With most note-taking apps, I can usually tell within a few minutes if they're going to work for me.

It doesn't take long, for instance, to tell whether an app is easy to navigate and what its main features are. From there, I can quickly imagine how it might fit into my workflow and decide whether it's worth using for longer.

Notion, for me, has been the exception to the rule. The app has been around for nearly three years, and removed the limits on how many notes users can take for free last May, but for most of that time I've regarded it with a kind of outsider's fascination. A lot of people swear by Notion's organizational powers, but it's so intimidating on the surface that I never bothered to give it a real chance.

That's started to change over the past few months, as Notion's extensive note-taking powers have wound their way ever-deeper into my workflow. Now it's the main way I organize all my various projects.

Where Notion works for me

My journey into Notion started simply enough: When I started using Raindrop.io for bookmark management last fall, I wanted my bookmark list to include a notepad for jotting down story ideas. Notion's ability to take freeform notes and link to them as individual pages scratched that particular itch.

From there, I discovered how useful it is to take notes within notes. For example, I have a page for Advisorator in Notion with a list of all my potential story ideas. Some of those list items link to their own dedicated note pages, where I can add links, thoughts, and other related info for that particular story.

I also use the note-within-a-note concept while working on stories for Fast Company, TechHive, and other sites. Each story-in-progress has its own page, and if I'm doing interviews, I'll create a sub-page for each source with all my transcribed quotes. While I use another program called Typora to write the articles themselves, I also use a subpage in Notion to stash away chunks of rough draft text that I'm not quite sure about deleting outright.
 

Notion's other superpower is its ability to format notes and data in lots of useful ways. As a basic example, when you paste a web link into Notion, you can select "Create Bookmark" to automatically pull in the headline, teaser text, and a thumbnail image from the link in question. For certain video sites, such as YouTube, the video itself will appear directly inside the note so you can play it without leaving Notion, and you can embed Spotify playlists as well.

To take formatting a step further, you can also create notes with their own tables, kanban boards, project timelines, and calendars inside. While reviewing laptops for PCWorld, I'll create a note for each laptop with a table for benchmark test scores, along with separate spaces for a list of tech specs and observations. You can even create your own templates based on your notes, so it's easy for me to generate a new table for each review.
 

One other notable feature: You can use Notion to store external files. Music, videos, and photos are viewable or playable from directly inside your notes, while other files will show up as links that you can view from any web browser. I recently started taking jazz guitar lessons, and now I've got a page with all the PDF documents my teacher sends, plus interactive subpages with backing tracks and sheet music for each song. (Just be aware that Notion's free plan limits individual file uploads to 5 MB apiece.)
 

How to approach Notion

Because Notion is essentially whatever you make of it, it can seem pretty unapproachable at first. After signing up, you'll be presented with several templates showing off different ways to organize your notes, which to me just seems overwhelming at first. I'd suggest hitting the "Clear templates" button or going through and deleting them all manually. (You'll still be left with a "Getting Started" page that includes some basic instructions.)

Once you've got a blank slate, try making a new empty page for freeform notes. Give it a title, hit enter, and start typing. If you want to add bullet points, just include a dash at the beginning the line. Or to make a checklist, type a set of [] open and closed brackets. For additional formatting options, just highlight any text to bring up a menu. Alternatively, check out this list of Notion shortcuts, which you can also copy and paste into Notion for quick reference.
 

To start experimenting with sub-pages, click the six dots to the left of any line, then select "Turn into page." Or, on phones and tablets, move your cursor to any line of text and select "Turn into" from above the keyboard.

Finally, for more advanced types of formatting, click the + icon, which appears to the left of any line on the web and just above the keyboard on mobile devices. Scroll down to find options such as charts, kanban boards, and embedded files.

More importantly than any of those instructions, though, is to step back and think about why you might use Notion in the first place. Because of its complex structure—and occasionally lengthy load times—it's not really conducive to fast, simple notes. (I personally still use Google Keep for that.) Notion is, however, a great way to organize more ambitious projects where a simple checklist or page of plain text won't suffice. Start with a single idea of what you'd like to manage, then work your way outward from there.

Before long, you might just get hooked, even if getting there takes a bit more patience than usual.
 

Intel's M1 rebuttal: It took a few months, but Intel finally has something to say about Apple's M1 chip, which has started to replace Intel processors on new Macs. Specifically, the company has picked out a bunch of benchmark tests in which Intel's latest Core-i7 laptop processors match or beat Apple silicon on performance, while also staying competitive on battery life.

Of course, there are reasons to look askance at Intel's claims: The company was inconsistent in the devices and processor types that it used for testing, relied on some tests that aren't industry-standard, and basically ignored the issue of fan noise. (Apple's M1-powered MacBook Air doesn't even have a fan.)

Still, Intel's rebuttal does make one compelling point, and it's the obvious one: Intel-powered PCs offer things that MacBooks don't, such as touchscreens, better port selections, a wider range of display sizes, and support for more games. The past few years have felt like a heyday for PC innovation, so I hope there's some truth to the idea that Intel chips can at least stay in the same ballpark as Apple's latest.

Suspender, suspended: In an example of a browser extensions behaving badly, Google has booted The Great Suspender from the Chrome Web Store, supposedly for slipping malicious trackers, ads, and forced redirects into its code. The extension, which could automatically put unused browser tabs to sleep to preserve system resources, once had two million users, but reportedly broke bad after being sold to an unknown entity last year.

Not that you need this kind of extension anyway. Most major browsers now have their own built-in tab suspension features, and Microsoft Edge even grays out sleeping tabs just like The Great Suspender did. Even so, this incident is a reminder that installing extensions can carry some risk, no matter how popular they seem.

A subscription-free Office update: Although Microsoft really wants you to pay for an Office 365 subscription, the company has confirmed that it will update its standalone version of Office in the second half of this year. The current non-subscription version of Office came out in 2018.

Forgoing the subscription isn't necessarily cheaper if you're upgrading with every release. For years, I've been buying one-year Office 365 Personal subscription cards on eBay, where they're readily available for around $45 apiece with 1 TB of OneDrive storage. By comparison, Microsoft charges $150 for the standalone version of Office 2019 with no cloud storage. Still, if you're hanging onto an older version of Office to avoid another subscription, consider hanging on for a little longer.
 

Gmail made even simpler: Ever since it launched in 2019, Simplify Gmail has been one of my essential browser extensions, transforming the web version of Gmail from a cluttered mess into cleaner, calmer space.

Now, Simplify Gmail has received a major upgrade, adding new keyboard shortcuts (such as Esc and Del to close and move messages, respectively), built-in blocking of email spy trackers, Safari support, and an even better design. Compared to standard Gmail, icons are easier to understand, the font for composing emails is cleaner, and you can group your inbox's emails by date. The new version is also filled with pleasant little touches throughout, like how your inbox disappears when you enter the full-screen compose view.

There's a big catch, though: While Simplify used to free, it will soon require a subscription, priced at $3 per month or $24 per year for up to two Gmail accounts. This will be an easy decision for me, but if you're on the fence, you can currently try Simply for free without any credit card info.
 

Call your friends already: A couple weeks ago, I learned about a clever new service called Call Your Friends. As the name suggests, CYF encourages you to actually pick up the phone and talk to the people you care about instead of just having surface-level interactions on social media. You start by defining who you want to stay in touch with and how often, and the service delivers a series of text messages when it's time to reach out. (I was so intrigued by the idea that I interviewed the developer for a story over at Fast Company.)

Anyway, this one's also a subscription based service, priced at $24 per year, but I think that's a fair trade-off given that it has no ads and doesn't sell your data. You can try it free for 30 days without a credit card.

Or play games instead: For those who are already doing fine at staying in touch with friends, AirConsole Meet is a new way to make your group Zoom calls a bit more interesting. The service, which is free for now, lets you play games with friends over video chat. I gave it a try and it seems to work pretty well, assuming everyone has a laptop or desktop computer, plus a phone for controlling the games.

Of course, that's not the only way to play games with faraway friends. This Washington Post story also has a nice roundup of options that work well in a fully-remote setting, either with screen-sharing or with everyone wielding their own smartphones.
 

• iOS will soon support changing Siri's default music service.
• This app turns your "Untitled" Mac folders into names of random birds.
• Someone made a prototype laptop with seven built-in screens.
• Great read on Vivaldi, the power user browser I mentioned last week.

If you've been intrigued by Samsung's Galaxy S21 smartphones, you should know that carrier-unlocked models are already on sale. Save $200 on the Galaxy S21 Ultra or Galaxy S21+ from Amazon, or $100 on the Galaxy S21. You can also bundle Samsung's excellent Galaxy Buds Pro earbuds and save an extra $100. Of course, you may be able to save more through the major carriers—AT&T's trade-in deals are especially good right now if you have an older phone—but unlocked models will spare you from having to change your wireless plan, sign a long-term contract, or add any new lines.

Other notable deals this morning:

• The Fitbit Sense smartwatch is on sale for $250 in white and gold. (The final price will appear on the checkout page.)
• Got an iPad Pro with FaceID or 4th-gen iPad Air? The Apple Pencil 2 is on sale for $104.
• Don't mind refurbished earbuds? Get Jabra's Elite 65t for $32 or Elite 75t (with active noise cancellation) for $84. Use the code PREZDAY20 at checkout.
• Anker's six-foot USB-C to Lightning cable is on sale for $9.38.

I apologize if this week's newsletter is a bit on the later side. I'm blaming a particular form of procrastination, in that the moment after hitting Send, I will have to go outside and shovel six inches of snow off my driveway. It's been a light winter for snow in Cincinnati, so I suppose it had to happen sooner or later!

Anyway, feel free to reach out with any questions, comments, or feedback, or swing by the Advisorator chat room on Slack and say hello. And if you want to read past issues of the newsletter, you can do so through the members-only website.

Until next week,
Jared