Notion, is it worth the switch?
Hey friends
I’ve avoided it, I’ve tried to ignore it and see how it goes, but I finally gave in and set up a Notion page. I love how it looks, well see if it works well for my purposes.
What is Notion
Now, what is Notion? It’s not a cult, but you’d think so over on Reddit with how many people really enjoy it. It’s currently free for personal use, but it’s essentially a better version of Google Keep, Evernote, with some fun Tumblr options. From what I can tell.
Not to age myself, but back in the day, MySpace was loved because of how you customize it. Notion has given us some of that power back, if you go to the Reddit you’ll see a ton of displays and dashboards people have built. Here is mine, currently:
I set it up based on some I had seen, I knew I wanted the weather and Google calendar on there, that was a pretty easy add. I linked some good vibe music and made a simple task list – which I am adoring as I was going through a lot of paper lately and wanted to switch to digital again. I was thinking of cleaning my keep, it’s tragic really, but this is even better. So I spent a few hours making it pretty. I love how I can embed things and link pages.
I haven’t tried it yet but supposedly you can share pages like a website, so you can make like an FAQ page people can read, with notes, etc I am thinking of switching My Etsy FAQ over here, just to see how it works.
So it’s a fancy page to store things, similar to keep. It has calendars, kanban boards, timelines, and even charts! I am excited to see the charts, I love me a good chart. Still playing with using it as a mood board kinda deal, but so far it’s pretty user friendly.
Why I’m giving it a try
I am still giving it a test, I can’t say I wouldn’t recommend it yet or not, though I have shared it with a few friends as it’s pretty.
My goal with it is to organize my drive a little better and go through my keep and such. I want to use it for all the usual things, but before I commit to it I am giving it a thorough test. I think it would be amazing for a goal journal for progress. I am concerned about the data so I am still looking into that, technically Google drive can kick you out at any time as well, back up your shit.
If I like it and decide to keep it, I will start putting my 2022 goals in here. As I’ve mentioned before I like to track mathable and heavily typed things digitally. I recycle my planners after a few years (not before recording them digitally though!) since I have limited storage, so I like having a partial digital system.
I track groceries spent, general budget, my Christmas card list, I’ve journaled in here since like 2007 (seriously), and I do my goal plotting digital – I then print it off. This allows me to journal my feelings about said goals and areas I want to improve without worry, then I can print a summary. It helps me really get to why I want X and I think that makes it easier to achieve it. You can see more on that in some old blog post, what I keep digitally.
So far I am quite liking it.
On the business side of things I have not put any freelance items in here, I’m still pretty light on that, and I plan to put Etsy items in here, I just haven’t figured what I want that to look like yet. I did make an editorial calendar and write this blog post in there. I like it so far, as I usually do this on my main calendar in my planner, and it’s always sloppy.
I also added in my latest brain dump. I would like to make more productive spreads, but just not there yet. I don’t have a plan anyway, in my head, so putting something down in here will require me to conceptualize that first.
Why you should give it a try
It’s free and has been fun. I recommend nabbing an account if you think you might like it, as I am not sure how long they will be free – as they gain traction.
I also think you should check out the subreddit, see some of the fun designs and play with it. I think it would be best for students though, as it has a ton of built-in features I would have loved (timelines, tables, the calendar, making anything an embedded page, etc). You can add icons, and gifs, change colors, dark to light mode, etc – it’s really got some fun features.
It might work as a bullet journal, and it does have an app BUT it seems it doesn’t work offline yet – something the subreddit has complained about. Hopefully, they will add that feature eventually.
I can say I like it a lot more than Evernote or Trello, which I’ve both tried and promptly ditched. I like the blockyness of it, which is why I liked Keep so much, but the fact that I can design it is what may keep me in it. Once I get a feel for the security and storage notes, I’ll see how I feel.
I’ll update if I see new features or if I change my mind, but for now, I had a ton of fun building it out.