Notion Review: Is This Project Manager Right For You?
While a relatively new entry into the project management space, Notion has evolved quite quickly to meet the needs of its users. It’s a platform that is notable for its versatility, and it is a well-known option for individuals and teams who want a reliable tool to organize and manage tasks–from note-taking to in-depth project management.
But does it incorporate the best project management techniques to help you or your team get organized?
Let’s find out.
What is Notion?
Notion is a cloud-based workspace where individuals and small teams can take notes, create documents, track projects and organize and manage tasks all in one place. It’s often referred to as an “all-in-one” workspace because users can collate all of their projects onto a single platform.
Notion’s popularity among professionals and students is credited to its personalization that caters to any workflow. As a user, you’ll have the freedom to customize the layout of your workspace, while still getting helpful guidance and templates to help you get started.
Background on Notion
Founded in 2016, Notion started as a note-taking app but has evolved into a comprehensive project management tool for solopreneurs and small teams. The platform’s mission is to make it possible for people to shape the productivity tool they use every day to match their needs.
Getting Started with Notion
Every feature on Notion is designed to help users be as organized as possible.
The platform is segmented into pages that can be nested or interlinked at your convenience. As soon as you sign up, you’ll be redirected to your Welcome screen containing some tips to get started. This includes linked videos that guide you in creating your first page and setting up your to-do lists and projects.
On the left side, you’ll find a list of default pages, such as ‘Quick Note’, ‘Personal Home’, and ‘Task List’ which you can customize and add. Whenever you create a new page it will show up on the left panel. You can add personalized header images, descriptive comments, and add associated icons to your pages.
Simply click anywhere on a page to add blocks for individual pieces of content such as text, lists, media, links, and sub-pages. You can also just type “/” to bring up a menu of blocks you can add to your new page. 
How Notion Works: Key Features
Although Notion started as a note-taking app, it has become far more than that. The tool has promising features that go beyond creating to-do lists and make it a competent productivity and project management app.
Integrated User Guides
A commendable feature of Notion is that user guides are already embedded in the platform. For example, if you want to create a new document, you’ll find guides on how to get the most out of the preinstalled page.
Of course, this can be a hit or miss. Some users may be grateful for the step-by-step guides, while others may be frustrated with manually deleting pre-installed guide pages to clean up their workspace.
Customizable Pages & Templates
Notion makes it easy for you to create pages and documents in whatever style you want. Pages are like folders where you can store all information related to a particular topic. You can include a range of blocks or items on your pages such as text, toggle lists, to-do lists, images, video links, tables, boards, and maps.
Every change you make to a page or block is automatically saved in Notion. So you can always go back and view the history of a page if there’s something that you want to restore. This is pretty useful for when you make a mistake or just want to experiment with different versions of a page.
Notion is also very generous when it comes to templates. It provides users with a ton of options, whether they’re creating blog posts, articles, event schedules, or product launch plans. Fortunately, all templates are fully customizable so you can modify them to your taste without having to build from scratch. The platform also encourages users to submit their own templates so the library grows to fit a wider range of needs.
Collaborative Workspaces
Users can create different workspaces for different projects, which is useful if you need to manage multiple projects at once. Every workspace will have its own pages so all your information will remain separate and organized.
Notion allows you to invite other people to your workspace so you can collaborate in real time. The limit of guests you can have at a time depends on the plan you choose.
Integrations
As a good workspace should, Notion integrates with a wide range of popular productivity tools so you can easily share information across the platforms you use. These tools include Slack, GitHub, Zoom, Trello, Google Drive, and more.
For instance, you can make use of the Google Drive integration to quickly add and share files from your Google Drive directly to your Notion workspace.
Notion AI
Notion AI is a relatively new feature for workspaces. It’s a connected assistant powered by GPT-3 that’s developed to help boost your creativity and write content faster. Essentially, it eliminates the need to jump between your work and a separate AI-powered tool.
The feature can help you generate ideas for blog posts, social media posts, press releases, job descriptions, meeting agendas, and more. You’ll also be able to summarize pieces of content, correct spelling, and grammar, and translate text (English, Spanish, Chinese, and French).
Notion Use Cases
Solopreneurs
Individuals who are working freelance will benefit from an organizational tool like Notion. It can help with a variety of processes such as:
- Documenting and managing career goals
- Organizing projects for different clients
- Managing content creation schedules
Professional teams
Small professional teams can benefit from Notion’s features because it ensures that all team members can collaborate on the same tool for multiple purposes. These purposes include:
- Planning meetings and recording meeting notes
- Setting task lists based on priority
- Drawing up onboarding documentation for recruits
- Brainstorming internal team goals (digital suggestion box)
- Organizing a company roster
Students
Students also make great use of Notion because of its impressive note-taking and organizational capabilities. Students can easily organize their notes by class and keep track of all reading and assignments (by the due date) for each class. The best part is Notion can even allow easier collaboration for group projects since the free plan allows sharing with up to 10 guests.
What makes Notion stand out from other platforms?
Notion stands out in two major ways; it’s very customizable to support any workflow, and it brings all work together in one shared location.
Unlike many productivity tools, Notion doesn’t just focus on solving one problem, such as organization. The way Notion is designed gives users the freedom to mold their workspace in a way that works best for them. On one hand, individuals can use it to keep their notes, to-do lists, calendars, and journals in one accessible platform. Additionally, professional teams can use it to build collaborative docs, product roadmaps, and wikis for their company.
Notion Pricing
Notion has four pricing plans: Free, Plus, Business, and Enterprise.
- Personal (Free): The forever-free plan allows users to create unlimited pages and blocks with an allowance of 5MB file uploads. You can also share or collaborate on projects with a maximum of 10 guests, and receive basic page analytics, 7-day page history, and integration with other tools such as Slack or GitHub.
- Plus ($8/month per user): The Plus plan is geared towards small professional groups. On this plan, you can invite up to 100 guests for collaboration. You’ll also get unlimited file uploads and 30-day page history.
- Business ($15/month per user): This plan is for companies that use Notion to connect many teams and tools and you can invite up to 250 guests. You also get authentication features (SAML + Single Sign On), private team spaces, bulk PDF export, advanced page analytics, and 90-day page history.
- Enterprise: This subscription is targeted toward medium to large businesses and offers more advanced capabilities. You will need to contact the Notion sales team to discuss the pricing plan that fits your business’s complex needs. You can request a trial of this specific plan if you’d rather try it before making any significant investment.
Unfortunately, none of the plans come with Notion AI because it’s an optional add-on. It costs $8/month per member and is billed annually at $96. If you’d rather pay monthly, it’ll set you back $10/per month per member.
Notion’s Pros and Cons
Pros
- The customization features are better than most.
- A great solution for note-taking and creating to-do lists.
- You can use Notion to create wiki pages or simple websites with useful information about your business or products.
- Pricing is affordable for solopreneurs and small teams.
- The forever-free plan has sufficient features for solopreneurs.
- The structure of folders allows for shortcuts so you can reach your content from multiple places.
- Notion’s tutorials are comprehensive for everyone to understand and the support team is responsive and helpful.
Cons
- Although Notion’s UI is very usable, it can sometimes get cluttered once you start adding multiple projects, which can be overwhelming for newbies.
- Advanced project management features, such as reporting, time tracking, and Gantt charts are lacking.
- Managing multiple projects on Notion can become tedious.
- Security features are lacking, as basic features like two-factor authentication are not available, even for paid plans.
- Notion AI is billed separately as an add-on.
- May not be the best option for those looking for project management software for software development.
Is Notion Right For Your Organizational Needs?
Notion should be commended for its simplicity, familiarity, and affordability. If you need a straightforward entry-level solution for creating content and planning and managing projects then Notion is a great choice.
With that being said, large businesses that have complex needs may not see the platform as comprehensive enough to streamline their project management. However, Notion is a tool that keeps evolving and works hard to improve its capabilities to fit businesses of all sizes.
If you want to keep checking other project management software that may suit you better, Findstack has more helpful reviews and insights that you can take a look at. Our goal is to help you find the right tool for your needs.
