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I don't understand why Notion is so damn popular. It's a textbook example of "jack of all trades; master of none." It has databases that allow you to create ma

by nunez 2y ago

I don't understand why Notion is so damn popular. It's a textbook example of "jack of all trades; master of none." It has databases that allow you to create many different views of things, but actually using this capability is one of the most frustrating things ever. No keyboard shortcuts; actions that you'd typically do in Excel don't work here; every table is its own page, even when it doesn't need to be; and so on. You can also create a plain old table within Notion, but all of the complaints above apply here. Why even have a table object when it's going to just be a gimped database? It has static web page hosting built in, but so does Confluence and other wikis. If you try to use Notion off-line, it randomly won't show you changes until you're back online. --- That said, paper is great for worm (write once, read many) type data but is inflexible and really difficult to search through later. Journaling is a great example. It is easy and tempting to start with a paper journal. Feels more personal and connected. However, when you want to know how you felt on this day five years ago, or you want to find a pattern to explain moods that don't make sense, you'll spend ages sifting through notebooks. That's assuming that you haven't lost them. Apps work so much better here. I started journaling in 2014 but started journaling _daily_ after discovering Daylio in 2021. I use Day One now. I regret not having used an app for this everyday. There are so many moments of my life that I lost or don't remember very well because I wanted to "handwrite my journals" despite, often, not having the time to do so. Journaling has helped me understand why I feel things and when and gave me a great first step towards fixing them. I will say that trying to modify a table in Notion makes me want to throw my Mac into the ocean and go back to paper and briefcases.

stranded22 2y ago
I tried many times to like Notion but it is far too complicated for my needs. It felt like procrastination, a tech version of a bullet journal. Spending too much time designing the system, and not enough actually using it. It felt like there was too much potential and flexibility, if that's possible - whilst being really crap at what I was looking for (todo list with notifications / offline personal document storage). So its ticktick + one note (used to have Evernote until they mucked it up). I've tried journaling but never feel like I have enough interesting things to document. Have you tried Apple Journal? Do you have templates you recommend?
- nrr 2y ago
  "It felt like procrastination, a tech version of a bullet journal." There's a lot out there that certainly falls under what I call "procrasturbation," but the Bullet Journal is ironically the thing I've stuck with the longest. Ryder Carroll came up with a formalization of the concept more recently, but I've been using it since 1999, prompted by the removal of our backpacks due to Columbine. I think the thing that a lot of folks miss is that it's a framework that's meant to grow incrementally with how you go through life and work. Without a bag to keep everything together, I got tired of misplacing my notebooks, one for each class, so I started living out of only one at a time, which then led me to set up a sort of table of contents and numbered pages so I could find things. It also let me cope with my as-yet-undiagnosed OCD and ADHD by giving me the permission just to start at whatever page and treat the bound pages as a linked list instead of an array. (Bonus: the table of contents became a sort of allocation bitmap.) Homework due dates and holidays and birthdays begat calendars of various sorts, inconsistent study habits begat habit trackers, notes from class meetings begat dailies wherein I braindump about whatever, etc., but none of that happened overnight. It built up over months to years. Journaling is about the stuff you want to remember later so that you can reflect on it. Most of my entries involve doting on my cats (so many days where I'm just like, "Valérian was an aggressively cuddly purrbucket again" or "Laureline brought me another sock from the hamper") and, like, "on a lark, I dug out my old ThinkPad to find it actually isn't inoperative."

by nunez 2y ago

stranded22 2y ago

I tried many times to like Notion but it is far too complicated for my needs. It felt like procrastination, a tech version of a bullet journal. Spending too much time designing the system, and not enough actually using it. It felt like there was too much potential and flexibility, if that's possible - whilst being really crap at what I was looking for (todo list with notifications / offline personal document storage). So its ticktick + one note (used to have Evernote until they mucked it up). I've tried journaling but never feel like I have enough interesting things to document. Have you tried Apple Journal? Do you have templates you recommend?

nrr 2y ago
"It felt like procrastination, a tech version of a bullet journal." There's a lot out there that certainly falls under what I call "procrasturbation," but the Bullet Journal is ironically the thing I've stuck with the longest. Ryder Carroll came up with a formalization of the concept more recently, but I've been using it since 1999, prompted by the removal of our backpacks due to Columbine. I think the thing that a lot of folks miss is that it's a framework that's meant to grow incrementally with how you go through life and work. Without a bag to keep everything together, I got tired of misplacing my notebooks, one for each class, so I started living out of only one at a time, which then led me to set up a sort of table of contents and numbered pages so I could find things. It also let me cope with my as-yet-undiagnosed OCD and ADHD by giving me the permission just to start at whatever page and treat the bound pages as a linked list instead of an array. (Bonus: the table of contents became a sort of allocation bitmap.) Homework due dates and holidays and birthdays begat calendars of various sorts, inconsistent study habits begat habit trackers, notes from class meetings begat dailies wherein I braindump about whatever, etc., but none of that happened overnight. It built up over months to years. Journaling is about the stuff you want to remember later so that you can reflect on it. Most of my entries involve doting on my cats (so many days where I'm just like, "Valérian was an aggressively cuddly purrbucket again" or "Laureline brought me another sock from the hamper") and, like, "on a lark, I dug out my old ThinkPad to find it actually isn't inoperative."