The Power of Notion

It took me a few tries to get into properly using Notion, but I always got overwhelmed with the complexity of its potential. I've tried other apps, but they never quite felt the same and found myself back staring at a blank notion interface. Templates weren't much use to me because I wanted to know how each section was built and how it all works together.

A couple months ago, I changed my approach to the platform and instead of being overwhelmed with all that big "second brain" energy, I took it slow and kept it simple.

I won't dive into all the ways I'm using Notion right now, but essentially I set up a database to start recording tasting notes for my KyleDrinksBeer posts. This gave me a clear objective for adding in all the necessary elements I needed and helped me get familiar with Notion's fundamentals. I new use it for many projects and life stuff, but can it become my go-to notetaking app as well?

The Mobile App

The mobile app is great. Being able to look at all the tables I've made in various categories with full functionality instead of some truncated mobile version is quite handy. I've even got a page set up for notes, but I haven't really used it that much. Why is that?

When I have the time, sure I can jump into the app and input a new item in the database on my notes page, but when I'm out and about when an idea pops into my head, I want to be able to jot it down ASAP. Luckily, Notion has a quick notes widget for opening up a notetaking field right from your home screen. Great! You can set the page it goes to which is handy, but wait… I can't assign my notes to the database on the page? Weird.

Quick Notes is Holding Me Back

Not being able to assign quick notes to a database is such a simple feature that is singlehandedly holding me back from writing down my thoughts on the go. I don't want to take a note that ends up on the page that I then later need to go and copy/paste into the database and fill out the details for that. I want to be able to do that right in the quick note window!

In some ways, I consider myself lazy because yeah, it would just take a few more taps to get into the database right in the app to take that note. But it's a workflow that I have not grown accustomed to. I record a lot of random notes in Google Keep, but it's quite a simple app that just holds all the notes. That's what Notion's quick notes does, so it would be a lateral move for me to switch over.

I want that option to be able to input right into the chosen database with the tap of the quick notes widget. Luckily, this is a simple enough feature that I feel it is quite plausible to be implemented in the future. This has been a bit of a nitpicky rant, but I can't overlook this pain point in the UX of Notion's widget. Maybe they add this feature soon, or maybe I buck up and tap into the full app to start properly recording my notes. who knows!