Productivity Tools — Part 2 (Intro to Notion)
Sometime in 2019, I came across Notion, when I read that someone I follow on LinkedIn has joined Notion (the company). Given my curiosity about a new productivity enhancing app, I downloaded it immediately and tried to fidget around with it. I must have barely spent 20mins and I just didn’t understand how to use it. Instead of trying a bit more, I convinced myself that it is not for me and uninstalled it. And again, in April 2020, I saw a video about Notion and YouTube and decide to give it another try. And this time, I read and watched more about how to make Notion work for you. And somewhere in May-2020, there was an “aha moment” that played out when I realized that Notion is going to be a life changer, not just a game changer, as it subsumes the best capabilities of many other tools I have been using all along. Also — it is not about the capabilities that are “fixed” in it, but it is about the capabilities that we can customize for ourselves, through some of the embedded features. It dawned on me that no other tool helps me integrate my systems — work related things and life-related systems, better than Notion.
So how do I describe Notion? Do I describe it by what it is? or what it does? I find it as a cut above the rest because each user will define it in a different way — based on how she or he is using it. It doesn’t mean that it is amorphous but just that it is very versatile and highly customizable. So while I will not try to give the best description of what it is, what I can definitely do is give a description of how I am using it. And that’s totally based on my understanding of what can be done with it. There are Notion gurus out there who are inventing, building and popularizing new ways of using Notion — you should check out YouTube. I am far from that haloed lot. But from a layman’s lens, I can try to synthesize Notion’s capabilities using this equation:
Notion = a mix of (Notebook + Databases + basic powers of Excel + To-do list + Bookmarker + Journal + Habit Tracker + calendar + planner + Workflow Management tool + work assignment tool + Kanban board).
Imagine the culmination of the powerful features of all the above into a single app — it’s ground breaking in the sense that it not reduces my dependency on multiple tools but it also helps me to use it as my 2nd brain. Right from a quick thought to jot down or a note of task reminder to even long-term focused activities like travel planning or career planning — Notion helps me capture anything and everything in the spectrum — from the immediate to the long-term. And after capturing, I can organize that information in a way that not only enhances “accessibility” but also pushes me to dwell on that information and process it into something more concrete. For example: An interesting line from a book you are reading can trigger a thought. Now, using Notion, you can record that thought in a page titled “Notes from current reads”, and also link that page to some other page in Notion titled “Things that got me thinking”. I find it ground breaking because, over a period, these pages give you an opportunity to see so many lines and thoughts that got you thinking, showing you interesting patterns among them and further unlocking new trains of thought in your mind.
That’s just one example I could think of, and there are many more, some of which I will share in my next piece.
to be continued…
