Meet the people who use Notion to plan their whole life

Tommy Meyer, a web developer from Phoenix, Arizona, started using Notion around 2018 after realizing he was constantly carrying around three different laptops in an effort to stay organized. “I haven’t written a grocery list on paper in years,” he says. He also uses it to help him plan any fantasy novels he wants to write.

While Notion lends itself to note-taking and journaling, Adam Warren, a dubber and voice-over artist from the UK, also uses it to manage his YouTube channel projects.

“I now earn something equivalent to the salary of a good full-time job on Youtube and Patreon, and all the management of this business is done in Notion,” he explains. “I have all my video projects in a database and I use the kanban view to track their status. I also script my videos directly in these database pages.

For people who like to feel organized, these types of platforms make a lot of sense. Apps like Notion can help us structure and simplify our lives so they feel less overwhelming and chaotic, says consulting psychologist Elena Touroni.

However, spending too much time optimizing and organizing our lives can be counterproductive when we prioritize creating to-do lists over completing the actual tasks, a phenomenon known as fallacy. planning, says Gabriele Oettingen, professor of psychology at New York University.

Using Notion to track whether you’re drinking enough water or jogging, or using it to schedule homework, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re actually doing those things. “In a way, Notion might help structure me, but it might not work to move me forward,” she says.

For people like Bergen who use the same app to map both their personal and professional lives, there can be downsides, Touroni adds.