Really appreciate you sharing your thoughts — and thank you for giving ByDesign a solid try!

You’re right that Notion is incredibly powerful, especially for those who love building from scratch. But our goal with ByDesign is to remove that extra work — to offer structure, clarity, and simplicity out of the box, without needing to spend hours setting things up or customizing templates.

Here are a few ways ByDesign goes beyond a Notion template:
• Actual task management, not just databases — with built-in recurring tasks, habit tracking, smart timelines, and reminders that work across platforms.
• Designed for daily use — the planner, task list, calendar, and notes are all integrated and easy to switch between without context-switching or creating your own system.
• Collaboration that feels intuitive — with a shared team space, commenting, mentions, and permission controls that don’t require a manual to figure out.
• Gamified productivity — like the leaderboard and point system you mentioned, designed to make progress feel a little more fun.
• And yes — Calendar sync that just works.

That said, we completely hear you on the AI features — they’re on our roadmap and we’re actively working on them. The feedback helps us prioritize and improve, so thank you for being honest and thoughtful.

If there’s anything specific you wish was smoother or more powerful, we’d love to hear — we’re building fast and with the community in mind.