Because it looks clean and elegant
Because it connects well to other services
Because it's free
But mostly:
The core reason I'm using notion for this site is that it offers me back a chunk of time that would otherwise be spent playing with Wordpress themes, tweaking CSS, choosing fonts or otherwise administrating a site. I'm now at a point where i prioritize time heavily, I've found in the past that even a platform as simple as Wordpress can be a amazing drag on time to operate and customize.
Notion in comparison is so easy. I already use it as my notes, writing, and knowledge base, so all drafts would start life in my notion dashboard. Now to publish, I simply drag the page to the relevant area of my notion base, and it is done. If I want to edit or re-arrange, I can do so with the same speed and ease that I would use to take a quick note of a restaurant name or jot down an idea.
Because of limited time, my top measure of success for this site has to be whether posts are created at high quality and published. Secondary measures like great interactive formatting or SEO are nice-to-haves rather than essential, and as any good product manager will tell you, prioritization is key.
Notion offers a visual experience that is not the greatest ever made, but is very much good enough. It's a great expression of the philosophy of the lean MVP:
The smallest, simplest thing that can be implemented to solve the problem with the minimum fuss and cost.
If you're reading this, then to some extent my long vanity project of having a personal website has not been in vain. Since my earliest days on the internet I have wanted to be a participant as much as a viewer, even if only in a small and personal way. As such I've always craved a personal space to collate, write and share content.
At first this was Bebo and similar sites, before social networking truly expanded into what it is today.
Then I plucked up the courage to actually purchase a domain, and hamishwoodhouse.com was born.
Starting with a really basic implementation of drupal, I've used to it learn the basics of how web services operate, play with some basic HTML, and start developing the confidence to write and publish what I write.
I moved to blogger, and then wordpress and learned the ropes on those big platforms, playing with themes and joining the endless parade of hopeful amateur bloggers.
I won't keep the content on this site in notion forever, as ultimately a site like this should aim to provide a great user experience, and much more elegant ways to do that are possible. Lovingly made personal websites can be a true joy; a testament to the fun that can be had creating web content as well as the skill of their creator.