🗂 Notion as a Google Drive or Dropbox alternative

UPDATE : 03/09/2020 file attachment from IOS works again :)

As my business grows I start having multiple startups, projects and properties it became a mess until I start organising my life.

👉👉👉 Take a look at the demo here

Why moving from Google Drive ? 🤯

Notion is used as my second brain with the PARA method. And it is shared my team and partners.
I was frustrated that I could not do the same thing with other file storage solution such as Google Drive. I always had to write an email where I would put a link in the mail and explain what is was.

⚠️ This is experimental but is a beginning of organising my files on Notion :

1. Add text and images to files
   So my team understand quickly a document or someone can be onboarded easily
2. Share documents or a whole workbook  in one click
3. Quick Search (and efficient)
4. Easy to capture documents and organize them later
   

What is Notion ? Notion is like a no-code tool to organize your files, tasks, bookmarks the way you like. The limit are (almost) endless.

I assume you are already familiar with Notion. If not I would suggest you to spend a few days getting your hands on it.

How my notion Drive works

The goal here is to reproduce the way I organise paper documents :

Setup Notion as a Google Drive

I will show you how I organise my files. Feel free to adapt workbooks and dividers to your situation

Setup a database drive

Setup workbooks and dividers

One Workbook per

• Compagny
• Person (me, Emira, mom)
• Property
• Transportation (Car, Bike etc)
• Etc (the rest)

Dividers :

• Bank
• Taxes
• Invoices
• Insurance
• Etc (the rest)

If you a divider is not used in a workbook you can hide it 👀:

Setup your workbook view (board)

Then each page are displayed as you want :

You can also quick search cmd + p or ctrl + p (windows)

Add an inbox folder

Every time you save or scan a document : upload them to Notion to a default Folder so you can organize them later : <INBOX>

This is not a perfect solution. Another alternative is to embed a google drive folder in Notion.

Embed Google Drive Folder in Notion

👉 You can try it here

Conclusion

Pros

• Add context to documents
  Documents
• Share easily a bunch of documents
• Good overview of files
• Quick Search Notion
• Easy yearly archive
  At the end of year you can duplicate your drive, archive them in 📆 2019 and start a new fresh drive.
• $5 / month for an unlimited storage

Cons

• No sync on computer
  So if you need to upload a file somewhere like a webform you will have to download the file and upload it
• No permissions on filtered views
  At the moment it is not possible to share only a specific workbook (filetered view) to someone. If you share your drive the person will have access to all your other documents.
  A current workaround is to duplicate the drive, delete the other view+ documents and share this copy of Drive.
• Notion Webclipper does not attach files anymore
  I was using scanbot + notion to scan and upload my files to Notion. It is no longer possible. I believe Notion restricted this so people dont overuse notion.