Overview
Notion is described as an ‘all-in-one workspace’ by its creators. It is a productivity tool that combines note-taking, task management, database creation, and many more features in a single platform, making it a one-stop solution for organizing and managing information. Founded in 2013 by Ivan Zhao, it started as a website builder but failed in the initial stage then it was officially launched in 2016 as “Notion 2.0 – the all-in-one workspace”. It was popularised among the masses, especially students, and organizations due to its ability to organize with ease and create, customize, and collaborate with teams. It is suitable for everyone, whether for personal use, solopreneurs, freelancers, businesses, or students.
Features of Notion
Notion has a wide array of features that are designed to meet all your productivity needs.
- Notes and Documents – Notion has a flexible editor that allows you to create and organize notes and documents. You can format text, embed multimedia, and files, and jot down ideas.
- Task Management – With its built-in tools like Kanban board, timeline, calendar, tables, and boards, you can create a to-do list, assign tasks, set due dates, and track progress.
- Database Creation – You can create custom databases to store information and track inventory, projects, contacts, or any other databases that you need to manage.
- Collaboration Tools – If you have a small or big team, you can collaborate with your team seamlessly through real-time editing, comments, and mentions.
- Templates and Customisation – Notion has an inbuilt library of vast templates that you can choose from and customize as per your needs. Or you can build your own from scratch to suit your personal preferences.
- Integrations – Notion has integrations with third-party tools like Google Docs, Trello, Slack, and more. This allows you to connect with your tools and access all the resources in one place.
- Centralized Knowledge Base – Notion serves as a centralized knowledge base where you can store and access documents, resources, and important information. You can also create interconnected pages, link related content that makes managing projects simple and efficient.
- Calander and Scheduling – Notion has calendar features where you can schedule events, and reminders and manage the scheduled content.
- Goal and Progress Tracking – Notion enables you to set goals, track your progress, and visualize your performance using customizable dashboards and progress trackers.
- Cross-platform Accessibility – Notion offers cross-platform accessibility across web, desktop, and mobile devices so you can use it from anywhere.
- Notion AI – Notion has an inbuilt AI feature where you can ask the AI to draft posts, blogs, brainstorm content ideas, or anything you want, all within the app.
Pros & Cons of Notion
Pros
- Great Features – Notion has great features like note-taking, database and task management, collaborative tools, and many more which makes it a versatile all-in-one productivity tool.
- Customization – You get to customize the pages, dashboards, and layout as per your preference and make your workspace as personalized as you can.
- Flexibility – With features like page integration and embedding documents, your workflow becomes seamless.
- You Can Work With Your Team – Notion allows seamless collaboration between team members.
- Template Library – It has inbuild templates that can serve as a starting point for new users.
- Multi-device Availability – It is available on all mobile and desktop devices.
- Forever Free – While Notion has other pricing options, it offers a forever free plan with limited features which can be enough if you are using it for personal or one-person use.
Cons
- Learning Curve – If you are new to Notion, it can be a daunting task to learn its advanced features and customization options. The template gallery makes it easy but if you want to explore complex functions and integration, it may take a while to learn.
- Limited Offline Function – While Notion is now available offline, it is slow and limited to editing documents. To use Notion to its full capability, you must use it while being online.
- UX on Other Devices – While Notion’s interface is great on desktops or laptops, the same can’t be said for other devices. The ease of access and functionality is not good on mobile devices.
- Performance Issues – Some users have reported that Notion can be glitchy or takes time to load at times.
- Pricing – Notion’s paid plans are relatively expensive compared to similar productivity apps and tools.
Plans
Notion offers four different price ranges –
- Forever Free: In this plan, you get all the basic tools and functions. You can upload up to a size of 5MB media each time, and get to invite 10 guests for collaboration.
- Notion Plus: Notion Plus is ideal for small groups and offers $8 per month which is billed annually. If you want to pay monthly then it’s $10 per month. The added features are –
- Unlimited blocks for teams
- Unlimited file uploads
- Invite 100 guests
- Notion Business: Notion Business is ideal for companies and offers $15 per month which is billed annually. For a monthly subscription, it’s $18 per month. The added features are –
- SAML SSO
- Private team spaces
- Bulk PDF export
- Advanced page analytics
- Invite 250 guests
- Notion Enterprise: Notion Enterprise is best for an entire organization. To know the price of this plan, you have to contact the Notion team or you can request a demo. The added features in this plan are –
- User provisioning (SCIM)
- Advanced security & controls
- Audit log
- Customer success manager
- Workspace analytics
- Unlimited page history
- Security & Compliance integrations
- Invite 250 guests
To use Notion AI, you have to pay $8 to $10 monthly or annually after its free trial gets over.
Customer Reviews
“To-Do Lists and Brainstorming Hub”
★★★★★
What do you like best about Notion?
I like the status buttons and that they are color-coded so it pops out more. I like that this platform feels like one long-running but organized to-do list. You can have one central project and create different headers, bulleted lists, checklists, and status updates all under one roof. This is like everything I scribble down on a notepad but in a very streamlined and organized way.
What do you dislike about Notion?
Some of the templates could be a little more in-depth and have some more descriptions and niche uses.
What problems is Notion solving and how is that benefiting you?
Notion is helping individuals and teams solve project management issues. Especially in Marketing or other creative industries, there are so many steps involved in each aspect, task, and sub-task of a project. It is easy to lose parts in the process. With this system, you can create projects for yourself to stay on top of your own projects and deadlines, and you can also assign projects to others so everyone has access to the same document/project. This is a way to hold both yourself and your teammates accountable.
“My go-to software for organizing my freelance and personal projects“
★★★★★
What do you like best about Notion?
Notion is a software that can be just about anything you need it to be. It gives you the canvas and tools to build whatever pages, databases, wikis, or boards you need to organize your life or business. And if you’re not a do-it-yourselfer, there are hundreds of pre-built templates from fellow Notion users. If you’re looking for a dedicated CRM, project management, or goal tracker tool, you’ll find other dedicated products with more robust features, but if you want to consolidate all of these services and more into a single, affordable, software, you won’t find anything better than Notion. I use Notion daily for everything from household finances and home projects to client and project tracking for my freelance business.
What do you dislike about Notion?
Notion’s feature set currently lacks in a few areas: (although each of these are listed as upcoming features by the Notion team)
- Workflow automation options are limited, with only a few triggers/actions to choose from. The public API is nice, and there are a lot of out-of-the-box integrations offered, but Webhooks and more automation options would go a long way.
- Database permissions are limited in that it’s impossible to grant different users/groups permissions to different subsets of the data in a database. This is especially frustrating if you want a common database driving task/project management across your entire organization but don’t want all tasks visible to everyone.
- Database templates that are built or updated after some of the database is populated can not be automatically applied to all existing database entries. This makes for a tedious process if you want all entries in the database to have a common look/feel.
What problems is Notion solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use Notion to manage my novel writing, household finances, home projects, freelance business, and as a host for my webpage. I’ve never encountered software with this level of flexibility before.
