Transcription
Last year, I made the switch from Notion to Apple Notes and Apple Reminders. And this may come as a surprise to some of you, especially if you've been following me for a while. I jumped into Notion big time in 2019, creating systems and tools to help organize my life, and I made videos about that on my personal YouTube channel. I also created a bunch of templates and shared them with people because I found so much freedom in being able to build my own tools in ways that I could fill gaps that were lacking in a lot of other applications.
Apple Notes and Apple Reminders were lacking a lot of features, and that led me to other tools. And I've really been on a journey of using other tools for, gosh, as long as these technologies have been around, uh, from Evernote to Todoist, ClickUp, all these other tools, including Notion. I have spent a ton of time utilizing them, and they've all been great. But I'm getting to a point in my life where I want simplicity, and I don't need features that are going to lead me down a rabbit hole of looking for solutions to problems that I'm not sure I I really have.
I don't know if you feel this, but with new features, you get excited about those. You start looking for problems to use these features as solutions to these problems, and you might not even have the problems. And so you end up inviting complexity into your life, and things end up slowing down because you've added in all these features, and not all of them are super seamless. And sometimes you're even bringing in additional apps to fill gaps as well, and that could lead to a lot of time wasted.
Personally, I know I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out these applications. And last year, it all kind of came to a boiling point where I decided these applications were not providing a ton of value for me. I spent too much time organizing and getting frustrated with hitting a brick wall of the limitations of that app or the configuration that I went with within that app, which led me to reconfigure after reconfigure after reconfigure. And now I just want to use a simple tool, and I'm fine if it doesn't have all of the features in the world. And that's why we're here today talking about seven reasons why I switched from Notion to Apple Notes and Apple Reminders.
Number one: Simplicity. As I mentioned, these applications, though they have more features than they used to, and I would even say a lot more useful features since iOS 18 has come out, there is power in simplicity. There are things that these applications don't do, and I have to be okay with that. And to be honest, it's been very freeing that these applications are simple and they are single-use applications. Apple Reminders is for reminders, so task management, and I would say putting things into projects, task-based projects, it works really well for that. Apple Notes is good for notes. Yes, you can create some lists in there, but it's not for reminders. And I mean, I guess you could do some task management in there, but for me, it's more of text-based organization, and I really like it for that.
You see, I was using Notion for both of these things, but I had created complex systems that were all interconnected. And there were good things about that, but it resulted in me not using them sometimes because they took a little bit more time for me to add a new item and connect it to everything and tag it and categorize it. And all the while, this was a pretty slow process, and I was getting burned out. So simplicity has been really good, and it's actually led to easy organization because of the simplicity. The apps have limitations, they don't have all the features in the world, so it's easier for me to organize things when I can't make the organizational process too complex.
The second reason is better reminders. The Reminders app does what it says, it reminds you of things. And I was using features like proximity reminders occasionally in the app, but all my other reminders would be in Notion. And I don't know why I wasn't just using Apple Reminders. Proximity reminders is kind of a game-changer. I mean, I'll get a request, maybe my wife will have something that she wants me to do either before I leave or before I get back from somewhere. And proximity-based reminders allow me to set a reminder based on where I'm at or where I'm going to be, rather than the time. Because if I set a time and I don't end up being there around that time, then the reminder is either already happened or it hasn't happened yet. But with proximity-based reminders, I can set a reminder when I arrive somewhere, it will remind me because of geofencing, and it's actually just a beautiful feature. And then it's also simple just to organize everything there in Reminders as well.
But a feature that we've recently started using is Family Sharing. You see, I have kids that are, I have a teen and two kids that are almost teens. And we were creating these paper chore charts, and it was getting time-consuming. And a lot of stuff is recurring. And so just writing that stuff down over and over again, and just using a lot of time to repurpose essentially the same information over and over again with different dates and maybe just, you know, one kid's chores this week, the next kid's chores that the next week. And, uh, it was just time-consuming. So using Apple Reminders, we're able to create essentially their chores and reminders for those, and even set them to recur for whatever the duration of that chore is. So, for example, one of my kids during the month of January, it's his responsibility to take the garbage can out to the street so that it can be dumped and then bring it back in. And then next month, it will be one of my other boys' responsibility. And so we can set recurring reminders every week for a month, and then it stops. And I could just plan that out for the year instead of having to create these pages or, you know, my, I was printing these things out, my wife would fill them out, and then you got to do that every week. And, you know, what if you're busy or you aren't home and then you don't have one ready and nobody knows what their chores are? It was just getting to be a bit much. And so Family Sharing has allowed us to create those in a way where we can share them digitally. My kids have Apple Watches and they also have iPads that they can use, uh, here and there throughout the week. And so with those devices, they'll be able to get reminders. And I want them to get used to these types of technologies, using the Reminders app or a tool like that to plan out their week, to have the things there that they need to remember to do. So they obviously have the ability to add their own things, but from my phone or my wife's, we can add tasks for them and assign them to them. And with Family Sharing, it's going to automatically add those tasks to their devices and enable those reminders.
The third is Apple Pencil support. I really like the Apple Pencil for writing. I've gone from paper journal to journaling digitally. And even though I haven't used Apple Notes a ton for that, I was using GoodNotes for that, and I really enjoyed just being able to write things down. And I like how Apple continues to evolve the experience of writing digitally with a pencil. Because as I'm writing in Apple Notes, whether I'm creating a quick note by just simply tapping on the screen and jotting something down really quick, it kind of fixes my handwriting a little bit and makes things easier to read. And I find myself using the Apple Pencil quite a bit for jotting things down quickly, keeping notes, annotating things, and stuff like that. And it's really easy to do that in the Apple Notes app. And journaling digitally is a lot of fun as well. Even though I do prefer to separate myself from the technology for journaling, I really do enjoy using the Apple Pencil in in the Notes app. And Notion just doesn't support that. There's no way to just handwrite directly into Notion. Of course, you can use handwriting conversion where you write and then it converts that to text. But personally, I don't find that feature super useful. If I'm going to write things down by hand, I want that to just exist. I want the handwriting to be there later. I don't want it converted to text and then lost forever.
Number four is just better idea capture. You see, in Notion, I had what I called the inbox where I could just go and throw things that I didn't want to spend the time organizing. But I still had to open up Notion and go to the appropriate place to make it fast. I had a widget that I would just tap on, and it would open up that section in Notion for me. But it still took time to click new and start jotting that thing out. Whereas in Apple Notes, I could just tap on the screen and create a quick note without even really doing anything. I don't even have to unlock my phone all the way. I'm just instantly creating a note either with the Apple Pencil or the keyboard. And I can revisit that note later and either apply it to an existing note or create a new full note out of it. I use Siri quite often with reminders. I just simply ask it to remind me of something, and it's going to go ahead and throw that into my inbox. And then later on in the day, I will go and spend time organizing those reminders that I threw into the inbox. That's something that I just wasn't able to make work well with Notion. I even tried using other tools and then using Zapier to connect things and make it work, but it never worked that well. Always something was missing, such as when I asked it to remind me of something by a specific time, that seemed to never add to Notion correctly. There was always something wrong with that. And so it only worked well for me if I was setting reminders or tasks I could then go and adjust later on by adding the specific date and time and project that that needed to be a part of.
I've also come to really enjoy split-screen apps on my iPads. Having Notes and Reminders up side by side, or having Notes up with the Kindle app, or having Notes up with the Bible app or something like that, makes it really easy for me to be reading in one application and then having my notes open right there and not having to switch back and forth between applications. Now, Notion, just due to its layout and the way that it is designed, doesn't really translate super well into a narrow experience. I feel like Notion's done a good job at trying to combat that issue and fix it, but if you have a big database, that's just not going to look good or operate well on a smaller device. And so you end up creating a whole bunch of different views, and side-by-side apps or smaller screens just become a challenge. So I found it much easier and convenient to get things out of my head and into these applications.
Number five is better OS experience. Better on the Mac, better on the iPad, better on the iPhone. Let's start with widgets. Widgets have not been a strong suit for Notion. They seem to have created some widgets and then abandoned them. The widgets are just not super useful. You see, all you can do is have essentially a quick launch into a specific database, a link to a specific page, or a display of all recent pages. And that never really worked out for me. I ended up having to have a whole bunch of widgets that would take me into specific sections. And I even tried things like Shortcuts, I even tried creating some macros and some different things using older technologies to make it work, and it just never worked the way that I wanted it to. I wasn't able to have a display of all of my upcoming reminders or tasks. And with all of these new widgets coming out from different applications, of course, including Apple Notes and Reminders, I felt like I was getting left behind using Notion.
The notification experience has also been better. Since switching to Reminders, if there's a date and the time associated to the reminder, it will remain persistent and won't go away until I take action on it. Now, I know I can configure notifications to work a little bit differently in Notion, but then every notification is going to respond that way, even if it's not a reminder-based notification.
Number six is Simplicity. And I talked about this at the very beginning. Notion is great, but it can only become more, more complex. Of course, I could keep it simple. I could eradicate my entire Notion setup and recreate things in a very simple format. But my personality, the way that I do things, and the rabbit holes that I find myself going down just won't allow that to happen. I will end up adding something, and then adding another thing, and then adding another thing, and then having to reconfigure it because that became too much of a process. And so it's very easy to add too much complexity into Notion and end up slowing yourself down.
So, number seven is to focus on the system that works for you. And that may be different. And for me, I focus on systems that work for me based on where I'm at right now. I need simplicity. I need to remove the complexity and the things that slow me down. Knowing that there are a lack of certain features that could create a more cohesive and connected system for me, I'm okay with the lack of those features right now because I need to be able to focus. I need the tools to get out of the way. And Apple Notes and Reminders do that because you can't get lost in the feature set. And maybe that's what you need right now. But maybe it's the opposite. In 2019, I needed the features, I needed the connectivity, I needed to be able to get everything out and organize it. And after spending a few years doing that, I've maybe rewired my brain a little bit and I'm thinking differently. Haha, old Apple slogan, think differently. But I definitely don't need that complexity now to keep things organized. Initially, getting hyper-organized with Notion led me to one to simplify things. So, like I said, the system that works best for you at the time is going to be the best system. But I had to learn to be okay with that, knowing that a system works well for where I'm at in life, and the different responsibilities, the different needs, and things that are going to make me the most productive. And I have to be okay when it's time to say goodbye to one tool and maybe move over to something else. Right now, simplicity is king for the reasons that I've outlined so far. But I'm not totally closing myself off to a potential future where another tool may be a better fit for me. But I'm definitely not seeking that out. It will come when it needs to, and I'm not going to rush it because I don't desire to add additional complexity at this time. I'm looking for simplification.
So, if you made a big switch from one platform to another, from one organizational method to another, I'd love to hear that. Share it with me down in the comment section below. If you're more interested in how I'm using Apple Notes and Reminders, I have a couple of videos that I did recently that you should check out, as I walk through my entire process in both of those apps. Apps. If you want to get more productive using your Apple products, definitely check out the course that I've got linked down in the description below. It's my Ultimate Apple Productivity Course. It's cram-packed with my entire system for staying organized using my different Apple devices, as well as little individual things that add to the overall experience and help me work faster. But that's going to do it for this video. Thanks for checking it out. Hope to see you back in the next one.