I've had two pivotal moments when it comes to my tool stack, separated over several years.

Notion around 2017 and Arc by The Browser Company about a year ago. ⚡

Parth Biswal may have (more like browbeaten me into thinking he had) introduced me to Notion. Gowtham Athinarayanan ruined Chrome for me.

There's a lot in common between the two tools. 🙃

Neither of them were easy switches. It was a messy break-up with Evernote, Keep, Todoist, Notes (Apple), Asana, Atlassian, and so many others I'd ended up sharing my life with over the years.

And an even more emotional goodbye to a decades-old friend; Chrome. That one was the hardest. 😢

But the second, and more interesting, point in common was the stupid speed and ease with which these two took over so far very separate aspects of my life - the personal and professional.

Yes, a browser doing that is a no-brainer. But Spaces v. Multiple-Profile-Window-Things was a one-punch KO. Not to mention Arc Max. However, I remain a lifelong fan of all Google products. :)

Notion... it’s kind of hard to articulate fully why it just makes sense. I could talk about features, expound on UX, debate endlessly about omnipotency v. the ‘deep, vertical(ly)’-inclined. But I don’t know. I actually think it’s secretly a cult. Got to be in it to get it.

I’ve run everything across 4 companies on Notion, from product and sprints to marketing and sales. Pestered hundreds to try it. Converted dozens. Told you, cult. 😬

Now I’ve got to thinking about what else I’ve been missing out on though. I’ve started a list of stuff I want to try, looking for recommendations as well 🤔

1. Email : OG Gmail v. Superhuman (haven’t tried it yet)

2. Productivity : Notion v. Microsoft Loop (morbid curiosity)

3. News : Google v….

4. UI Design : Adobe XD (they had a plan 🤷‍♂️ ) v. Figma (tried moving - migration killed me - gave up)

5. Code : Microsoft Visual Studio v. Atom v. Komodo v. Sublime (tried them all, and I know people have their favorites, but never really landed one. Probably to do with how infrequently I actually write code perhaps. Or, this could be another Arc opportunity)

6. Product : Atlassian v. Aha! v. Plane v. Notion (haven’t officially tried Plane with a team yet. Aha! over JIRA. Notion is a little heart over head for now)

7. Flow diagrams : draw.io v. Whimsical (let’s just say getting anything done on Draw gives you a strange sense of satisfaction)

8. Whatever rabbit hole you think I should wa… spend my time on next.

☕ on me if you can get me to switch from a Google app.


This post was originally shared by Rajvardhan Mohite on Linkedin.