I tested for you: the great concept app

Concept is all that we expect from a conventional notes application and much more.

Concept: the best scruting application

Note: I was not paid by notion to write this article and am not affiliated either. I have been using the application for over 2 years now and just wishes to give you my honest opinion on this superb productivity tool.

What is the concept application ?

Concept is an all-in-one application available on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. It brings together both the features of Trello, Evernote, Google Doc, Dropbox, Jira and Confluence.

The application is completely customizable. It can be used as a note taking software, a task manager, a CRM, a Wiki, a calendar. It is sort of the Lego of productivity applications.

For me she checks all the boxes:

• Ease of use : The application is very easy to handle. Its intuitive interface allows you to quickly know where to go to perform a given action. The active community of concept also provides many ready -to -use resources and models.

• Elegance: It is a minimalist and elegant application. We want to open it and use it to create beautiful workspaces.

• Completely configurable: All the notes and task managers that I have been able to test until now have never completely satisfied me. There was always a functionality that I was missing or an aspect that I would have liked to be able to configure. With notion I can fully personalize the application and create the tool that perfectly meets my needs.

• Robust : When you use a note taking application daily, you accumulate a lot of data. And the last thing you want is to lose them all because of a technical problem. Imagine to lose years of notes ! On this side there, there is no risk with concept. The application was created in 2016, so it is starting to have good maturity. It also raised $ 10 million in 2019 and $ 50 million in 2020 which means that it has the resources necessary to ensure the maintenance and security of our data.

• Dynamics: Concept is dynamic in the sense that new features come out regularly. The company remains attentive to its customers and does not hesitate to question itself when it is necessary. For me it is an important criterion. I expect a solution that she constantly re-invents to stay fresh in time. And that’s exactly what notion does.

An enriched note of notes

Concept is all that we expect from a conventional notes application and much more.

In the application there are all the usual word processing functions. That is to say that can be edited text, add titles (H1, H2, H3), create bullet points, tables or even insert images.

But we can go much further. On each note we can also incorporate:

• To-do lists
• Material tables
• Hidden sections
• recall dates
• videos (available directly from the note)
• Audio files
• databases
• and more

You can also integrate Google Doc, Google Maps or Github within a note. And if we want to change the arrangement of the blocks, it is also possible thanks to the Drag-And-Drop function which allows you to move each element freely on a page.

The most extraordinary in all of this is that at any time, we can make our public note. Which means that anyone in the world can consult it. As if we published a web page.

If you have trouble imagining what a note looks like in a concept, I have created one that will give you an overview of what is possible with this application. You can consult it here:

Easily find your notes in notion

Taking notes is good but you still have to be able to find them.

Fortunately, the search for notes on a concept is simple. Just do CMD + P on Mac or Ctrl + P on Windows to open a dialog box and quickly find any content.

It is a shortcut that I use very often when I am looking for the notes that I took on books, articles, videos or when I want to find a web page that I bookmarkée.

Besides, speaking of Bookmarker, notion also has a functionality for that.

Bookmarker of pages with concept

As a reminder, Bookmarker means mark a web page to keep it for later.

With the concept web clipper, you can save any web page very easily. Once the chrome extension is installed, just click on the notion iscon that appears on Chrome to mark the page.

All the content that interests us can be saved in 2 clicks with concept.

What is the concept price ?

Now that we have discussed the major features of this application, there remains a last important point: its price.

The concept rates remain very affordable:

• $ 0 for 1000 blocks (if you take notes from time to time that will be enough for you)
• $ 4/month for solo and unlimited use (the formula I personally use)
• $ 8/month per team member
• $ 20/month for companies

In conclusion, if you are looking for a note taking application and a task manager at a very reasonable price, a concept is made for you.

You can test the application for free: test concept

To find out more about concept, I recommend the very complete article by Jonathan Lefèvre: notion • Manage a knowledge base

I tested for you: the great concept app

You have necessarily heard of a concept in recent months ! This American application, available on computer and smartphone / tablet, promises an all in one, hyper and versatile workspace. The number of application users has continued to grow since the creation of the application in 2016: we have to date more than 20 million users around the globe ! The teams have just worked on a beta version in French: this article is therefore an ideal opportunity to “convert” non-English speakers, which were perhaps slowed down by this language problem.

Why did I notion ?

An overview of my Concept workspace

The main reason for me was to Gather several tasks in the same place ::

• Note taking
• Database
• Various backups
• Billing monitoring
• Followed by my different collaborations

Since the blog has become my main activity, I wanted to professionalize my way of working, and above all to make things more fluid. It can quickly go in all directions: between to do lists, Inspirations for my future videos / articles, the different briefs of my customers … I found it important to succeed in articulating all this in a clearer. The objective ? Gain in serenity, and especially in fluidity by articulating all my projects as well as possible.

I have no concern for organization at the base: so one can wonder why I was looking to rethink these different tasks. The reality of things is that I was going a lot of time juggling between different applications, And above all, I had trouble making this nomadic. With each trip, I felt forced to walk my computer, where I saved my upcoming photos / publications … and I was very dependent on my Google Drive, which condenses my most used files itself.

I will speak to you in this article of My Use of concept – this is the only way to present the features that I use ! But set out that this application is made to adapt to your needs, your desires, your issues. An entrepreneur, a blogger, an artist … will absolutely not use the application in the same way.

How to start on concept ?

This is the question ! You can of course hack, inquire here and there, and appropriate the application over the days. This is not impossible, but rather indigestible and downright intimidating, as the possibilities of creation are almost unlimited. For my part, I was lucky that Julia de I don’t think i feel Contact me at the end of 2021 to allow me to follow his ultra -complete training.

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Julia works alongside Julie, and both take their knowledge in the web field at the service of entrepreneurs in search of organization. To discover their work, do not hesitate to discover their free content !

At the end of 2022, at the end of the writing of my book, I therefore attack the very popular formation “Structure his brain with concept” ! On the program: a training that explains from A to Z the notion bases, but also ready -made templates to better appropriate the different workspaces. You can follow the application at your own pace ! Julia perfectly illustrates what she explains through screenshots and super light videos. In a few steps, I had already managed to understand where the application could allow me to go !

White page syndrome

Notion, it starts like that ! By creating a completely white page, which you can customize in excess. At the start, it will be necessary to start either with the templates (provided by Julia or other members of the community), or build your page in your image. This is clearly what takes the most time, but know that all these pages can be reused thereafter in the form of a model ! It is therefore necessary to take the time, at the start, to shape this workspace, to test things, to be wrong too, sometimes ..

I give you a quick overview of the content you can integrate into these pages:

• lists : to check, with points, numbered ..
• blocks : to lay out your ideas / projects
• data base : with integrated formulas (practical for invoicing and various calculations, such as an Excel file!), as a calendar, or even a beast painting.
• tree organization : This is a very big positive point for me, which allows me to create sub-folders, and also to have certain pages communicate together (= create page shortcuts on page)
• Easy sharing : this is the force of the application ! If you work as a team, you can decide to share content for several people (then you have to opt for a paid version, which in my opinion is quickly profitable if you use a concept in the context of your work)
• multiple presentation options : color text, emojis, highlighting, background images ..

The different concept rates

For the moment, I have not succeeded in achieving 100% of what I want-that is to say, aesthetically beautiful pages, attractive for the gaze ! I’m still on a fairly simplistic concept version : all my ideas are there, sorted in the order I want, but not necessarily in the most beautiful way. My goal for the coming months is to refine this, and to make more personalized pages !

What notion has changed for me

• I gathered everything in the same place : content to be produced, ideas, notes, briefs, contacts … Instead of multiplying Excel files and the various files, I manage to sort everything by category in one click.
• I am no longer dependent on my drive : the drive is very nice but not 100%reliable … when I move by train, for example, the connection is rarely enough for me to download the content present there.
• I gained productivity : Opening a single application to manage all the slopes of my job is still really faster !
• My to do lists took a new turning point : I manage them on a daily basis and no longer by the week ! I got into the habit of better distributing my work over the week, rather than organizing “full computer” days as I could do so far. I am not at all the type to procrastinate, I would even say: on the contrary ! I almost “need” to force myself to distribute the tasks, and notion helped me a lot for that.

What I have not (yet) managed to solve with notion

I say “not yet”, because as you surely start to understand, notion is so vast that I have probably not found a solution yet … but it will surely come with time !

• I’m still dependent on Google Agenda : this is the only part that notion failed to absorb ! Because my husband and I are dependent on our Google Agenda (I told you about it here), which best distributes the tasks of everyday, appointment, management of our daughter etc. This is not a problem for me, because gymnastics between the 2 applications is very good. And I finally have few duplicates between the agenda and notion … but it could be perfectible !
• Take time to work on templates : As I told you previously, I have not yet taken the time to shape pages 100% in my image ! I just have to take the time to shape perfect templates, which I can reuse in the future.

You want to follow the training structure your brain with notion ?

The super news is that Julia offered me a very interesting code for you: -20% on training with the code Marielpresident (Yes, just that!), valid on payments at once, until April 30, 2022 !

To go further with concept

Find here some (free) content offered by Julia:

• How I changed my life on a concept in 5 steps
• Why and how to go from Trello to concept
• 10 ideas for things to manage with notion
• How to make the best to-do world in the world on concept ?
• Concept, the perfect organizational tool for entrepreneurs

Do you know concept ? If not, do you want to discover this app following this article ? ♡