Before knowing Notion, I used Evernote as my main note-taking application. Almost all the notes were well-managed in Evernote. With the paid plan, Evernote was installed on all my computers, phone and tablet. However, the free version only supports concurrent logins on two devices, forcing me to log in and out to switch devices. The paid annual subscription supports logins on more than two devices, which is expensive.

When I found Notion and spent a few days evaluating it, I stopped the annual subscription to Eventnote and moved everything to Notion.

Notion is a note-taking software platform providing an all-in-one workspace to manage knowledge. It adopts a building block mechanism. All paragraphs and elements are called blocks, which are movable across different pages. With templates and creativity, users can integrate the blocks to build pages, like documents, databases, kanbans, content management systems and public websites.

It seems like Notion is a powerful tool, but will it backfire if you fail to use it properly?

Is all-in-one safe?

Since Notion provides a lot of templates and allows customisation, users can do almost everything related to content management. After months of accumulation, all your data, notes, schedules, work status and to-do lists will be captured in this application. The advantage is centralises everything you need daily. However, what if you lost access to Notion? Losing access to Notion means losing all your valuables, which is a disaster.

Storing everything into a single 3rd party system is dangerous, given that most of us, including me, are deeply immersed in the ecosystem of Google and Apple. I am a fan of using single-purpose devices. I use a watch to read the time, Trello to manage tasks, and Google Note to jot quick notes.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Premature Optimisation

Two years ago, I introduced Notion to my team. The team agreed to adopt it as our centralised knowledge management system, replacing One Note. One day, a colleague spent a whole day decorating Notion. He created tons of pages, boards and tables. He thought his design would help others find the materials. During the Sprint Retrospective a week later, some colleagues said the notes became harder to find.

As Notion provides an environment that is free to choose what and how to input the data, users can fall into the trap of premature optimisation. Similar to product development, premature optimisation is pseudo-productive. You spent a day designing something, but it didn’t bring value to the users. After all, no actual work is done, and a day is wasted. You then feel frustrated by the result.

Stop premature optimisation. Your Notion will be optimised eventually after a while. Rely on continuous improvement rather than pre-defining the rules. I plan and write my blog posts in my well-designed Editorial Calendar in my Notion workspace. For the others, I create a page for a topic. As I don’t know in the first place what the best format or design is, I input every piece of content freely. When the content grows, I will find the pattern. Then I can refine the page for a better user experience.

All-in-one-tool creates an ecosystem to attract you to stay there for all purposes. Sure, it is convenient, but it also traps you by making it costly to leave its ecosystem. Don’t let the tool control you. Choose the tool that works best for a particular situation. You will soon find your productivity improves.