I keep seeing reviews about notion.so from Francesco D’Alessio and David Pierce. I’ve always used a text based workflow, but this app seems pretty interesting. Anyone using it and have opinions about it?
I’ve tried Notion for a couple of things — it seems really powerful.
I tried it about six weeks ago and posted on it somewhere - it seems like a somewhat more capable version of 37 Signals’ now defunct Backpack . I was put off by lack of export and automation capabilities and had concerns about longevity of the product.
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I love the product.
You can export by pdf and you automation is upcoming in their roadmap where they will be adding an API and Zapier integration. I personally don’t need automation for what I do but it will hopefully be there for people that need it.
I think this is a great product that lets you use element building blocks to easily build your own custom software. I am liking this as well as Milanote and are using them more and more. I am awaiting the release of Coda.io that seems to be in Beta for a long time
I’ve been using Notion during the past couple of weeks and really enjoy it. The UI is flexible and delightful. Since I collect a lot of research material for the articles I write, I like that I can include the material in the same page with my draft and continue working on it in a relatively clean interface. Kanbans and tables help me track my various projects, and the built-in calendar has largely replace Apple or Google Calendar for me. Once the web clipper, APIs, and external calendar integration have been implemented, Notion would be perfect for me.
Webclipper would be huge
webclipper is here. And it’s a real contender to the over-powerful Evernote tool. As of now it is not replacing Evernote for me, but the modular design combined with Airtable-like db power that can be live-linked, filtered, and shared makes quite a dream combination of simplicity and power.
That said, I am sure that all of this can be a bit intimidating for some. Just as with any other storage tool, having a map before there even is a landscape makes a lot of sense.
I am currently trying to organize a little group of clinicians and scientist to collaborate through Notion. So far I am really really impressed. We’ll see where this goes.
Subscriber of the pro version here. I’ve been using it for 6 months as main note keeping app.
It’s very good because of the DBs that you can create and manage. It’s so flexible that it’s a little overwhelming.
My main concern as i put more stuff there is their viability as a company, because i have almost all of my live there.
Yeah, same concerns here. I’m currently a Bear notes user but I’ve been thinking more and more about building a second brain and Notion is looking like a very good contender.
I am using Dynalist for that. It is complemented with DevonThink and Notebooks. The main reason is security, since I do not want my data in an unsecured cloud (no e2ee). But Dynalist is quite powerful and has an insane free tier. It is basically my project, GTD and quick notes (brain dump) app with great view on all past tasks and project.
I am intrigued by Dynalist… I just checked it out and I am very happy with the feature set. I have a very particular workflow, and one of the most significant features I need is support for x-callback URLs. Notion.so does not currently support it — although I like its feature set a bit more (for future expansion). I am happy to see that Dynalist does! It is time to experiment.
Why have you chosen this instead of another platform - local or web? (If you don’t mind me asking.
I use callback URLs extensively as well, since I have my resources in DevonThink and the URLs also work in iOS (I am using iPad Pro instead of a notebook) and Dynalist is kinda a brain app that aggregates all the links to resources for given projects.
I started using Workflowy since I realized I am constantly making small notes when working on a project. An outlining app is ideal for this since the notes grow with the project while I still have a quick overview of past events (notes) and thus I can see it globally (while still being able to get to a detailed view of a particular part) and think about best next steps. Later I discovered Dynalist which was more powerful and their free tier was way better than Workflowy’s.
And then I discovered Dynalist is actually a capable GTD app. I have overview of due tasks (daily, monthly …). I can use time stamps so I have a great past view of completed tasks and thus I see the whole life of a project. Now I am using it instead of Things. And I love that I see the task in the context of the given project. I just work, realize something should be done so I add a tag to it and continue my work. And custom CSS in the PRO version is just an icing on the cake. When I am sorting my daily tasks icons of coffee cups represent a period of the day (so i tag a task as #morning and the task will be shown with 1 cup, noon are 2 cups etc. 
)
And the best thing is that you can do so much with Dynalist and just form it to your will.
This is quite promising…expensive though.
I too use DT extensively. I am a college professor and I want to use it for a second brain approach. The links work flawlessly on both macOS and iPadOS! I didn’t think of it as such a comprehensive tool though as you describe it.
Do you have any fears associated with the app? I am in it for the long run with everything related to my teaching — hence my extensive use of DEVONthink.
I think most people will do great with the free version. To be honest, I see the PRO features as “nice to have”. The only thing I would miss in the free version is the tag pane (list of all tags) and version history and maybe unlimited bookmarks.
The app itself exists for a couple of years and is under constant development of great new features (their road map: https://trello.com/b/z0HxDPNo/dynalist-roadmap). I also export all my completed projects and do backups to Dropbox (PRO version feature).
Do you think WorkFlowy is better, but too expensive. Sorry for all the questions, but when an app peeks my interest like this - and it may turn out to be a massive redirect of my current workflow - I love to get other’s perspectives on the matter.
Do you use Dynalist on iOS. It seems to be kind of laggy. Is that your experience?
Dynalist is way better than Worflowy. But the price is high. The developers said they are aware of it, but they develop a niche app for people that can see the value in it so they are not competing with price and rather concentrate on the feature set.
I have only a small delay when I start the app and it updates the latest state of my documents and then works without any trouble. Mobile apps are also relatively new, so they will definetly optimize them in the future.
Thank you for the assistance. I am about to jump in. My primary use-case is a primarily a wiki-style outliner. I have been evaluating Notion.so (no local URL linking), OmniOutliner (not really a wiki type software - which I really need), Mindnode 6 (not as versatile), and DEVONthink itself (but until DTTG supports multiple windows, I can’t use it for my workflow).
No problem Let me know how it goes.
Yep, been a long time user of Dynalist. It‘s a great idea put in shape. The free tier is all most people should require. My problem with it are twofold:
- it‘s really hard to get stuff out in formatted way
- you easily get lost inside the depths of nodes in nodes in nodes
Notion is scratching both itches AND supports Markdown. The modular system is really helpful and you also have the option to fold stuff like in Dynalist, with a Toggle module. But you can complement that with databases, pdf and images inline etc…
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