Why Everyone Is OBSESSED With Notion 

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The ikea effect is maybe why people love minecraft so much, you are putting dedicated hours into building your perfect treehouse. And the meta game comes along with it as well

Takeaways: • Notion is a software tool that claims to transform one's productivity and organization skills. • It combines different features of other software tools such as note-taking, to-do lists, project management, and more. • Notion's success can be attributed to its simplicity and user-friendliness, which is the result of its founders' efforts to distill the most essential features of existing software. • Notion is based on three key psychological principles: the Ikea effect, Maslow's hammer, and the metagame. • The Ikea effect describes how people attribute more value to things they build themselves, which applies to Notion since users spend time building their perfect templates. • Maslow's hammer refers to the tendency to use familiar tools for all purposes, which drives people to try and solve every aspect of their lives with a Notion database. • The metagame describes how Notion's user community has created a vast infrastructure of tutorials, events, strategies, and more, which has contributed to the software's success.

Every time I look at Notion, I think “wow that looks like a huge pain to configure and I don’t feel like doing that.” I guess that’s kind of what they’re counting on: that sunken cost fallacy from having dumped so much time into making it something you want to use just incentivizes using it.

Notion is a gamechanger for us neurodivergent folk precisely because everything is in one spot. I have ADHD and I forget things I don't see every day and the more complex the productivity system, the less likely I am going to adopt it. I physically cannot use more than two or three apps, otherwise my brain starts sounding off alarms. Now that Notion has become so familiar, I was able to get used to using more apps, but it's still the backbone of my getting things done. I use Todoist for my to dos as I love the speed of it to capture ideas and tasks, but I plan things, make notes, write, keep my knowledge all in Notion. So I don't care what they do, why they do it, I'm just glad they came up with this system.

Notion is big for a reason. When i found it about it, i wanted to cry because i immediately thought about how freakin useful this would have been if i knew about it back in highschool and college. The organization, the databases, the side-view options to view two pieces of data at the same time, unbelievable. I've got my own customized dashboard now that i know exactly where everything is and where to go when i have a sudden hyperfixation pop up. The three main things you mentioned in the video are true, but i think there's also something to be said about how Notion is just a really really good product. When it works for one's organization method, it works amazingly.

I just have a notebook and a pen

I remember I had so much fun setting up my Notion. Of course I never used it.

I have recently started watching your videos and I am blown away by the content you have here. I love that you get right to the topic (no clickbait stuff), cover it from quite a lot of angles and present it in a manner that allows the viewer to understand and consume it at their own pace. Keep up the great work! Hope you reach millions and millions of subscribers soon!

I agree! Personaly, I can't use Notion for any planning or todo lists, but I still use it to organise my notes or ideas. Something like a personal website with everything I need. :D

You nailed it. Ikea effect + Maslow’s hammer. There’s one more effect, that I might call the Lego effect: if, instead of making a deep, narrow tool, you make a wide shallow tool, like Legos, that lets you build anything with it, that has a real value in its flexibility. Minecraft, HyperCard, pencil, and paper, HTML, and programming languages all have this quality. Having bought a couple Notion templates, however, there is one big caution - it takes a lot discipline to build something that someone else can use.

In a way, Notion became that hammer for me. I could organize everything that I had spread all around the computer into a single place and all that even became searchable. I replaced random todo.txt files, Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, Evernote's .... notes. It surely is not great at everything, but it is enough to keep me organized (or at least feel like it). For most stuff the setup was minimal, but moving the notes with tags was quite the nightmare 😅

If it wasn't clear, I actually am a fan of Notion and find the way they leveraged these psychological principles in their product so fascinating. I currently use it to manage making these YT videos + having my fulltime product manager job so it looks like it's working! This video is not sponsored by Notion, but if you want to try it, doing it via this link affiliate.notion.so/enritarta helps supporting the channel if you ever end up purchasing a paid plan!

I especially love what you say at the end about notion users going from unproductive to founders 😂😂😂😂 as I'm literally in the process of understanding the nature of my business and using notion a lot to keep track of expenses, quarterly projects and hope to one day upgrade the plan when I'm able to hire an assistant.

I totally get the appeal of Notion, but it is so daunting to get into. Everything being on the cloud meant that it took a while to load what I wanted quickly; making it extremely cumbersome. Obsidian is a lot easier to get into, but the linking of notes isn't really useful until you get a handful of notes. I did try to get most of my notes on there, but I ended up just using Samsung Notes for everything. Both Notion and Obsidian are really cool for what they are. But they seem like solutions for problems I don't really have.

These are the same reasons that Obsidian is treated in a similar way. But Obsidian is even more flexible and has many many extensions. I've spent soo much time tweaking on both Notion and Obsidian D:

Mate, this is some sick content. Please never change your style of content in the future for simplification. It's very rare to find detailed videos like this.

Take this with a grain of salt, because I’m a Notion fanboy - but I think a key reason people love it so much is because of how powerful the relations are. What you mentioned certainly play a part, but leveraging the database relations really puts Notion above and beyond any other productivity tool. I think putting to-do lists and other items into a separate app - essentially in a vacuum - is a huge mistake and a missed opportunity.

I clicked so fast :D haha, always thought there is some conspiracy about Notion :D

I just discovered your channel today and your videos are really well thought-out and interesting. Thank you for taking time to make them!

I like that you find an interesting and educating aspect to your videos. Really makes you stand out! Quality stuff!

I love the directness and straightforwardness of your videos.

I enjoy the simplicity. I’ve switched from bullet journaling to notion

Im obsessed with Notion myself and this video very acurately describes me why so!

This guys energy makes his videos fantastic.

Do not ever tell Notion's founders that the free version has everything.

this made so much sense and it was so entertaining man. It really makes me stop for a second and think how I can use the psychology behind it to my advantage

I have been using it for 1 year and I could easily see myself using this for a very long time. I started with a simple setup and over time I made it more complex over time.

I found your channel a few days ago and feel like I found the ground floor of something that's going to become big! Keep the content coming!

Your channel is a seam of hidden gems! So glad to see you taking off! 😊

Great video this covers something I've always wondered about and you answered it well...

Notion is like the feeling you get when something is just so practical and convenient that you want to use it just for the sake of it being useful lol

Love the analysis! I'm currently unable to live without Notion and all of these reasons explain why. Great to learn this as as UX designer as well!

The last part is so true, If I ever build a startup, I'll definitely use notion for everything there.

Nicely done. Thanks for creating this video!

Great video on the ‘why’ perspective of Notion- I've been trying to sort this out for a while now. I've circled back to Notion no less than 5 times (and ultimately forgot about Notion shortly after each time) over the past 2 years and just can't get into using it. I've watched tutorials, purchased templates, spent hours trying to set up my own systems within it, and at the end of the day it just wasn't for me. Sometimes I feel like I'm missing out on this “magic” that so many other people find in it, but it's just not for me. At the end of the day it's what works best for you.

Also discovered your channel a few days ago and watched all videos. I'm sure the channel will blow up, your videos are super interesting and well made!

Incredible. Great job bro!

Your Videos Just keep getting better. Keep It up my friend🙂

Great Video! Thanks you Enrico!

I love notion because it can do anything you want, all in one spot. no more having a journal and a calendar and like 10 notebooks I never use, now it’s all together where I’ve put it

Stumbled upon several of your videos, nice analysis, delivery and presentation!

Great content as always, love from Italy 💪

Thanks, this was the bit I was missing!

Genius take! Thanks for sharing.

Good video. I'm a recent convert to Notion and this was really illuminating about why I like it so much.

I never paid attention until last and ofc now i get recommend without template

this video added a lot of value - well done

Hi, I’m Gaia, a rare italian who doesn’t know how to properly cook a meal too. I subscribed and fill out your form about how to make a video. I’m very interested in the process behind it. I was looking for Notion Set Up Tutorial then I click on your video because I was feeling it: it was an OBSESSION and I didn’t know WHY. You explained it in a funny way. Now, I don’t know if I’m going to open Notion again, maybe I will do it for the Ikea effect. I’m pretty sure I could create a fancy aesthetically pleasing Notion setup which I would never really use. Let’s see :D Sorry for my weird written english :S

In any relational database program like Access and Base you start with tables, queries, forms and reports with quaint user interface and somewhat burdensome user experience in getting to what module you want. Notion made this easy with simplicity and aesthetically straightforward for non-programmers to program and set what they like without having to construct modules like programmers do. That's the beauty of Notion.

honestly, for me it just makes it harder to be productive by planning and organising everything. the notion of, well, organising your notion keeps you in the notion of being productive. for me a sharpie and post it notes does tenfolds

Your videos are produced really well. A lot a continuity across different videos makes it nice to watch your videos in a sequence. Also, de editing skills are definitely there.

Amazing Video!

This was such a great video. Editing is 🔥

From my perspective I did everything you mentioned in the video (metagame, ikea effect, etc.) but it effected my productivy. I was barely studying 3 hours a day and trying to plan my next week and next month. But never accomplishing any of the task I wrote. When i started to use notion I could all the statistics and it was fun to use and building a page made me feel great, ikea effect.

I'd never heard of Notion when your video hit my feed, now I feel like using it.

I love notion for the same reason I love bullet journaling. It’s an adaptive tool that changes with me, that I can customize and be creative with while still being organized and having everything in one place. It’s a dream come true for neurodivergent people. Same with bullet journaling. At this point I think you’re either a ‘notion person’ or you’re not.

I found your vids veeeery ptoductive and analysis on tech is beyond expectation. Good cheers from Korea. Woww.

It’s wild that you don’t have more subscribers, great video again Enrico!!

Wow! That’s fantastic

Great video and great insights!

so well presented , subscribed

You honestly might've just saved the trajectory of my life by showing this app off. I've had issues with productivity and memory for many years and always wanted a way to organize my routine for optimization. This shit is fucking golden.

Wow. I've been trying to use Notion because of the hype, but I've found it to be counterintuitive and I find myself feeling guilty wanting to just go back and making my own Google sheet to organize my thoughts. This video takes that guilt away.

I'm glad that I never heard of Notion until I saw your video

really cool insights!

I came up with an approach for taking notes, using simply text files and file folders on my pc. I use notepad++ to view the files, and to do searching when necessary. I wish the searching was faster, and I rely heavily on tabs, but otherwise it is sufficient.

This video is SO freakin' well done. I got on the notion train 3 years ago when the hype was rising. At first it felt very overwhelming. But as I kept playing with it, I couldn't help but feel a deep sense of pride in what I had built (even though it's really not that impressive lol). Thanks for making this video!

Very nice presentations and motion graphics! But I'm old school analogue with all the post-it notes stuck to the wall in front of my desk. I sometimes even use my windows as a white board to draw diagrams, lists of tasks or ideas.

Bruh, you’re breakdown is so spot on, brilliant assessment. You are 💯 correct.

I stumbled upon notion by accident. It’s been an absolute game-changer and I didn’t know how popular it is until now. I love how customizable it is. I originally started using it just to categorize and store video ideas but now I use it for my every day journal, prayer journal, and more. It’s so great to have a one-stop shop for all this stuff and it can easily be loaded up on any platform and it syncs super well. The iCloud notes don’t sync super well and it’s a hassle to load it up on PC. Notion also saves me a ton of time with letting me create templates and customize everything for maximum productivity

excelent content mate

I’ve found Notion to be quite useful but daunting to build a system in. In the end, after figuring out what it can and can’t do easily for me, I decided to use it only for aspects of organising information that fall into a certain level of complexity that is within Notion’s sweet spot. Anything that is too complex for Notion gets a bespoke solution, anything too simple to bother with, I don’t bother with.

Great watch! I think for myself stuff like notion and OneNote i just end up using out of convenience because they are better than most note taking apps I've come across. So i don't even actually maximize them to their full potential in the end since my use is purely as a way of me being able to have things across my devices and edit them on the fly whether I'm on my phone or pc or tablet. Be it work related stuff, or grocery lists or drafting up writing etc :)

This video is so hilarious but so surreal and painfully honest lol

Notion is a pain but I love it. if you need to collaborate, schedule, and do tasks. use your iPhone. reminders, calendar, texting. stop emailing. stop using a software, use your phone, you are already on it.

There's quite an amount of truth to this video

Notion is the digital equivalent to bullet journaling. The Hype works for both in the same way.

this is such a cool thing!

Newcomer to the channel, your videos are fascinating. Keep up the good work!

you're not a sellout, GOOD video 😎

wow great analysis

I am known as having an obsession with Notion at work and am constantly pushing for us to use it so adds up... but still its really cool and everyone should use it

good insight !

Youre my new favority on here! Great and smart videos!

Love this video

I started using it properly yesterday and yes I can concur you can drown in setting up instead of being productive, and you might try and be smart by saying you will use free templates online but that's when the Metagame creeps in. Perfect video bro 100%

Yup, capitalizing on making people feel productive without actually doing anything. Genius idea.

I fell into the Notion vortex realizing soon enough that my task management was doing great with Things 3, and that my digital filing system was working great with Evernote (which I've been using for over a decade) both are those dedicated apps you mentioned. Why would I transfer my to-do lists, my PDFs, my uncountable Docs and Notes to an unknown, harder-to-grasp app, when the ones I'm using work so well? Yes, Notion is a very good-looking, appealing app and I'm sure when I run into the right situation it can prove very useful. Very interesting concepts the Ikea Effect and Maslow Hammer. I did like learning about those! So here's my like my good man!

Notion is to organization, what Excel is to managing data and calculations. It's so fast to build interesting layout that for sure you want to do everything with it. It's the same that happens with Excel. Doing calculations is the minimum effort for the program. You can do whatever you want with it, even managing files or making videogames (it has Visual Basic inside). I'm a devoted user of Notion since before it became mainstream on youtube.

The best video about Notion, EVER!!... And the most intelligent too... Congratulations!....

I really like notion for the cloud based database aspects without any infrasture needed. I totally agree, It's not great for tasks since it doesn't have great recurrance, reminders, etc.

So glad that YT recommendations work, as I’ve watched one of your videos lately and subscribed) Great quality content - really enjoy it! Keep up the good work, man. All the best 🙏🏻

I was always wondering and am suprised that all those RU-vid videos on Notion mostly aren't actually sponsored lol.

Awesome video! (and the fact that Notion is the opposite of productivity tool is the reason why I stick with Apple Notes for quick notes and Skiff Pages for markdown notes)

Absolutely informative video

Great vid bro

Cool video mate

spot on.

Good stuff