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Introduction
As a long time Notion user, I’m no stranger to trying to use Notion to organize every single detail of my life… and completely and utterly failing. So, when should you use Notion and when is it time to just use a dedicated application? Learning from 3 years of experience, here’s what and what I’d not recommend using Notion for in your daily life.
I recently watched a video by YouTuber Enrico Tartarotti called “Why Everyone is OBSESSED With Notion”. In this video, Tartarotti analyzes Notion and tries to explain 3 psychology principles which describe why Notion is so popular.
The 3 Psychological Principles - Video Summary
Notion is based on three key psychological principles: the Ikea effect, Maslow's hammer, and the metagame.
- The Ikea effect describes how people attribute more value to things they build themselves, which applies to Notion since users spend time building their perfect templates.
- Maslow's hammer refers to the tendency to use familiar tools for all purposes, which drives people to try and solve every aspect of their lives with Notion’s databases.
- The metagame describes how Notion's user community has created a vast infrastructure of tutorials, events, strategies, and more, which has contributed to the software's success.
When and When NOT to use Notion
Personal use scenarios.
Yes 💓
And what I used to use before Notion
- Note taking (Dropped Evernote, OneNote, Obsidian)
- Idea storage (Dropped Google Docs, Apple notes, physical notebooks)
Either way
Notion or…
- Movie tracking - Letterboxd
- Journaling - Physical notebook
- Braindumping - Physical notebook
No 🙅♀️
Other Apps Do it Better
- Task management (Dropped Todoist, TickTick)
- Habit tracking (Dropped TickTick)
- Meal Planning - Mealime
- Book tracking - Goodreads
- Anime / manga tracking - MyAnimeList
- Document sharing & collaboration - Google Drive
- Time blocking - A scrap of paper, bullet journal, or Google Calendar
- Date/event tracking - Google calendar
Takeaway
Feel free to use Notion however you want or not at all. Notion is great for people who like to build and customize their productivity set up. Its a bit like… Ikea or Legos but for managing your digital life. If you’re not a fan of DIY’ing or building the perfect productivity set up yourself, try something out of the box instead like To-doist, Tick-Tick, Asana, or Trello.
My Notion Templates (Free)
All my Notion templates are 100% free to download, use an modify. You can find them on my Gumroad site. See more here: