Notion Review: the Best Project Management Tool?

Whether you’re a busy individual or a business with projects to manage, a project management tool is a must-have.

Whether you use a note-taking app, a task management system, or one of many collaboration tools for multiple users, having a tool to use for any of those things can make project management much simpler.

However, if you have a separate tool for each of the above, then managing those tools can be almost as difficult as the projects you’re managing in the first place.

Enter project management software, particularly the all-in-one kind.

Having an all-in-one project management app eliminates the need for other tools that cater to individual tasks, for example note-taking apps like Evernote. I mean no disrespect to Evernote, but there are tools that can help users do what it and other apps do plus a whole host of other project management features, one of the most prominent of which being Notion.

Notion is a powerful all-in-one workspace that brings together the functionalities of multiple platforms into a single platform. It serves as a digital hub where you can organize your tasks, take notes, manage projects, collaborate with others, and store information, all in a seamless and customizable environment.

Notion is an incredibly versatile tool, and I’ve only scratched the surface of what prospective Notion users can expect from the app.

In this Notion review, I’ll go over what you get with your Notion account, what features Notion includes, its pros and cons, and whether or not you should use Notion as your project management software of choice.

Spoilers: I use Notion for my productivity and task management needs, and highly recommend it to others.

Notion Features:

1. Project management: Trusted by companies like Pixar, Notion’s project management software is infinitely configurable with its page-and-block system that allows users to track the exact info they want, with no extra fluff.
2. Templates: Notion provides users with dozens of templates for different uses, from a CRM tracker to a note-taking document to a Kanban board. Plus, if your creative ideas come together in an original template, you can submit it to the Notion template gallery for others to use.
3. Notion AI: A new inclusion to Notion’s key features, Notion AI helps users automate tedious tasks; anything from analyzing meeting notes and creating summaries to improving your writing by changing tone or word choice.
4. Customer support: Notion offers users several support options, including a help center, email support, community forum, and more.
5. Integrations: Notion integrates with 15 tools natively, from Slack to Asana to Google Drive; as for integrations made by their partners, the app integrates with an additional 30+ apps such as Lucidchart, Slapdash, and, most importantly, Zapier.

Project Management

Where to start with Notion’s project management features…

First, Notion’s page-and-block system. This system is great for laying out and customizing whatever organizational system you need, from task lists to tables to calendars.

After you create your layout, you can access one of many different views of it so you can choose whether to see from a bird’s-eye view or a more detailed view.

You can also choose to track the exact info you want by creating priority labels, status tags, and more, whether this info is deadlines, tasks, assignees, or even timelines.

Templates

Notion is a very powerful tool and can be many different things for many different purposes.

To best exemplify this, look no further than Notion’s template library.

There is a template for nearly every scenario in their library, and if you find a scenario there isn’t a template for, you can make your own and upload it to the template library.

As shown above, these templates can include anything from project tasks, a to-do list, a kanban board, a Notion workspace, and many more.

As I use Notion for productivity and not for its project management and collaboration features, I use a productivity manager similar to this one.

I picked this example out because it shows how creative you can get with your Notion projects, and that your template doesn’t have to be limited to a Google Docs alternative.

Plus, if you’re using Notion for free as an individual or paying as a team, you can have unlimited pages/blocks and thus unlimited projects.

You could create wikis, general post-it boards, task management systems, and much more that is only limited by your creativity.

Notion AI

Notion’s most recent addition, Notion AI allows users to work faster and automate tedious tasks, from tidying up messy notes to generating action items, summaries, and takeaways from those notes.

Additionally, as shown below, you can use Notion AI to improve your writing, translate into different languages, fix spelling and grammar, make your writing longer or shorter, change language complexity, and even change your writing’s tone.

Compared to external apps like Grammarly Premium, ChatGPT Plus, and Jasper which use AI to enhance and augment your writing, Notion AI gives users access to those features for a lower cost.

Integrations

As integrations go, Notion offers a few types: their native integrations, their partner integrations, their Zapier integrations, and their API.

Notion’s native integrations are integrations designed for and by Notion. These include a total of 15 other business apps, shown below:

On top of their native integrations, Notion connects with many other third-party apps via connections made by those third parties, with a total of 32 more integrations. These include but are not limited to the apps below:

Then, of course, there are integrations through Zapier. As Notion is available on Zapier’s platform, that opens it up to over 5,000 more integrations which can surely cover whatever needs you have.

Then, there’s Notion’s API.

As with all APIs this is a much more back-end feature, but it can allow developers data access and manipulation on Notion’s platform to create whatever applications they so choose.

Plus, as the hub for your business tools, Notion can automate interactions between those tools. For example, when you get a lead from your CRM, you can automate a Google Calendar invite to be sent by using Notion’s integration features.

Customer Support

Notion offers their customers support through multiple channels to cater to different user preferences and needs; here are some of the common support options available:

• Help center: Notion maintains a comprehensive online Help Center that serves as a knowledge base. It contains articles, guides, FAQs, and tutorials covering various aspects of using Notion. Users can search for specific topics or browse through different categories to find relevant information and answers to their queries.
• Email support: Users can reach out to Notion’s support team via email to seek assistance. They can describe their issue or question in detail and send it to the designated support email address. Notion aims to respond to user inquiries in a timely manner, typically within a few business days.
• Community forum: Notion hosts an active community forum where users can interact with each other, share tips and tricks, discuss features, and seek help. It’s a valuable resource to connect with fellow users, learn from their experiences, and potentially find solutions to common issues.
• In-app help: Notion provides contextual help within its application. Users can access various tooltips, guides, and hints to understand specific features or functionalities. This in-app assistance can be especially useful for users who prefer self-guided exploration or need quick answers while working within the Notion interface.

Notion Pricing

First things first, Notion offers a free version with basic functionality for individuals, which makes it perfect as far as productivity tools go. You can have unlimited pages, a collaborative workspace with up to 10 collaborators, file uploads up to 5MB, 7 days of version history, and integrations with Slack, Zapier, and more.

As I said earlier, I personally use Notion in my day-to-day life as a simple productivity tool, and their free version does exactly what I need it to as an individual.

Now that that’s over with, Notion offers users four total plans: a free plan (as mentioned above), a Plus plan, a Business plan, and an Enterprise plan.

Unfortunately, there is no free trial for the Plus plan, but Business and Enterprise users will be happy to know that they can request a demo and try the platform out for a spell.

Note: the following plan pricing is for monthly billing; annual billing gives you a 20% discount on each of the following prices.

Plus

Notion’s Plus plan (formerly their Team plan), starting at $10 per user per month, gives users access to unlimited pages and blocks (blocks are pieces of content you add to a page, like to-do lists, bullet point lists, etc.), unlimited file uploads, a 30-day version history, priority support, and the ability to invite up to 100 guests to your collaborative workspace.

Additionally, users have access to unlimited synced databases so they can get information from Jira, GitHub, and Asana, all from Notion.

As Notion says themselves, their Plus plan is “a place for small groups to plan & get organized”.

Business

Onto the Business plan, starting at $18 per user per month, starts to let users into some of the more advanced features of Notion’s platform. This includes all of the features of the Plus plan, plus SAML single sign-on, private teamspaces, advanced page analytics, 90-day version history, and up to 250 guest collaborators.

In the words of Notion, their Business plan is “for companies using Notion to connect several teams and tools”.

Enterprise

Finally, the Enterprise plan. As Enterprise plans are, you’ll have to get in contact with Notion themselves in order to get a price for the features you need.

At the enterprise level, Notion offers users advanced security features such as permission controls to prevent people from sharing pages externally, disable guests, and set workspace-wide rules. These advanced security features are to be expected at an enterprise level, where you could have hundreds of users managing important data.

Speaking of users, if you have 100+ users on this plan, you get access to a dedicated success manager to help you and your organization get the most out of Notion.

Other miscellaneous features included with the Enterprise plan are unlimited version history, a custom number of guest collaborators, an audit log, and admin content search.

According to Notion, their Enterprise plan is for “advanced controls & support to run your entire organization”.

BONUS: Notion AI Add-On

As of February 2023, Notion released their Notion AI add-on for all of their plans, from their free version to enterprise levels.

For an extra $10/user/mo on top of whatever plan they’ve chosen, users can generate summaries, action items, and insights; rewrite documents to be clearer and more effective, and brainstorm new ideas and first drafts all using AI.

Notion Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Great free plan for individual productivity management or limited project management.
• Incredibly simple user interface with a minimal learning curve.
• Seamlessly integrates with all of your other business tools.

Cons:

• Not designed for large teams, and can become tedious when managing dozens of projects.
• No budgeting or reporting features.

Notion Review Conclusion: is it right for you?

In this Notion review, I’ve gone over my use of Notion as a productivity platform from a subjective angle and its objective features, along with how simple Notion is to set up for new users.

Not only that, but Notion is incredibly user-friendly, with an intuitive interface and its page/block system to make creating your layouts as simple as possible.

And, if you don’t want to build your own layout, you can just pluck one from Notion’s template library and hit the ground running with your project management.

However, even though I’ve personally had good experiences with Notion, I can’t say it is for everyone. For example, at an enterprise level with hundreds of employees, I can see how the app could become a little cumbersome.

Nonetheless, if you’re a busy individual or a small to medium-sized business looking for a simple project management software, then I can’t recommend Notion enough.