Notion is the best and most flexible note-taking tool I have come across so far. Particularly practical: I can not only create individual notes, but entire databases of notes – and I can describe and organize these notes with custom metadata.
Notion is a rediscovery for me. I had already reported on the tool before, but somehow didn’t have a use for it. That changed this spring. Together with my colleague Georg Gusewski, I produced a LinkedIn training on teaching ideas for remote learning (coming up!), and he suggested Notion as a scripting tool.
So now it’s love at second sight 🙂
What is Notion?
Notion is a note-taking app that allows you to create highly structured notes. You work with content blocks, similar to other systems like WordPress with Gutenberg. Of course, you can also make simple text notes and start writing immediately. There are also blocks for lists, quotes, code elements, etc. In addition, there are blocks for embedding elements such as images, multimedia, or bookmarks. Extensive notes can be structured with headings of various hierarchies.
The basis of Notion is ultimately Markdown, a simple structural syntax that turns plain text into structured content.
By the way, I also explain why structured content is important in a LinkedIn video training 🙂
Is it a Page? No It’s a Base!
The clever thing about Notion is that you don’t necessarily have to write the content on a page. Rather, you can open a small database at any point in Notion. The pages are then stored within it, and you get the additional option of providing the pages with metadata, so-called properties. This way, you can tag content with keywords and categories. You can also define any number of custom properties. The properties apply to each database, and you can create as many databases as you like.
Want an example? I created a database with recipes: Each recipe is described on a page and has keywords and short comments as properties. Of course, I can filter and search by these metadata. I can display the recipe database as a list, table, or gallery. Or as a board or calendar.
This database capability makes my notes extremely flexible. In addition to my recipe base, I also maintain separate databases in Notion for bookmarks, blog topics, important graphics from my professional life, inventory of my various tech gadgets, and so on.
Flexibility
Notion makes it easy for me to develop my notes. What starts as a simple bookmark in the database later becomes a note with my own comments and thoughts. I link this note to other places and combine it with other notes into collections. I have also put together a personal start page through which I can immediately access the most important notes.
Export Formats
What I also appreciate about Notion are the diverse export options. I can export my notes to Markdown or CSV documents and use them in various other apps.
I can also directly convert my notes to PDF. Or to HTML if desired. This way, I’m safe and have found a sustainable way to store my notes.
By the way: Since Notion is essentially an online service, you have the option to share notes directly via the web. Either for reading only or for collaboration. Because Notion is also a collaboration tool.
What else is Great
Notion has a few more aces up its sleeve: for example, there’s the web clipper, with which I can directly save content from websites to my notes in Firefox and Chrome. Then Notion can also be used as a kind of personal wiki because links to other notes can be inserted directly into notes.
A very important element is templates: you can choose from various templates or create your own. Meeting minutes, recipes, business canvases, even entire databases can be quickly created using templates.
What could be Even Better
My biggest pain with Notion at the moment is the backup: Although I can manually export all data at the push of a button and I’ve treated myself to the Pro version, which provides versioning for all notes, I’m ultimately dependent on Notion and its functioning servers. I would feel immensely more comfortable if there was an option to regularly save all my content to my Dropbox, for example.
The web clipper is good, but not yet perfect. Evernote’s model is still unbeatable in this regard. The mobile apps are also okay, but ultimately they are just containers for the website. You notice this in everyday use because they only integrate into the system to a limited extent.
Otherwise, there’s not much to complain about: Notion is a great solution and the best part is that almost all features can be used for free. So trying it out is possible at any time.
You can find more information about the tool on the Notion website.
