Stunning Visualizations – Faster
The promise of all-in-one tools like Notion and xTiles is that you can create your own productivity systems and have them look great. While I have been able to do this in Notion, to me, xTiles just seems more intuitive to use and easier to add colorful elemtents. With Notion, it seemed like I was spending all my time working on building my systems and less time working within my systems. With xTiles, more of my time is spent working within my systems as building my systems is so much more intuitive. Notion is incredibly powerful, but this power adds a complexity that can make Notion less intuitive to use.
One ongoing complaint with me is that Notion doesn’t have recurring tasks as an easy option (yes, I do know about the workarounds), while xTiles makes it easy to set recurring tasks. And I have so many recurring tasks from reviewing subscriptions, creating reports, registering for business networking events, etc. that I gave a big sigh of relief when I moved these recurring tasks to xTiles.
While many of my clients are tech-savvy, my less tech-savvy clients will appreciate the ease of use that xTiles provides.
And, as the final authority, 😁 my wife tried Notion and hated it and loves xTiles. Here is a screenshot of a productivity sytem template I am working on for my coaching clients.
Features
Like Notion, xTiles has a wide range of different building blocks you can use to build your systems
- Text tiles
- Images
- Checklists
- Task lists
- Boards – Kanban
- Tables
- Headings
- Dividers
- Files
- PDFs
- Audio
- Video
- Embedded html
- Google Docs
- Google Maps
- Code
- Widgets, etc
These building blocks make it easy to add a wide range of content, tools, and visualizations to your work spaces.
Templates
xTiles has some lovely templates for planners, vision boards, notes, contacts, goal setting, task management, and a lot more. These templates provide inspiration and building on existing templates saves time as you can adapt what is already there and don’t have to always start from scratch.
Integrations
Perhaps the major drawback of xTiles is its lack of integration. xTiles does have Google Calendar integration, and a Chome extension for web clipping, but I couldn’t find any other integrations.
Sharing xTiles
As a time management coach and business networking coach, I create systems not only for myself, but I also create productivity systems for my coaching clients along with templates and checklists to help them improve their own productivity. For example, I have templates for goal-setting, task management, client management and more. With xTiles, I can either share a public link (if I am using a template as a lead magnet) or by inviting people by their email address in the case of my paid coaching clients.
Pricing
xTiles has a generous free membership tier, then additional tiers of $5 and $15 per month. So its second and third tiers are less than Notions ($12 and $18 per month respectively).
How I Use xTiles
Here are just some of the ways I use xTiles every day.
- Task Management: I use xTiles to manage my daily tasks and I create task management/productivity systems for my coaching clients
- Weekly Planner: I use xTiles to plan each week so I can see my important goals, tasks, and work flows
- Checklists: I LOVE checklists and xTiles makes it easy to create colorful checklists for myself, my team, and my clients
- Goal Setting: I created a goal setting template for myself and my clients to help us set and achieve our goals
- Lean Canvas: A lean canvas is a one-page business plan. I use lean canvas for myself whenever I have a new product idea and also to brainstorm my client’s business ideas.
- Templates: I use xTiles to create easy-to-follow workflow templates for myself, my team, and my clients
- Habit Tracking: I use xTiles to track my weekly habits such as exercise, meditation, and other habits to help me reach the lifestyle goals I have chosen
- Training: I find it really easy to quickly to create visually pleasing workflows in xTiles to illustrate processes and concepts during my workshop training and coaching sessions.
Notion Alternative / xTiles Review Conclusion
In my experience, xTiles is an intuitive and visually appealing Notion alternative and I will be creating my future systems and client templates in xTiles rather than Notion.
Notion may still be a better choice if you need more templates, a larger user community, more integrations, if you are building templates to sell to others, or if you have a Notion-specific target audience.
If you would like help setting up your productivity system in xTiles, have a look at our productivity coaching programs or let our “Captain Time – trained” virtual assistants build it for you!