The Notion Blog | The Ultimate Blog

After multiple requests, the blog about what-why-how of Notion is finally here! 🎉🎉🎉

(This blog post would be incomplete if I did not write it in Notion. This is not a sponsored blog post, but I do wish It was :)

I will mainly be sharing what Notion is, why you should use it and how I use Notion.

What is Notion:

Imagine there was a note taking app that didn't suck. Well there you go, that's Notion for you.

During my YouTube surf sessions I discovered that many many content creators used some kind of online, cross platform note taking app to maintain and plan their day to day lives, turns out, most of them were using Notion.

After knowing that something else exists to help me in my note taking, two sequential realizations triggered an epiphany:

Firstly, I realized that Word, google docs, pdfs, etc. are great, but they need to be double-clicked. They need to be nested in folders (in the name of organization). They aren’t there when I need them the most (eg: fire nation attacks)

After this realization, I switched exclusively to Google keep and before I knew it, I started noticing the shortcomings here too! Everything in Keep is a to-do, or a note . Nothing more nothing less (I do appreciate the fact that it takes up only 2 types of content but delivers on it) If you, like me, are a greedy note taker, it's never enough. Tables, Kanban boards, Planners, Lists with notes ,images ,cross links across pages. I needed them all, which leads to the second realization: Keep is useful but only for specific situations, but in general it's restrictive.

So, with the system of note taking failing right before my eyes: word for quick documents, notes on PC ,Google keep on phone. (note: The blogger here wants to tell that he is an avid note taker), and the two realizations I reached an epiphany: Taking notes isn't the hard part. Being able to easily organize it, link it and find the right stuff at the right time is the hard part.

That's when I felt the need to explore and that’s where my journey with Notion began.

How & Why I Use Notion:

I love to think about stuff. I definitely love having a place to store my condensed thoughts. It’s an added bonus if that place is online, cross-platform and one stop solution for everything.

Now that you know why I use Notion, let me tell you the personal use-cases I have deployed Notion for:

Note Taking (Primary purpose): Be it academic or educational videos, books I read or courses I take, I prefer keeping the knowledge I have learnt in a revisable format, which I look at often. I use cross-linked pages and sub-pages to achieve this in Notion. (Refer to the ‘’Simple Notebook’’ Template).
Thoughts & Links: The note taking also extends to random thoughts, things to look into, saved links & bookmarks (I pull up a page, paste it there. Done!) [Recently, I discovered that there is a Notion browser extension to clip/save sites, haven't tried it yet, will let you know how it is once I do]
Watch List: (Watching-Watched-To Watch- Tried to watch) This page that helps me keep track of shows I am currently watching ("TrAcK CuRrENTlY WaTcHing???" Don't give me that expression, I use it to not forget the ongoing shows, those with weekly releases). It helps me remember the shows people have suggested. (Luckily, I have some amazing content, suggested by equally amazing friends). A side benefit of having this page is that it helps me keep track of the time I have spent on the shows (coughs anime coughs) and to recommend shows to someone when they ask. FYI this page is more of a board than a list (something like the To-Do template). Why because being a board, it's easier to update: Once done, I drag the card to the appropriate section instead of updating a list.
Food Recipes: An absolute Godsend for keeping track of the dishes I have learnt. I can pull up my own recipe sheet to cook up a dish (which are sorted by time & type).
Habit Tracker: A recent initiative that I have undertaken where I have a table with check boxes. Rows represent the days, Columns are various habits to track. Each day when I 'check them boxes' I get a visual overall of how the days have been.
Panning Projects: Until recently I had been using it to scrum this blog's development as well, l but as off now, I have moved it to linear.app (If interested let me know, I will create a separate post on planning and organizing projects)

How To Use Notion:

At this point I am assuming that I have convinced you enough to at least give Notion a try. With that in mind here's a quick how to, on using Notion.

On signing up, you get a set of built pages in the left side menu. These are pretty simple, starter walkthroughs. It is more than enough to get a hang of Notion.

In case the walkthrough isn't giving ideas on how to use Notion then you may find the below links useful:

Closing Thoughts:

It might seem that I'm all for Notion and that is 99% true. The only shortcomings so far have been: no support for handwritten notes (Applies to a very small audience with digital pads so Notion, not having this feature is okay, and I have been using Notability for that so far) and you might also see that it has pricing tiers. Personally, I find the free tier more than enough, even with all the above use-cases. In case you run out of storage, by that time you'd probably be a power user so it'll totally be worth the money. (Bonus : As a student you can avail the education pack)

All in all I find it optimal to have all resources under the same roof: planners, boards, journals, to-do, priority lists, etc. Plus with the ongoing development in Notion, I have high hopes for the app and will continue to explore more features as they come.

Happy exploration & learning!