Personal Knowledge Management

I Wanted to Love Notion, but Missing Functionality Made Me Return to a Spreadsheet

A crazy world forces me to sort out my financial info. People like Notion so I tried it. It has too many gaps so a spreadsheet it is for me.

Time to get organised (drawing by author)

Are you managing your personal information (tax receipts, credit card statements, utility bills etc) properly? I wasn’t. Some of it was scattered across spreadsheets, and the rest was on websites. Unsurprisingly, it was difficult to keep on top of it.

I didn’t have a single consolidated picture of key information in my life.

In happier times, I could just about get away with that. Low inflation was the norm and the world seemed remarkably stable. You were confident that you’d do okay this year because it was going to be like last year. Next year? More of the sa

There was little need to plan, certainly not in detail.

But then, of course, inflation soared due to COVID-induced supply chain shocks. A European war added energy and food supply issues to form a toxic mix. Suddenly, this year will be very different to last. No one has any idea about next year.

There is a need to plan, and the planning has to be right.