Item: Notion
Rating: 9
Author: Seth McNew

Overall Satisfaction with Notion

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Notion has become the best virtual assistant that I could ever ask for. Currently, I'm utilizing the Free license as I'm the only one that needs access to it, but I'm heavily considering moving to a paid tier so I can support the Development Team as they continue to build out new features.

As it stands, Notion has become my 2nd brain of sorts, where not only can I quickly jot down meeting notes and track projects within it, but it allows me to plan out my weeks in advance, make note of any upcoming meetings, and ultimately become my one-stop shop for any information I need.

This doesn't just apply to my business life either - I've been able to segment spots for keeping up with home shenanigans, wedding planning, and my side-hustles in a way that no other app has come close to allowing me to do. And with templates available that inspire new and unique ways to use the system, I find myself better managing all aspects of my life thanks to this app.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Note Taking - It's incredibly easy to jump into a new page and start taking notes or linking key files for future reference.
Project Management Tracking - With a Kanban board, I'm able to extend my PM work within Notion, giving any and all space it needs.
Information Staging | Planning - Notion allows me to plan out my content creation schedule, with spots dedicated to keeping track of metrics, as well as open areas to brainstorm.

Cons

Offline Backups - While Notion does give the ability to export to PDF, HTML and other factors, not having a hard backup is a bit of a hard selling point to new users.
Difficult to Start - Notion gives a lot of opportunity to build it out however you want to, and there's plenty of loaded templates to use, but it can be overwhelming.
Forced AI Integration - Notion has been trying to run its AI within the program, and while some have found great use cases for it, for most users, it's not really robust or reliant enough to use daily.

Return on Investment

Increased Productivity from having clearly defined expectations for the week.
Heightened collaboration with quick file access.
Faster response time to issues not getting misplaced in emails.

Usability

Notion is an extremely competent piece of software, but with all the features it has baked under the hood, it can be extremely overwhelming. For a team that's considering onboarding Notion into their systems, I would highly recommend planning out how they'd like the system to look before bringing it on, rather than trying to fix things and make things line up in the end.

Alternatives Considered

OneNote and Microsoft Planner

While Microsoft has a great productivity suite that most will be able to use just fine, having everything under a single executable and not having to jump between multiple windows is always a plus to me. Additionally, both programs lack the robust, customizable nature Notion thrives on, so it ends up feeling like a watered down Notion when you are forced to use one of the other Microsoft offerings.

Key Insights

Do you think Notion delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Notion's feature set?

Yes

Did Notion live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Notion go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Notion again?

Yes

Other Software Used

GIMP, Spotify for Podcasters, Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Likelihood to Recommend

Notion is a perfect assistant for users who are struggling to keep hold on everything - it's private, able to sync across devices, and the free plan is more than enough to get yourself up and going so on that side of things, it's an incredibly easy sell. However, on the opposite, there are things that Notion does that would keep some away from the program; The lack of offline backups, the inability to opt-out of Notion AI, and the lack of a predefined structure to start using the app to the point where it can feel like you need to have a Notion Degree before you can start using it are just some points that'd keep new users from giving it a go.

That said, given some time to learn the program and its features, I think anyone could find themselves using Notion as a second brain of sorts, even expanding out to sharing it with a whole team for greater collaboration than what Microsoft or Google could do with their productivity suites.

Notion Feature Ratings

Comments

Please log in to join the conversation

Notion - The Digital Assistant We Didn't Know We Needed

Software Version