The Weekly Review: Vol VII Issue 3
Hello friends!
It’s the doldrums of winter here and I’m longing for some green grass. That’s still 6–8 weeks away, but recent warm temps have me looking forward to the change in seasons.
In the meantime, I’m starting to increase my running KMs once again and looking forward to competing in some real races this year. How do you make it through the last weeks of winter? Hit me with your ideas!
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Why I’m not crazy for Notion
There’s a lot of hype about Notion these days. Everyone seems to be using it, trying to figure out how to configure its complexity to be their second brain, or share their public roadmap, or a place to document what they read. It feels similar to when Slack started to get momentum.
I confess I’m struggling to enjoy the product.
We looked at using Notion in its early days, long before it was the rage. It didn’t stick, but our team was keeping an eye on it. Now we use it for a few things at Wildbit, and I’ve tried to put a few different things of my own in there. But no matter what I try to do with it, I stick with my existing tools.
If that sounds crazy to you because Notion is clearly the way of the future, hear me out.
Feel
First, thing first — how does a tool feel to use? That’s a critical part for me. And while I appreciate Notion’s wiki features and power, good gosh, the way text is handled feels like stabbing yourself in the eye.
I just want some decent vertical rhythm to the text. Medium does this well. Ghost’s editor is lovely. Grammarly too.
But Notion makes each line break its own module that can be turned into any kind of content. Unfortunately, these modules have no whitespace between them, meaning that if a page is a document full of text, each paragraph is all up in its neighbouring paragraph’s business. Not cool!
Need that whitespace to let your text breath and your anxiety down? Me too. Unfortunately, if you had an extra line break, it’s too much space.
Small detail, for sure. But it feels yuck to me and that makes me want to write somewhere else.
Content permanance
You know what else Notion reminds me of? Evernote. Remember when everyone raved about Evernote and some people made their living helping others get the most out of the app? That’s where we’re at with Notion.
My big beef with Evernote was getting my content back out. It was always difficult to do and the results were a mess. I have the same concerns here. How long is Notion going to be around? If I put my whole life into it, can I get it back out easily?
Environmental impact
The more time I spend digging into B-corp certification and measuring the impact of my activity and that of our team, the more I’m convicted to use local tools. If software is eating the world, cloud software is eating the universe. But every piece of Web-based tooling we use means multiple computers are involved (mine, plus however many servers/VMs are involved in my web apps).
As a member of team making web based products, I realize this may sound off. But I’m simply saying that this factor should be evaluated when considering adopting a new tool. Notion is one tool that offers what a collection of desktop tools already provide for me.
Meeting all the needs
On that note, I’m also skeptical of tools that try to be everything for everybody. Notion wants to be the Slack of the team productivity space, or the new Microsoft Office. Communication tool? It can be that. Task management? That too. Design reviews. Roadmaps. CRM. Calendars. Journals.
Notion wants to handle all these use cases. And it can!
But maybe it doesn’t do them all really well. And when you try to do so many things, there are tradeoffs that perhaps make the whole experience less of a joy.
I could do all my writing in Notion. But it’s nowhere near as enjoyable as using Ulysses. The same for Things, or Day One, or Fantastical.
The good
Not everything is bad about the product. The leadership don’t seem to want to grow just for the sake of growth, so their approach to funding is great. And it is a good way for team members to work together on certain initiatives.
But I’m not jumping on this bandwagon just yet.
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Items of note
This Should Only Take a Minute or Four, Probably
Alan Jacobs recently shared a few items that he had written some time in the past. One of those referenced this Medium article, written by Frank Chimero back in 2014.
As with many things Frank writes, the article is well thought out. He was examining the new practice (new in 2014) of sites providing an estimate of how long it was going to take a person to read the content.
I understand that there is too much to read, and I get that it is nice to know what a text expects from its reader. But it is shitty to come to a piece of writing without any generosity, and it is maybe just as bad to make design choices which produce that disposition. When something has a price put on it, the price makes you stingy. A writer shouldn’t have to start at a deficit—writing is difficult enough—and a reader shouldn’t feel indulgent for spending more than 5 minutes with something. I think readers, writers, and writing deserve better.
Has this improved in the last 5–6 years since Frank wrote it? You still see sites (and read-it-later services like Instapaper) using this mechanism, but I confess I’m not sure how much it impacts me as a reader. I see the number, but the nature of the content (i.e. the topic) weighs far heavier than length when it comes to deciding what I want to read next.
From the Abundance of the Heart
Another reference to Alan Jacobs: he shared this article at the same time. This one is his own, where he shares the experience of giving a talk based on something he had written. But, as he’s speaking to the crowd, he realizes he doesn’t like the words he’s about to say.
This is a strange kind of experience. As I was reading, as my mind was processing words and sending them along to my lips and larynx, a word pricked my conscience; I scanned my word-hoard for alternatives, and managed to retrieve one, to my relief. But it’s not always so easy. A few minutes later in the same lecture I came across a whole phrase that, even as it was about to emerge into the public air for the first time, was revealed to me as fundamentally uncharitable — but because it was a whole phrase I did not have time to construct an alternative. I was therefore forced to utter words even as I was renouncing them, to be convicted out of my own mouth of a lack of generosity. I was made to own, by speaking them, words I wished I had not written.
This makes me think of teaching Sunday School. When I’m standing in front of a group of people (most of whom are older than me), it’s easy to get into a flow, but then come to a spot where you question what you just said, or are about to say. When that happens, I try to be honest and just add a caveat that I’m not 100% sure of my stance on the topic.
My biggest takeaway from those moments is to think of James 3:1: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” 😳
CEO By Day. Internet Sleuth By Night.
I enjoyed this look at how Noah Brier organizes his research. He makes heavy use of both Evernote and Notion, but I was more curious about his process. And it all sounds very much like keeping a Zettelkasten.
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Quote of the week
Obviously, the bits of information we’re assailed with on Twitter and Facebook feeds are missing both of these kinds of context. Scrolling through the feed, I can’t help but wonder: What am I supposed to think of all this? How am I supposed to think of all this? I imagine different parts of my brain lighting up in a pattern that doesn’t make sense, that forecloses any possible understanding. Many things in there seem important, but the sum total is nonsense, and it produces not understanding but a dull and stupefying dread.
Jenny Odell, How to do nothing
What a great way to summarize the current state of social media, or web browsing in general in 2020.
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Currently
Reading: Winter World, the first entry in The Long Winter. So far, I dig it.
Watching: I recently finished Hacksaw Ridge with my son. I wouldn’t put it on the level of Saving Private Ryan, but it was well done. And more so, it’s based on a true story.
Desmond Doss is the only conscientious objector (one who refuses to bear arms) to ever earn the Medal of Honor. Serving as a medic, he saved between 50 and 100 men on Okinawa. Under constant enemy fire, he found these men one at a time, treated their wounds, carried them back to the staging point before using ropes to lower them, by hand, down the 400 foot cliff his unit had climbed up to start the day. All on his own … crazy story!
Listening: I’ve been spending a lot of time with some of the older Jon Hopkins albums. His stuff makes for a peaceful work day.
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That wraps up another issue. Thanks for reading and see you in a couple weeks…