Working Through Perfectionism with Notion

Notion has become a widely used platform, for many reasons. Even though it is lacking some popular features (yes, I’m talking about normal tables), there is no denying that it makes note-taking easy and collaboration enjoyable, while offering a great user experience. It’s just a well-designed piece of software.

I believe there is another, less talked about reason why Notion is good — it can help you avoid perfectionism.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Dealing with perfectionism

The best way I’ve found for dealing with perfectionism is through practices. Of course, it requires intent as well — you have to actually care about “fixing” your perfectionistic tendencies (this is something I’ll come back to). But practices allow you to make tangible progress towards avoiding certain mindsets.

What exactly do I mean by practices? In this context, a practice is just a mindset for making decisions in the moment. They are adopted intentionally in order to guide your decision-making in certain situations.

One of the main drivers behind perfectionism is fear. Practices are useful because they allow you to explore and show you that the outcomes of imperfection are not that scary.

For example, if you are a perfectionists, seeing an imperfection or irregularity might instinctively make you want to fix it. If you are adopting a practice against perfectionism, you would catch yourself in the moment this happens, and choose to not make that decision, leaving the imperfection as is and admitting that there are more important things to work on. For me this was instrumental in learning that there is no need to fear imperfection.

Notion for perfectionists

There are a few reasons why Notion is good for working through perfectionism, or avoiding it in the first place. Mostly they have to do with allowing you to experiment and iterate without fear in a controlled environment.

In other words, Notion supports the adoption of practices against perfectionism. Below I have laid out a few of the ways in which this happens.

1. Moving data
   Notion makes it easy to transfer data between pages, move pages, combine databases, etc. This allows you to worry less about how you set up data in the moment, knowing that it’s not a big deal and you can change it later. This has supported my practice of functional note-taking, or recording data in a format that works for me right now, organizing later.
2. Converting data
   Similarly, Notion allows you to convert between types of data (blocks) seamlessly. This eliminates the perceived need to set up everything well from the start, knowing that you can easily modify the structure of your document later. I love the ability to convert between normal lists and toggle lists, which allows me to just write down everything that’s on my mind, and go through, hiding less relevant bits later.
3. Automatic formatting
   Notion handles most of the formatting for you, such as how to lay out pages, display titles, organize tags, display tables, etc. By not having to deal with this aspect of note-taking, you can focus on things that matter more. I do not miss having to wrestle with formatting tools on Word, Evernote, etc.
4. Limited choice
   In Notion, you have a limited number of options for fonts, colors, text formatting, and organization (types of blocks). There are also very strict rules for what you can and cannot do. This might sound paradoxical, but the lack of choice is a great feature for avoiding perfectionism — limiting the number of options eliminates the risk of indecision, or “paralysis by analysis”.

Of course, other note-taking apps have these features, but in my experience none of them combine all of these as well as Notion does.

Ever since I started adopting small practices in an effort to work through my perfectionism, I have seen noticeable differences in how well I work, and how much I enjoy working. Ironically, moving away from perfection is actually helping increase the quality of my work.

However, you will not help your perfectionism just by virtue of using Notion. You can go on doing your excessively perfectionistic notes just as well in Notion, and I know people that do. It is only useful if you are trying to implement practices that will help you improve.

I urge you to try out Notion if you haven’t already. Whether you want to be intentional about avoiding perfectionism, or you just want to work in an environment that doesn’t promote it, Notion could be a good choice for you. If you are already a user, I hope you got some ideas for perfectionism-avoiding practices that you can implement in your own work.

If you want to share your experience with working through perfectionism, with or without Notion, or any other thoughts you have this topic, don’t be afraid to leave a comment or get in touch.

Thank you for investing your attention with me!

This article is part 4 of my 50 Bad Articles initiative, where I write 50 crappy articles in 50 days, in an attempt to kickstart my writing journey.