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To fix the Spotlight delay, you have to disable Siri in the system settings.

If Siri is enabled, the OS waits until you release the space bar to determine if you performed a long or a short press, which causes Spotlight to be delayed.

I just tried all the examples you gave (on my M1 Max) except Skype which I don't have installed here, they all load in 1 second or faster, maybe its something else on your Mac?

Do you have CPU or memory heavy background tasks? On my M2 spotlight is instant and Notes opens in less than one second.

I'm using the Air M2 16GB, switched from Notion to Notes and Reminders, one of the reasons is that these apps are way faster. It also uses under 100MB of ram.

Note: The main reason is that Notion is fantastic but too much for me. I'm not that organized...