Notion is a Knitted Castle

The Case for Dedicated Task Management (And Why Notion Sucks At It)

This post is part of a series on smart task management. For an introduction and to see all the parts of this series, head over to the index post.

Building a smart productivity system is a highly personal endeavor.

Much like tailoring a custom-made suit, it must fit your work style, align with your thought processes, and blend well with your overall lifestyle. That’s why there are few absolutes in productivity; it’s about what works best for you.

And yet, amidst the vast buffet of options and methods, I feel confident about sharing one particular piece of advice, one that I believe can make a significant difference in how effectively you manage your tasks:

Don’t use Notion for task management.¹

Or, to put it more diplomatically:

Opt for a distinct, dedicated tool for task management.

The One-Tool-To-Do-It-All Delusion

Ever found yourself seduced by the notion of an 'all-in-one'' productivity tool?

A single digital command center for your life, a consolidated platform for recording fleeting thoughts, choreographing tasks, scheduling meetups, and archiving every iota of information. All this is within a coherent, unified interface that minimizes workflow disruptions, requiring you to familiarize yourself with, invest in, and maintain just one software tool. Everything is in one place, and zero need for “inter-tool glue.”

The allure is hard to resist…

Recent years have given rise to a wave of tools that promise to deliver this: to wrap your personal productivity cosmos into one neat package. Pioneers such as Notion are ardently championing this "all-in-one" philosophy.

These tools, particularly Notion, have even given rise to a new market for selling templated and pre-set life management systems. They entice users with the lure of an instant plunge into action, circumventing the burdensome setup process.

While this may be a blessing for bloody beginners, those who adopt this strategy may almost certainly encounter unforeseen hurdles down the line.

Let’s delve deeper into why…

The Benefits of Keeping Task Management Separate

See that grand castle gracing the top of this post? Majestic, isn't it?

Now, take another look, and you'll notice the twist – it's knitted.²

While that makes it charmingly unique, it also limits flexibility. You can't alter it without unraveling the whole structure.

Notion is just like that. Notion is a knitted castle.

Now, ask yourself: Do you really want a knitted castle?

Personally, I want the exact opposite! I want a flexible, modular system built of small bricks, with many small, specialized tools that I can switch out if needed.

To be clear, I'm not proposing this as a universally perfect solution. It is indeed overly complicated and unnecessary for many to construct such a system. However, there's one glaring issue when you try to bundle everything into one system: it entangles your task artifacts with all the other types of digital artifacts, blurring the lines between them. And as I have attempted to show you in the previous post, this is rarely a good thing…

My only suggestion is to separate your task management from any larger tools and perform it within a single, dedicated tool such as Todosit. You can continue to manage actions, projects, programs, and everything else in your beloved knowledge hub. However, I believe there are at least five compelling reasons why isolating task artifacts is critical.