How good is Notion for commonplace book?

[EugeneTheSage]

For a long time, I was making notes in google docs and it hit its limit. Besides the structure is totally wrong for note-taking. I've tried the notion, it feels very good. The main advantage is that it has a lot of types of blocks.

I've also tried Trello, but it is definitely not good for note-taking.

I've tried ClickUp recently, but it really too complicated and there are some annoying bugs. It doesn't support offline access. On mobile it is sloppy.
Advantages of Notion from my PoV:

• synced blocks
• good webpages previews
• free
• has a lot of plugins
• sync
• accessible offline
• accessible on mobile
• databases are very cool
• tags
• I'm able to paste images

Right now my commonPlace book is dispersed throughout google docs, Trello, notion, and miro. In the next week, I'll move everything to notion, and some visual stuff I'll be making in miro. It blocks me unfortunately because it thinks I'm from occupied regions of Ukraine.

What do you guys think about Notion? Maybe you'd recommend some other software?

[UnbornTao]

I like Obsidian. You might want to check it out.

It has local file storage so that you own your book, not the company behind the app. Also, since it is based on Markdown (plain text format), your files will be readable by any computer long after the software has been shut down.

It's harder to learn at first but you can keep a simple structure.

[supremeyingyang]

I just use plaintext, dump it where ever and search for keywords with linux terminal. It can be a distraction to invent a logical structure. As for pictures, I dump them adjacent, of course you need to name the pic wisely;)

Jap, I'm Chaotic-Neutral

[Leo Gura]

OneNote!

[Girzo]

@UnbornTao RemNote is also markdown, and has flashcard system. Great for studying medical stuff and some other learning purposes. OneNote or RemNote, if you want to study hard. 

Default Notes app on iPhone and MacOS is quite good, too. It might not have the easiest back-up option, but it's a too popular platform to ever get deprecated. All markdown editors are future-proof, too.

[Ayham]

@EugeneTheSage Notion is bad because it's not locally stored, if it was local, it would be godly.

 

@UnbornTao

how do you use obsidian? using a zettlekasten? para system? 

[jakee]

Obsidian would be my weapon of choice. It has much more flexibility in terms of useability. And with the help of rich ecology of community plugins, it'll easily trump - I'd say all the other note taking apps, including Notion and OneNote. With those, you are pretty much stuck with the rigid folder -kind of organization style. Obsidian let's you build your knowledge base holistically from ground up, so when your notes start accumulating, they'll start to form a complex web of knowledge. You start to make new interconnections between topics much more easily, IMO. 

Especially with this kind of work, where every topic is deeply connected - like philosophy, spirituality, epistemology etc., it's hard to label something to a specific category. Instead what I like to do, is I just start writing on a empty note, and with internal links and tags / other metadata, I can then make those MOC pages for the main topics like philosophy, metaphysics etc. What's best, dataview plugin will add new notes to the specfic MOCs automatically, when metadata is added. 

If you'd still like to use some of the Notion's features -- like databases changes are, you'll find a community plugin that let's you do just that. (Database folder, Dataview, Kanban etc.)

Just make sure, you don't make these apps just another way to procrastinate with your work. It's easy to get excited about these shiny new toys  Just use whatever tools that gets the job done most effectively. 

20 hours ago, EugeneTheSage said:

Advantages of Notion from my PoV:

• synced blocks
• good webpages previews
• free
• has a lot of plugins
• sync
• accessible offline
• accessible on mobile
• databases are very cool
• tags
• I'm able to paste images

Pretty much all of these apply to Obsidian, too. 

[EugeneTheSage]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

OneNote!

Yeah, I watched your video on commonplace book, Leo. One note is not bad. But in notion you can assign cool icons to your notes?

8 hours ago, Ayham said:

@EugeneTheSage Notion is bad because it's not locally stored, if it was local, it would be godly.

 

@UnbornTao

how do you use obsidian? using a zettlekasten? para system? 

Well, I can access my notes without internet connection. Isn't it the same as locally stored? I don't care about them having my data.

 

10 hours ago, supremeyingyang said:

I just use plaintext, dump it where ever and search for keywords with linux terminal. It can be a distraction to invent a logical structure. As for pictures, I dump them adjacent, of course you need to name the pic wisely;)

Jap, I'm Chaotic-Neutral

I disagree about structure. If you want to create something complex you need to organize it well, otherwise it won't scale up.

The fact that obsidian allows assign things to a few categories simultaneously is great, I'd dive deeper into it. I hope it has the ability to seamlessly sync between mobile and PC - that's very important for me.

Now my notes would be dispersed in one more app?

Edited March 13, 2023 by EugeneTheSage

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, EugeneTheSage said:

But in notion you can assign cool icons to your notes?

[EugeneTheSage]

Bwy, guys, what do you think of using emojis instead of some words in your notes? I think it will allow to easier dive into the long paragraph. I wonder if I would be able to export the emojis in case I would migrate to some other note-taking software.

[supremeyingyang]

1 hour ago, EugeneTheSage said:

I disagree about structure. If you want to create something complex you need to organize it well, otherwise it won't scale up.

The fact that obsidian allows assign things to a few categories simultaneously is great, I'd dive deeper into it. I hope it has the ability to seamlessly sync between mobile and PC - that's very important for me.

Now my notes would be dispersed in one more app?

All of it is possible in plain text - for example use one drive or something else like that and it is on every device.

No one can decide on what is the best approach, let alone we see survivor bias. Let decide people in the future who of us has had more influence through our notes.

[UnbornTao]

20 hours ago, Girzo said:

@UnbornTao RemNote is also markdown, and has flashcard system. Great for studying medical stuff and some other learning purposes. OneNote or RemNote, if you want to study hard. 

sounds good.

19 hours ago, Ayham said:

@UnbornTao

how do you use obsidian? using a zettlekasten? para system? 

Simple structure, as if it were a OneNote commonplace book. 3 sections, each with its own subfolders. 

So I'm not tapping the app's potential but currently I see no need to overcomplicate things. Might eventually look into it.

Edited March 14, 2023 by UnbornTao

[Girzo]

@EugeneTheSage Emojis are supported everywhere by the operating system nowadays, so there shouldn't be any technical problem with using emojis ?

Edited March 13, 2023 by Girzo

[mmKay]

5 hours ago, EugeneTheSage said:

But in notion you can assign cool icons to your notes

Windows logo key + . (period).  Then the emoji keyboard will appear if you use Windows. Works for onenote. 

[herghly]

Craft for professional work

Onenote for personal life

[Sultan Al Hind]

notion has no offline saving. damn that is a problem. this is a problem as when the company start becoming big they will charge money for accessing all your past note. go for obsidian. obsidian has offline saving. plus obsidian saves notes as .txt.obsidian is future proof

[EugeneTheSage]

https://youtu.be/d93SGaf82OM

Damn, this notion PPV (Pillar, Pipelines, Vaults) system looks great. August Bradley looks like stage Yellow person, he talks a lot about systems thinking.

[Rigel]

I have been transitioning from a big nested folder of text edits to obsidian in the past week or so and I like it so far. The main improvements I can see as of now are the ability to create internal links, the audio player and the drawing/sketch plugin. 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Rigel

[caesar13]

I like Notion. I use it for self-development and for study as well. You can go ahead and continue using it if you have no problems with the idea that your data is stored in cloud.

I’ve no problems with that because I want that data to be available for a long time maybe for a decade or two. On my local machine, I am not sure I can save the data for more than a year

If I have serious personal stuff - tantamount to the 1st or 2nd secrets of the three the popular chinese proverb says - I simply translate it to my own encrypted language. Yes, my own language. It’s hard to encode and decode for me, but that’s okay for me.

[Buck Edwards]

I don't like the idea of local storage because I never know when a device might blow up. So for me, it's cloud storage all the way. 

One Note is cumbersome with it's folder style, very 1990ish. 

Obsidian is way too overloaded with structures. 

I like Evernote.