Every few months, I caught myself in the act asking Google "What is the best productivity app?"
I tried them all - Evernote, OneNote, Trello, Wunderlist, you name it!Except for Wunderlist, I somehow wasn't able to stick to one for a longer period! It just did not click, even though I really tried - reading in blogs how to best set up Evernote, trying a structure with tags as well the more classical notebook structure - nope!
I did somehow get along with Wunderlist to cope with my basic requirments, though! But that was just for subjects which easily fit into kind of a list structure (e.g. gift lists etc.). With Microsoft trying to convert the Wunderlist users to their new To-Do a few months ago, I was desperate!
Enters Notion!
I never looked back!
Why is Notion so great?
One word: versatility!
Every use case I want to cover - I can do it with Notion. Notion lets you start with an empty page and then you can deploy almost anything you need. You can nestle a sub-page into it, embed pictures and documents and so on! But let's have a closer look how I have set up Notion.
I created two overarching starting page - one for my private stuff, one for my work environment. From these two pages I access all the other content.
What I particular like in Notion is that you can really customize the pages! I went through my photos from our travels and made a selection I use as cover pictures! It just makes you feel good when opening a page and being confronted with a good memory! Notion also offers a lot of icons that you can add to the pages. It's for sure a personal thing, but I like it and use it. I also added a few inspiring quotes at the top of certain key pages. I saw that with another Notion user and really liked it and thus applied it to my personal Notion.
At the beginning I was very quick in adding sub-pages, now I rather try to stay on a higher level and make better use of the page itself, i.e. I divide the page horizontally and vertically and make use of the different building blocks. In the work environment, I created a page for every project I am leading (a project often equals a company in my case). Every company page follows the same structure.
Notes For every meeting, I create a new sub-page, starting with the date and title of the meeting.
To-do Second building block is a to-do list. I love the feature that you can easily add a date to a task from your keyboard. (Just write @ at the end of your task and the date menu will pop up, allowing you to select your deadline date!)
Ideas/Miscellaneous Last section on the page is dedicated to anything else. It can be an interesting article (Notion has a well-working clipper), just a note to myself with an idea. A further sub-page dedicated to a broader topic I want to follow up etc.
Notion offers you a large variety of building blocks. You can include Kanban boards, galleries, tables, even a calendar view. Not to mention the different headers, call-outs etc. - you really have to discover it by yourself, I can't even list them all.
How much does Notion cost?
Notion follows a freemium model. The first 1'000 building blocks are for free - then you have to upgrade to a plan. I use the Personal plan which is 4 USD / month and I happily pay it for such a great tool.
You can also earn 26 USD in credits in quite an easy way when you are setting up Notion. If you download the app, you will get 5 USD credit, the same if you use the desktop app or install the web clipper (3 USD). I found that quite a clever way of Notion to make me familiar with the product while providing me with an incentive to subscribe by lowering the first payment.
In sum: Notion is awesome!
I have set it up in record time for me, in a few night shifts and since then, just awesomeness!
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