I’m wary of shiny new toy syndrome. The diet that can instantly get you lean and ripped. The shoes that can improve your marathon time. And the all-purpose app that promises to supercharge your productivity. I trust reliable and time-tested products which is why I’ve been using Evernote for nearly a decade. The note-taking act has become my second brain and I’ve accumulated over 6,000 notes spread across a dozen notebooks. Yet Evernote is far from perfect, in fact, it’s one of the posterchildren of Silicon Valley unicorns gone awry. And there’s a new kid in town, the buzzy all-purpose productivity app called Notion. Which puts loyal Evernote users in a conundrum: Should they make the switch?
The differences between Evernote and Notion
Evernote was launched in 2008 and its feature set is in proportion to its 11 years in existence. This includes
- Native versions of the app across devices, operating systems and the web
- A powerful web clipper
- Built-in features including business card scanning, PDF annotation and search, presentation mode and offline search
On the other hand, Notion was launched in 2015 and is still growing into its feature-set. As a text editor it it is extremely versatile, powerful and well-designed. And its focused on blocks lets you easily incorporate spreadsheets, databases, Kanban boards and many other file types quite seamlessly. Notion’s differentiators include:
- Powerful formatting tools and embeds
- Native linking between pages
- Built-in databases and spreadsheets
- Seamless and mobile-friendly sharing
Comparing Notion and Evernote’s features
You can think of Notion as a high-performing sportscar and Evernote as a serviceable Jetta. Both work well, and the right car will be influenced by your style of driving. Here’s a table comparing the two products’ feature sets:
Plus, unlike Evernote, Notion allows you to see your data in multiple places and build powerful dashboards tailored to your specific needs.
Time to leave Evernote?
I think people make too big of a deal when they switch productivity apps. Yes, there’s a sunk cost of the time you’ve invested AND the steep hurdle of moving over all your existing notes and tasks. But I think people underestimate the benefit of running two parallel systems, especially when you’re dealing with an untested system like Notion. So start with a sliver and move over one notebook and see how the tags and other meta-data move over.
Ready to migrate multiple notebooks?
If you’re ready to take the plunge and move over all of your notebooks try this approach:
- Move the notebooks into separate tables
- Combine them into one table, using a Notion tag to denote each Evernote notebook
- Create different views based upon your Notion needs
Here’s a detailed video showing each of these steps:
And don’t forget check out notion.courses, the world’s premiere Notion course.
Continue your path to Notion mastery by learning how to create Notion templates.
