As you may have guessed from various of my past posts, I’m always testing out new SaaS services to see how they can help my productivity. The thing is that many of those services are based in the US, with all the questions that raises around data privacy, access by governments and so on. So I’ve embarked on a process of considering each tool I use and seeing if I can find a more palatable alternative, and I thought it might be useful to document that process. I’ve given myself a year to do this and will update semiregularly on how it’s going – and maybe get some ideas!
A shout out to European Alternatives and Go European, both of which have been useful.
Moving from Google Workspace
The obvious candidate to move is my self-hosted email and document management on Google Workspace. I’ve signed up with Infomaniak, a Swiss company that offers domain name hosting, email, document storage and an EU-based AI that heats houses. This is a complicated process as it involves me changing my log-in for many many services. But a bit in the way that when you move house, it’s an opportunity for a good clear out, I’m taking the opportunity to unsubscribe from many services or newsletters that just clog up the works.
Moving from Notion
I do like Notion, but I am also liking the alternative I found, Capacities. It doesn’t have quite the range of elements, yet, but there’s enough to make it a viable alternative, and I like the timestamp feature.
Moving from Trello
This one’s going to be hard, I’ve been with Trello for a long term, well before they got bought by Atlassian. I use it much less that I used to, because we have Microsoft Planner for work. But for a complex personal project, it’s amazing. I’ve tried Meistertask, but it’s a bit clunky. So I’m looking for suggestions here.
Is anyone else doing something similar? It’d be great to share notes!