle-aged brain would remember how to, e.g. layer blend two materials after 6 months away.

This complex pursuit would be altogether impossible (for me) without my notes.

Yes this is the problem I've seen young and old happen to deal with. They get obsessed with the details. Maybe, they don't have that many things going on.

I'm glad it works for them, and I am a little skeptical whenever someone fawns over Notion (is it a paid placement? Is it someone who is trying sell templates?). To me, as someone who uses Notion for work, it is a dystopian vision, like using JIRA for my personal life's tasks.

I very much prefer simple, low tech solutions to dealing with my life's problems.

I share the skepticism, but I will admit that I can see it benefiting some people. I just know myself enough to know that I probably would not be consistent enough to keep it updated.

For my day to day, I currently just use Zim. Not perfect, but it is just text and just works:D

Well.. it does look like a paid placement.. she's a Notion Ambassador.. I have no idea what that means.. but if her domain is "notionthings" and she's preaching about Notion... I'm taking a lot of this with a grain of salt.

That said, the only reason I didn't adopt Notion for my social club (went with Confluence) is because Notion has a surprisingly small file storage for free accounts. Basically made it a non-starter for setting up something basic to try and convince my club to adopt.

Selling Notion templates is a complete cottage industry right now. So many people who were once selling video courses are just bundling up what they think mid-level managers will think looks sexy/smart from a note-taking/organizational system and selling it to them.

I know that's not anything new, but it's interesting to see how pervasive it is for one, specific service. Seems much easier to do than selling like... Asana automations? Zapier zaps?

Notion has an entire ecosystem of paid templates, it's a side hustle for many.

Unfortunately this has kept off of Notion as trying to look up videos of how it works usually leads to a wall of "Notion-fluencer" thumbnails, all of whom look no older than first-year university student.

It's also possible to use Notion / Logseq / Notes.app in a very brutalist, low-system way. I work at Notion but a huge system like this that's big on filing would never work for me. I use it like Notes.app, except I create databases for filing stuff like interesting links, furniture shopping, and a few other things, as needed. No upfront big shenanigans, and certainly no filing workflows!

I absolutely love Notion. I first started using it where I work now, and was blown away about how easy it is to organize. Is it great in every way? No (looking at you search!) but it is the best of the tools out there.

I can't bear Notion's abysmal performance.

Even just typing text on the notion mac app feels wrong.

They dont have the app anymore do they? Its just electron.

yup, it’s electron crap.

I tried this and I find Notion unusably slow and riddled with bugs. It loses data, it is an absolute ghastly product. This person is paid to write this.

And the support is unhelpful as I reported many bugs many times and the answer never helps or works. Ripe for disruption for sure.

Should have done the website using notion.

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