Starting with where everything breaks first
Every time I try to decide between Logseq and Notion, I think, “Okay, this time I’ll really streamline everything.” And within a week, I’ve ended up tangled in a dozen half working automations and eight different note formats. The breaking point is always different, but the feeling is the same: something that *should* work just doesn’t. Like that time I tried embedding a synced Notion block into a master task board and it just… disappeared when shared with my team. 🤷
Let me start with the daily workflow setup.
In Notion, I had this rolling dashboard – filtered tasks, linked meeting notes, recurring templates triggered either by Make.com or manually. It looked clean. But then came the very not-obvious Notion behavior: recurring database templates do not actually recur unless you manually duplicate them or build a workaround with API. So yeah, I had a task pipeline that mysteriously skipped Tuesdays, and no one knew why until I realized I hadn’t hit my manual duplicate macro that morning.
Then I rebuilt the whole setup in Logseq using its built-in daily journal system. There, tasks auto-live in the daily log – makes atomic notes feel very natural. But then I noticed something odd. Tags weren’t picking up across namespaces unless I went back and made sure everything was in the same format, e.g., “#project/client-ABC” vs “#Project/client-abc”. Logseq is picky about case sensitivity and file naming across the graph. So tagging stopped being reliable unless I hyper-managed my tag format.
So right out of the gate, the logical flow in either tool tends to break unless babysat. And that alone makes you question your entire setup before coffee.
Capturing thoughts without losing them later
When something hits my mind fast – like feedback during a call or a weird Zapier behavior I want to look into later – it’s either capture now or forget forever. On Notion, I set up a scratchpad page with a quick capture button via their widget embed hack. Problem? Mobile capture took an extra four taps to save anything if the app had to load. It sounds small, but that latency made me avoid even opening the app. I eventually tied it to an iOS Shortcut to dump into a Quick Capture database, which sort of helped.
In Logseq, the daily page is right there. Type, tag, done. But the performance on mobile (especially Android) was brutal. If I opened Logseq after a few days, sync would get stuck for two minutes, and half my notes would be read-only while the graph reloaded. Local file sync is powerful, yes, but not when I can’t rely on it mid-call.
Eventually, I put quick thoughts into Apple Notes or Obsidian QuickAdd and migrate later, but that ruins the exact scratchpad idea these productivity systems are supposed to solve. :/
Turning notes into reusable action blocks
Reusable chunks of workflows — think project kickoffs, onboarding checklists, or monthly reporting templates — really show what these tools can or can’t do.
With Notion, I used synced blocks everywhere, trying to reduce duplication. One edit, many surfaces. But there’s this annoying delay when updating synced content — especially if collaborators are editing the same block — and it sometimes didn’t track *what* changed or overwrite properly. I’ve had re-used Notion templates where only half the checklist loaded because the block sync bugged out mid-duplication.
In Logseq? Block references work better structurally, but visually they’re broken. You can tell a block is referenced somewhere, but unless you remember *where*, it becomes a treasure hunt in reverse. Also: nesting block refs inside templates causes placeholder errors — templates don’t execute unless all variables are filled correctly, and Logseq doesn’t flag this unless you open dev tools or try to inject into the UI manually (don’t recommend 🙃).
I tried making a “project-start-template” macro in Logseq with embedded variables, dropdown prompts and linked property injection. Was glorious — until I forgot to wrap it with the correct brackets and got a silent fail. Re-ran everything, got nested templates duplicated three layers deep. My graph is still recovering.
Tasks and daily drivers keep colliding
I’ve been using Notion’s task databases for years, often with view filters — Today, Overdue, Assigned to Me, all that jazz. But filtering by formula there *hurts* once you start calculating based on metadata. A simple formula like “only show tasks not marked done and due before today” sometimes refused to update unless you toggled the filter off and back on. No idea why. Probably cache. Maybe vibes.
In Logseq, tasks are littered across pages and just called forward via queries. Technically slick, but visually… overwhelming. The basic “TODO” and “DOING” structure works, but querying all undone tasks across the graph makes you realize just how many abandoned breadcrumbs you leave. I accidentally copied my quarterly goals template three times — all with the same tags — and my task queries doubled overnight. Could not tell where the extra stuff came from until I eyeball-compared timestamps. (Yeah, this happened on launch week.)
I ended up cleaning old tasks using a custom plugin that removed anything older than seven days unless referenced. But even then, I couldn’t confidently delete stuff without double-checking for backlinks. So yes, this is the part where I say the task system in both platforms demands constant vigilance.
Syncing across devices or not at all
Let’s talk about platform sync instability — the thing no one wants to admit broke their setup.
Notion claims real-time sync, but when you edit something on desktop and quickly open the same database on iPad, you’ll occasionally hit a mismatch. Especially if collaborating. My teammate had weekly issues where checklists marked complete wouldn’t show up as complete on their end unless they hard-refreshed their browser. So yes, stale caches again. Sometimes, editing offline and syncing later caused data loss. Legit just vanished blocks.
Logseq runs on local Markdown with optional sync via third-party tools (Dropbox, Syncthing, iCloud for Mac users). Guess what? File conflicts galore. I synced two Macs and one phone via iCloud and had journaling entries overwrite themselves just because I left both Macs open while making tea. At one point, my journal had three “March 4” entries with variably saved headers. Fun fact: conflict files are silently created unless you look for them.
Eventually I moved to Logseq Sync — their paid sync solution — which helped. For a while. Then a random update scrambled a few pages with weird heading ID keys. Rolled back manually using Git snapshots, which only exist because I eventually screamed into the void and built a command line auto-backup script.
Embedding for visual or contextual workflow
Visual embed setups are Notion’s strength. Dashboards. Databases. Gallery views. All pretty, all cross-linkable.
But there are caveats. Nested filters don’t combine clearly unless conditions are grouped in a very specific way — ANDs inside ORs, but not the other way around, kind of mess. And once you start nesting multiple databases, embed performance tanks. A dashboard with seven views loaded inside a toggle took almost ten seconds on load. No joke. We called it the “waiting room” on launch days.
Logseq can embed blocks across pages, but the rendering lacks the snap of Notion’s layouts. Block embeds look like clones but don’t render nested queries cleanly unless wrapped perfectly. If you mistime the call-out format or forget whether to use “embed” or “include”, you’ll get a raw block ref, not a visual embed. Takes trial and error.
As an experiment, I tried creating a master summary board in Logseq with embedded queries for inbox, velocity notes, and ongoing issues. Looks ugly. Works, but barely readable unless themed. Meanwhile, in Notion I did the same and forgot which icon meant what because lookalike icons get used everywhere. So yes, pretty versus usable.
Using each tool where it thrives best
I now use Notion for shared documents, wikis, SOPs, client updates. Things other humans *must* see and not mess up by accident. Tables just work better when I need rich visuals and conditional formatting.
Logseq? That’s home base. It’s where my own ideas live before they’re edited to sound coherent. I write daily plans, capture odd automation ideas (hello again, broken Zap for Airtable-invoice-matching), and link everything to when it mattered. It’s harder to share, and I won’t lie, collaborating on Logseq in real time is basically a no-go. But for personal, high-context thinking? Nothing else keeps up.
The setup only works because I let them work in parallel. Trying to use one as a replacement always ends in rebuilding things I already fixed last month.
Automating between the two never stays stable
This still haunts me.
I used Make (Integromat) to auto-sync Notion tasks into Logseq’s journal via webhook + Markdown parser. Got a system going where completed Notion tasks would append to a daily task summary inside Logseq. Worked great for two weeks. Then Notion updated their API limits and the integration silently throttled. No errors. Just skipped pushes.
I switched to a cron-based pull via Obsidian + Notion-export-stack, parsing JSON to insert into Logseq files. That broke weekly since folder names changed with dates. Add git sync conflicts and it was like a haunted carousel.
I also tried syncing client folders via Notion’s export-to-Markdown option, hoping I could auto-ingest into Logseq. Nope. Image links broke. Tags stripped. Table formatting gone. Markdown in Notion is more like pseudo-Markdown with opinions.
So yes, you *can* build an integration. You can also break one every other week by accident.:
> Rebuild. Reset tokens. Patch field mismatch. Forget how it worked. Do it again. Succeed for a bit.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯