Video Transcript:

00:01 Hello, and welcome to another episode, and today is my attempt at being a little more inflammatory here. Five reasons why Notion is actually horrible with teams.

00:13 You're going to find out my top five reasons has to do with views and hierarchy, missing major features, uh, you know, not working well for teams, and a couple more which I'm going to hide lest you see them too soon.

00:24 If you're wondering who I am, I'm Jed, I'm the founder of Hydrant, Our project managers put out the fire so your team can execute with ease.

00:31 And we, uh, are big fans of ClickUp, and, uh, you know, we like other platforms too, uhm, I've been running projects for more than 15 years in a variety of different contexts, and we're popular on Upwork, uhm, and have plenty of enterprise clients too.

00:47 Alright, let's get into it. So first, Notion is super popular and I can see why, like, it's beautiful, you know, it's just from a UI standpoint, it's, it, it is really great, like, the search has this slick window here, uhm, you know, it's got AI integrated everywhere, it's got this kind of, like, I

01:09 don't know, Art Deco clicky, you know, what, what do you, what's the thing, Paperclip from Clippy, from Microsoft, it's like a little reminiscent of that, but in, like, somehow a cute, modern, chic way, uhm, it's got lots of, like, icons and muted colors, and, you know, it's like Mac first, uh, so that's

01:28 cool. It is beautiful. I really like it. Uhm, and I played around it before, and I've had the, uhm, you know, I, I often get asked why, why do we like one more than another, uhm, so let's go back to, uhm, our five reasons, one, the views and hierarchy, so, when you load up a new instance, you know, it

01:47 has team spaces, which is great, uhm, similar to how ClickUp does, and you can add new ones and add icons and all of that kind of thing, but when you load an instance, uhm, you have tasks, projects, print boards, for watching. Sprints, and, and, you know, obviously you can customize it, but, like, when

02:04 you load in a new, uh, template, for instance, or a new page, like, it's always, it's text-focused, so, as a platform, I think of Notion as primarily, like, a note-taking or, like, a brain dump or a wiki kind of tool, uhm, which is very good for that, but here, here's, like, an instance, you know, Clay

02:21 is an amazing platform, they have this CRM template in Notion, it's really cool, it has their branding and everything, but if you want to access their CRM, like, you've got to go in.

02:30 And click again, now we're in the CRM, uhm, and you could, like, star it or something like that, that's cool, it's just, I don't know, it feels a little clunky to me, I guess, uh, where it requires a lot of clicking and you really have to have a pretty clear understanding of where you've put things,

02:47 which is great for an individual, but a lot harder for a team, so, again, it's really good for a wiki, I think, it's, again, very pretty, uh, the docs, you know, kind of, like, come out nicely, it's got some templates, uhm, From that standpoint, I really do like it, uh, you can always add in, you know

03:04 , basic features like comments, suggestions, et cetera, really good, uhm, but this kind of takes us to, you know, kind of the next level here, which is missing some major features, so, like, time tracking is a really important feature, especially if you're, like, an agency or you're focused around P&L

03:19 , uhm, you know, analytics is another thing where, you know, you, you can get some things and you can kind of, like, slice and dice and that sort of thing, you can do advanced filters, But it's just, it's like, it's not really a native, uh, tool, it's not focused around data, uh, in terms of, like, numbers

03:42 , I guess, it's more focused around docs, words, and really, it's more of a relation, relational database for notes, uhm, so, and, and this could be, like, full caveat, like, I'm not a Notion expert, I've used it a few times, I've tried to click around with it, it just doesn't really work for me in terms

03:58 of, like, a hierarchy, it just doesn't make sense, So thank you. It's great for notes, it's great for individuals, uhm, but, uh, there's, you know, again, like, they've tried to get a lot better around how do you actually manage projects, which is where I'm more focused around project management, and

04:13 it's just, it's, like, tricky, like, what is this projects board, uhm, to me, this is, like, a, more of, like, a PMO board, uhm, it's, like, looking at our different projects, and, like, why can't I click into the project?

04:26 Like, I'm double clicking on it, I don't know, like, how do I get to it? You know, if I actually want to get to it, I've got to go into tasks, and, you know, the organized by project here, and the reality is, like, this works, I think this works well for, for really simple projects, really simple workflows

04:44 , where, it's kind of like Monday, where, you know, maybe a project only has 10 tasks, or something like that, but, if, you know, you want to see, like, a Gantt chart for a project with a lot of, uh, you know, and you can add sub items and things like that, like, they've added functionality, We'll see

05:01 you next to where you can hack it. Uhm, you can even have dependencies now, although, geez, am I struggling to get it to work, but, uh, I know, I was playing with it, maybe it's because of, uhm, anyways, I know why I can't make it work right now, but, uh, like, you do have a timeline view, you can show

05:27 other views now, they've They've tried to create it to where you can run it. to sprint on this, uhm, then you have like a Kanban style board, which is cool, but again, it's just, I don't know, it's not working for me, I like the, you know, deeper complexity tasks, I like being able to, uhm, like really

05:47 , I just feel lost here, like, I don't know what I'm looking at, uhm, I'm used to seeing, like, okay, let's go back to all tasks, or by project, it's like, more.

06:01 Or a Monday style view, uhm, like, where, where's the task, uhm, I'm just seeing this, like, table, but like, you know, I would always, you know, track time to a task, or like, start date, end date, or like, okay, I wanna add in new things here, but like, I gotta do it here, and like, add a phone number

06:23 , cool, but it's here, it's not like in, like, where's the task. You know what I'm saying? Like in ClickUp, this is my task.

06:31 I've got the activity on the right, I got the task here, I got subtasks, I got action items, tech checklist, got key fields here, we can add as many fields as we want into the details.

06:41 So, uh, like, it just doesn't work as well for me. Um, analytics is a big piece of dashboards, like, I feel like there is some of that functionality here, but I'm like, where is it?

06:51 Why is it so hard to find? Um, if I'm doing a project, like, this is the project management base instance that I just loaded in, like, where's a basic analytics page?

07:01 I guess that's probably like what this is supposed to be, but, and I guess, no, but it's just, it's not nearly the same as some of the analytics and more robust features that I would expect in a project management system.

07:14 Uhm, okay, so, yeah, uh, that kind of covers point three is like, it just doesn't work for projects of complexity.

07:22 Like, click-up actually does. Um, like, if you have a, if you have a project of, say, a thousand tasks with a critical path that follows up, uh, .

07:31 through those tasks, maybe it's an 18 month project. Uhm, start data and end date, dependencies on every task. Like, you can map out a critical path and you can follow through it and you can slice and dice it a million ways with very similar functionality to say smart sheet or something like that.

07:48 Uhm, whereas with notion, like, good luck. Uh, like, you can do it. Again, you could, you could do it. But it's tricky.

07:58 And, uh, you're not gonna be able to slice and dice it all the ways that you want to. Thank you.

08:02 Next is automations, integrations, and API capabilities. So, um, you know, there, there is some basic automations you can do. Um, they do have some connections.

08:15 Like, you can, you can load these different connections. Um, Slack, Google Drive, Jira, how I think it's so funny. Like, why, why would you need to connect to Jira?

08:24 Like, why, like, Jira and confluence does, like, everything that you can do. Like, possibly need to do. Why would you need to connect into Notion?

08:35 Um, again, I guess it's just, well, I'll, I'll leave that aside. But, uh, so, there, there are connections. You can, you can do stuff here.

08:46 Um, but a lot of it is like, you gotta load it in and you've got to really try it. Like, it's so funny.

08:54 Bring click up tasks into Notion. Um, it just makes me laugh. I guess it's like, if you're migrating, that's cool.

09:01 That makes sense. Um, uh, but you're not going to get some of that, like, really quick out of the box stuff.

09:07 Um, where, like, if you want to set up an automation where, and a due date shows up, it sends an email with, with a certain amount of information.

09:14 Um, you're not going to be able to set that up. So, um, let's move on. We've never actually used the API for Notion.

09:25 Um, I'll be honest. Like, it's not something I've done before. But again and I think it's like, why would you?

09:35 Like, what's the value of that? Um, and especially when you consider that it's so hard to work together as a team on Notion.

09:45 Um, so I-I don't know. It just- also, how do I get out of this? Like, uh, you know, uh, how to pop up, okay.

09:58 So, uh, I think that's the issue. They're like one of the biggest weaknesses here. It's just-it's hard to organize around teams.

10:06 And-and I think they've tried to make it easier, but it's just like in terms of the hierarchy, it's really-it feels confusing to me.

10:13 Um, because normally we might have a view, for a single project. But, again, like, and maybe it's just like, I need to have a different task for each one.

10:28 Have a different board for each one of these tasks, and each one is a project. And then you put them in a folder or something like that.

10:34 Umm, but again, it just comes off as a little confusing to me. The last thing that I would say is exporting your data.

10:41 So, like, if you ever wanna leave a notion, good luck. I was asked to do it for our client, umm, we tried to get them off of a notion.

10:50 And it was like three weeks of going back and forth with notion support on a click-uh ticket to try and be able to export the data.

10:58 If you ever wanna export this, like, good luck. You're gonna have a really hard time. Umm, you can export current view everything as a CSV, and I should try and pull it up.

11:11 Let's see if I can do it really quick. So, this is how it showed up. Umm, you know, this isn't the end of the world.

11:19 But we tried, well, we had to export was, uhh, docs. And the way that our client had set it up was just, umm, the way that notion wants you to.

11:29 Like, it was a labyrinth. Like, it was a web. The I don't wanna. Of wiki, and different docs, and every page of different permissions, and things like that.

11:39 And I just, I feel like notion really empowers that philosophy of like, just jump in, go for it, create a bunch of docs, create a bunch of chaos.

11:49 Like, it's all gonna work out. Search is really powerful so you can always find things. But when you're trying to systematize, which is what teams do, you systematize workflows, and you make it to where a new team member can show up, and you ombre.

12:02 Or them quickly, umm, you know, the work that they need to do, the information they need to get, and consume, is really quick and easy, right?

12:10 But if you're just in chaos land, through a relational database of scattered sheets, you're kind of in, um, that, that position of a beautiful mind.

12:22 Which is a great movie, by the way. And, uh, you should watch it. It's awesome. But there's this horrible scene in the end where, where you realize he's, uhm, .

12:32 dealing with this schizophrenia, and . . . you know, you kind of see inside his mind, and then you see, like, what other people see in his shed, and there's just, like, chaos.

12:42 And so, I feel like, notion kind of is like that. It's a little bit of an enabler in that sense.

12:45 Which I think is really hard for teams. Um, it's great for solopreneurs. It's great if you have tons of ideas, and you want to spend your time just, like, jotting down ideas.

12:53 Uh, but when you, which is awesome, like, that, like, that has a lot of value. I'm not trying to belittle that, but, um, it, it doesn't work as well for teams.

13:01 We're trying to organize it. We're gonna. organize around workflows. So, again, exporting your data, like, if you want to move to another system, if you want to save it, like, honestly, like, this is why I love Microsoft Word.

13:13 Like, I save as a Doc X, and guess what, like, everyone can consume that document type, and it's really easy to move around.

13:21 Um, that's why basically every legal contract in, you know, America is still using Microsoft Word. So, uh, for contracts and whatever, cause everyone can use it.

13:30 It's easy to pass around, you um, but with Notion, that's, that's really tricky. So, there's another great product that a lot of people love, which is Obsidian.

13:38 Um, this is another relational database. Uh, there's Evernote, used to be really popular. Um, where it really easy to search, really easy to kind of, like, merge around ideas.

13:46 Um, and especially to start to, you know, like, I, I do think it is cool about, um, about some of these tools is that you can, Sorry, I'm struggling.

14:01 one. My mouse died. If we had a video editor, we would edit that out, but that's alright. So, anyways, I think Obsidian can be a great choice for people.

14:23 Notion is great. Like, I think, again, if you're a solopreneur, it's a really powerful tool. Um, but if you're trying to do project management where you're working around multi, like, workflows or, a longer term project, you're better off using something like ClickUp, um, where you're going to be able

14:38 to really more fundamentally track a project. Like, it's more built for that. Um, so hopefully this is helpful. Hopefully this doesn't just come off as, like, I hate Notion.

14:48 I actually think Notion can be great. Um, like, if, if, if I were a full-time writer, I might consider using Notion.

14:54 Um, but even then, maybe I'm old-school. Um, I kinda like my using Microsoft Word for that and just storing the files on my computer.

15:01 So, any of the That is, thanks for listening. Um, and hopefully you get some value and if you think I'm wrong about something, I'd love to hear it.

15:09 I'm sure I am. Thanks so much. Bye!

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