You all, we've had it all wrong. Notion is not a productivity tool. And in this video I want to talk about why
that is and why reframing our perspective on what Notion is can help us better
understand the platform and other tools like it, as well as actually make it
a tool for us to be more productive. And yes, there is a difference. So let's go ahead and talk about it. Now when Notion came onto the
market quite a few years back, it's understandable for us to have perceived
it as just another productivity tool. We had to liken it to something
like Evernote, or Trello, or Asana, or any of these other platforms
that were around at the time. Because, that's mostly where
it fit in, at that time. But as we've begun to
see over the years... They start to add additional features, new
blocks, new elements, and the complexity of the tool continues to increase. I've seen and I've heard frustrations
from many about using Notion because their perspective is like, well, it's
not particularly making my job easier. The complexities to interact with
the platform were higher than they were anticipating, right? Those hurdles, the barriers to entry
were increasing as the program and the platform started to evolve. Now, yes, there were some UX/UI
challenges earlier on that just weren't there yet, that they have solved
moving forward with some later updates, yet at the same time, those qualms
about the complexities remain, and, rightfully so, when people are still
looking at it as a productivity tool. Here is why I say Notion
is not a productivity tool. If you look at the Notion motto,
and if you've heard it, you'll see that their mission is "to make
software tool making ubiquitous". That absolutely underscores the
whole premise of why Notion is far more complex than what people might
have initially interpreted it to be. Their mission is far grander than
just being some productivity solution. Rather, we should be looking at Notion
as a platform to build our own systems. And it's entirely upon us whether
those systems are productive. Whether the structure of those
systems that we develop, hinder or enhance our productivity. Now, another major philosophy that
Notion has been strongly representing with their brand since the beginning, is
this idea that Notion and the elements and the tools within it are very
much similar to digital Lego blocks. And their entire conference is
referred to as "Block by Block". I feel justified to presume that, that
is more than just a conference name. " Block by Block" is a philosophy or an
approach that they're actually taking to the ways in which they are introducing us
to deeper levels of programmatic thinking. And actually, if you're interested on
more of that particular topic, I ended up writing an article about how I just wanted
to be a productive artist, and somehow Notion led me to programmatic thinking. I'm sure there's quite a few of us who
have had a similar journey, so if that interests you, go ahead and check out
that article, which I happen to write on a Web3 based platform called Paragraph. xyz, but I'll leave the link
down in the description or in the comment section below. Oh, and before I forget, if you're
enjoying the contents of this video, go ahead and give me a thumbs up and
subscribe for more content like this, and leave some feedback, if you will. A comment with saying, hey, this was
a helpful video, or, hey, I would like to hear more about this or that. It goes a long way. So thank you for tuning in, and
back to the rest of the content. Block by Block" is a philosophy or an
approach that they're actually taking to the ways in which they are introducing us
to deeper levels of programmatic thinking. If their overall motto and objective is
"to make software toolmaking ubiquitous", one thing that I'm seeing is that they're
doing their due diligence to introduce things in a very incremental fashion. I think they are being very mindful
about giving just enough of the tools, of the blocks, of the elements,
to let people play and to create something new and to experience what
it is that they're offering, without throwing the entire sink at us, That decision for things to be introduced
block by block, one thing at a time, very deliberately and, rolling out in
such a way that is reducing the amount of friction that we might have with
too many new features all at once. I think that's a very deliberate decision
because not everyone is a power user. Most people on the internet today
are still, by and large, you know, just interacting with it in a way
that feels comfortable to them. It's... The few and far between that are actually
the power users that are diving into the nuances of every platform, that are
looking into the docs, that are actually communicating with different devs and
their startups and their platforms via Slack channels or Discord servers. So, I do believe that Notion is mindful of
this and to achieve their goal of making software toolmaking ubiquitous, they have
to also spoon feed, in a way, the broader tech consumer base to some of these more
advanced concepts that each one of their blocks or their elements introduces to
developing out a system or a workflow. And so with that philosophy in mind,
things start to make more sense to me about how Notion is positioning
themselves, as well as why we should interpret it differently when it comes
to them just being a productivity tool. And since the company mission... seems heavily focused on that objective,
"to make software toolmaking ubiquitous", the broadest scope of their efforts
would be into providing each one of those blocks, or those different
pieces, to give us the tool set that we need to create these robust systems. While at the same time, leaving it mostly
upon us as the users of their platform, to discover what it means to create
a system or a solution for ourselves. Whatever our personal or
professional endeavors are. To commune with one another, as a
community base to share the ideas and the concepts that we have explored
and built using this particular tool. Sure, they have released a few templates
that provide out of the box solutions. And that's meaningful for those who
are likely pushing for those kinds of solutions directly from the Notion team. But by and large, you can tell,
they leave a lot of the support and the ingenuity and the solution
creating, to the community base. And that's why Notion has a rather
thriving creator economy, with many out there, like myself, who provide
solutions based on our configurations. Which allows us to... really begin diving into that programmatic
thinking and giving us the autonomy to start building out solutions to our
own professional and personal endeavors that don't particularly rely on a bunch
of different Third party platforms and solutions to cover every single nuance
of our business or our endeavors. So that's why I feel it's important for
us to not look at Notion as a productivity tool, but rather as a platform that
allows us to build productive systems for ourselves and for one another. So, I hope that brings a bit of
clarity to what the platform is, and maybe that's something that
has released a bit of tension for you, or maybe those frustrations
that you might have felt about why Notion felt one way versus another. And with this newfound clarity,
start approaching it with that open mindedness of creating something new. I had this saying at once that I
felt very strongly about when it came to feeling frustrated about
not finding the exact solutions for my business processes as a creative
entrepreneur in any other platform. And that is, "before you can trust the
process, you must design the process". And at the very least, if you're not
designing the process, You have to absolutely get behind the mind of the
one who is designing that process. And that's why I feel strongly about
whenever I release a template, that I'm actually doing some overview
or walkthrough of my mindset, the philosophy behind my approach to why
I built things a certain way or not. And, consequently, because of that, it
does take me a bit more time to roll out new templates because I want to be
more intentional about making sure that when I do, it's accompanied by the video
overview, the actual walkthrough or the guide that will help you to understand
the approach behind it, so that you can actually take advantage of that
template as if it was your own system. So, I say all that to say, with
newfound perspective, let's approach not just Notion, but any other
tool like it that came after it, or that has positioned itself as a
competitor to the Notion platform. Notion, Obsidian, Tana,
Trello, Capacities, anytype -- which I kind of like. Any of these tools, we should be
approaching with that philosophy in mind. It's not particularly their mission
to create an out of the box, productive solution for our endeavors. Rather, they are providing us with a
suite of tools, of elements, blocks, functions, all of these different things
that we can then take to design and structure our own productive solutions. So, that's that on that. Yes, the new MusicOS+ template will
be on the way very soon, I promise. And I will certainly make sure that it's
accompanied by, the visual overview, additional video guides, talking about
that system and how it can actually provide you with a meaningful, productive
system for your musical endeavors. Likewise, I'll have a couple
of other templates down the pipeline released as well. And I'll be working on those
videos to accompany those. Some are niche community things and
others are a bit broader perspective, but hopefully they provide you
all with meaningful solutions that improve your productivity. Because that's what we're here for, right? The creator economy that
surrounds these various platforms. Now, you might be wondering as well,
Hey, I've already got your previous template and now you're saying there's
going to be an upgraded version of that. If you're feeling any anxiety
around that, thinking, Hey, how am I going to get my existing data
into that new template structure? Don't worry, I have the perfect
video for you explaining how to do database migrations when it comes
to full Notion template systems. So go ahead and check that out, I'll
link it up above or somewhere in the description or comments below. Or at the end card, you
know, wherever that is. And, yeah, we'll get to it. We'll see you on the next one, alright? Peace. And blessings. Peace and blessings.
