Notion, Notion, I can’t stop thinking about Notion. But it has one HUGE Problem.

Notion started as a simple note taking tool, but has quickly tuned into an everything app.

Compared to what I am using, Apple Notes, Calendar and Reminders however, this promises to be a do-it-all solution.

With multiple tools it can be difficult to see the big picture.

My Idea Hub library page has 471 lines of text that amounts to over 15,000 characters. Things can easily get lost so far down the page that I don’t ever remember that I had the idea in the first place.

Every time I see a stunning notion dashboard I think “I could do that”. So every few years I give it a shot again. I’ve tried using other people’s templates, but find that if I don’t create it and know how it functions, that bothers me, especially if I want to tweak something to be customized for my workflow.

This, “everyone’s using it” marketing momentum really is working, there is a vast amount of money tied up in the creator economy now for people selling templates, training and consulting related to setting up Notion. Think about that for a second.

The biggest problem with Notion isn’t a lack of features or something that it cannot do. Since it is free to use, the real cost of using Notion is time.

You could build the perfect setup, but how long will it take, should you invest the time?

You could pay someone else to set it up for you, then what do you do when it breaks, or your business grows or you add a new teammate and you can’t explain how the system works. Pay someone again?

I did a full video about Notion on YouTube this past week and you can see it here.

The Podcast is back this week after a week’s hiatus from not feeling well. Its hard to feed the content machine when you need rest and I took it.

If there were more time in the day I think I’d spend it reading and writing. One of my favorite things about YouTube is that I still write out all my thoughts ahead of time. Could I just make a bulleted list and film a video? Probably. Instead trying to word vomit a script and come back to it later so I cna clean up the transitions, work on the flow and organize the ideas into an order that makes sense is half the fun.

I do still enjoy getting to use the camera and edit the videos, but I’m honing in on the fact that writing is one of the key hallmarks of the process. Even doing the newsletter counts and helps me to re-word and re-work some of my existing video ideas into a different format.

It will be live tomorrow on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts!

Speaking of writing, This past week I finished off a podcast with Ali Abdaal and Nicholas Cole, one of the founders of Ship 30 for 30, a 30 day writing challenge that originated on X.

I took this course and challenge over a year ago now and it has done wonders for my writing on Threads. I couldn’t really break into X since the algorithm is a disaster these days, but I’ve steadily grown my following on Threads and people have seen A LOT of my writing online now.

One of the key insights from this podcast was “No Permission Needed” As with most professions historically there were table stakes. You needed a degree, some training, you couldn’t just walk into hollywood and be a director.

Maybe you started as a gaffer and worked your way up. Nowadays all bets are off with the internet. Anyone can do or be anything at any time. Want to be a writer? You can write online.

It is worth a watch/listen if you love writing or have any creative itch that you’d like to build into a money maker online.

What’s coming up

Connect and Engage