Is Notion “Too Good”?
As I begin to realize more and more of my workflow can head to Notion, part of me is happy that I can see all my life in one little box. But another part is worried, worried that perhaps by putting all my eggs in one basket — regardless of how good of a basket it is — I may be setting myself up for failure.
You can do a lot on Notion. Even in its early days of an Excel alternative, the database features were so powerful that people were able to construct entire websites and products using Notion as the backend. Then came updates like linking, functions, the Notion API, and most recently AI assistance… it’s gotten to the point where you can do anything on the platform.
The fact that Notion is a 10/10 product is pretty undebatable. Barring a few inefficiencies here and there, it does what it sets out to do remarkably well. But when you have one tool that can do everything, other concerns begin to arise.
Right now, I am writing this blog post on Notion. When I’m done, I mark this off in my todo list, also in Notion. From there that todo list notifies my dashboard, also in Notion. My dashboard contains many of the products I’m currently building out, which in turn leads to more Notion pages.
So what happens if Notion goes away?
Sure, outages happen occasionally. Quite ominously one occurred while I was writing this very post, which is where the header image comes from. I was forced to take a temporary break from working on pretty much all my projects, and used a Notepad todo list that I struggled to remember what exactly I needed to get done (or could even do in the first place, given Notion’s outage).
Now, that outage ended up lasting only 45 minutes. But one day, very suddenly, Notion might not exist at all. Remember all those people awhile back who got their Google or Stripe accounts mysteriously deleted, causing them to upend their entire lives? Could the same thing happen for Notion?
Back in 2021 I wrote an article entitled Aggregation and Decoupling. It argued that tech goes through phases of one tool being used for everything, only for that tool to be “taken out” by many different tools that do each task much better. I think where we stand right now, Notion is the aggregate tool. And one day, Notion will be decoupled. I go back and forth often as to whether I should settle for the inefficiencies but hedged-risk of using multiple products anyway, or go for the cozier yet more risky strategy of staying on Notion. What are your thoughts, and what do you personally use Notion for? If you don’t use Notion, is there any product you do use that seems to give you the same benefit/problem?
[Originally posted on jacob-robinson.com at 2023-01-19]
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Yes.
I lose sleep over this consistently.
o man I feel you. having everything in one basket drives me crazy.
The "all my eggs" in one basket thing is something I also stress about a lot. Productivity in Notion, or cloud storage in Google Drive, or notes in Obsidian... it's a balance of keeping your options open in case things get messy but also understanding that you can only have so many backups :)
I personally store everything in Notion, but every week I back up certain important information redundantly to Obsidian. It's a bit time consuming, but worth it.
I do something similar, though I save it to Google Drive and a local archive -- the amount of redundancy I put in usually depends on 1) how important it is and also 2) how far along the project is (if its relatively trivial to restart I can keep it on one platform but if its years of work then its saved to at least 4-5 places)
I started with Notion a couple years back (I think 2019) when I was writing my first novel. I went on vacation and found out I had no internet and thus I couldn't access my notes... and during the period of vacation I wanted to be working my novel I couldn't.
From that day forward I was looking for local fully offline version of Notion and landed on Obsidian + auto git for syncing. Now I have my workflow working flawlessly across my devices and peace of mind that all my work is backed up every time I write.
If Notion worked offline without caching, as in locally stored, I would use it in a heartbeat again. But not being able to write an article (like what happened to you) because their service went down sounds like a majority faulty product to me.
Since writing this article I also moved my notes section to Obsidian. I don't think I could fully get away from Notion because it's added features are at this point more important to me than offline backup, but I'm constantly thinking of alternate paths I could go down in case of an apocalyptic Notion event :)
Imagine, notion synced to offline backups 😨 too OP
There are already individual tools that do things that Notion does, but better. This is the ebb and flow of business. Market gets used to one thing, notices the downsides, craves the other.
If I'm really, really honest with myself... I choose it over it's competitors largely because of the integrations and aesthetic over any functionality.
I agree that the integrations are really important!
That's a reason why I don't use Notion...
I always think of that thing..
But in case notion even goes bankrupt or down forever, it will give us a chance to download our data.
So I guess no need to worry!
It's that old "double-edged sword" thing...
Part of what I LOVE about Notion is that it's so flexible, it's become the place I put EVERYthing digitally - for both work and play.
So the idea of losing EVERYthing is terrifying.
I'm in the "betting it's too big to fail" camp. 🤞
I put everything in Notion. It's a true "everything tool," able to handle documents, notes, journaling, tasks, project management, etc., and do it all incredibly well thanks to the extensible blocks.
I'm betting that Notion is too big to fail. Sure, there will be outages. But will we lose our data forever? I'm betting not. In the same way I'm betting that my Gmail won't disappear.
Risky, but we all have to take some risks in life, otherwise we'll send 100% of our time making backups of backups of backups.
I like the idea of betting it to be too big to fail! With so many active users on the site, if it were to one day suddenly fail they would have to allow for some easy export feature otherwise suffer a complete PR and legal disaster. Same logic as to how banks have to give the depositor money back in case of failure. It's not foolproof (sometimes the banks don't have the money) but like you said its better to take a risk then waste time making backups of backups of backups
I'm continually amazed by Notion's exceptional usability and the myriad of uses people have discovered for it. From organizing one's entire life to building side gigs, tutorials, and utilizing templates, its versatility is truly impressive.
One feature I often ponder about is the possibility of an "export" function, enabling users to package their content in various formats of their choice. This could seamlessly integrate with an "exporter" software, streamlining the process of collecting and accessing crucial data.
While I have confidence in Notion's stability, I believe it's always wise to maintain backups of sensitive data for offline access. Can't wait to see what new features are coming to the platform. Exciting times ahead!
It's amazing how people depend on Notion this day. It means Notion do a really good work to fulfill their user even to the point that they can't live and work without Notion anymore. In my opinion, there's nothing to worry about Notion to going down soon. Just make sure you support them by do subscription that also will help your work with added feature. These days a lot of people even live by making Notion Template and Notion Tutorial. They make the Notion name even bigger.
The saver alternative, idk but you might try the conventional way like microsoft which you can save the file or stored it in you cloud. A lot of people also convenient using Google suites which also save and powerful tools.
I agree it won't happen any time soon, it's more just a fear you have as any creator. Like how you see those horror stories on Slashdot of people who have their Google Drives randomly wiped and then Google refuses to help them get any of it back 🙃
i wanna learn more about how you use notion
i use it for kanban boards and todo lists, but not in any way that it's not replaceable. curious if i could get some productivity gains out of it
IMO todo lists are pretty weak in Notion, so I can see where you're coming from. I primarily use the databases for things like content scheduling -- if I'm making a new blog post or a video it is written, edited, and scheduled using Notion. This very article uses that method!
I am also basing all my 'internal knowledge base' in Notion. The AI capabilities with Q&A are astonishing, it's like having Ctrl+F into my mind.
Agree with @jdriselvato on the offline capabilities, it's indeed lacking. Might give it a try at Obsidian, my co-founder is a fan of it.
I have a great workflow setup in Notion but how am I supposed to make a backup? Everything is so interconnected in its functionality.
It makes sense to experience mixed emotions when putting so much of workflow onto a single platform. I myself use notion to manage roadmaps, projects, notes. But I also keep redundancy by backing up important data offline
Did not know Notion is an all-in one tool. That is not relatively good for longevity, when it comes to indie hacking at least.
Totally agree that Notion is a really useful tool, but only for short-term projects and small teams. If you have complex tasks, long-term projects, and a lot of resources, then it's better to try some kind of multi-functional platforms like GanttPRO, Asana, or Wrike.
For example, any tool based on an online Gantt chart today looks much more attractive for planning, task management, resource control, communication, and more.