It sounds like an exhortation in an ancient language. “Sunsama tapoko!”
Ok, that might just be me.
Sunsama is an application for planning time. Days, and weeks specifically. There’s a web version and desktop implementations for Mac, Windows and Linux. My daily driver at the moment is my Mac, so that’s where I have been using it.
There's a companion app for mobile.
Companion Apps. Has there ever been a good one? Call me grumpy, but either build a proper application or don’t bother. The chances of you including the elements that I want while excluding those that I don’t is almost zero. Therefore, the time and effort that you invest in making a companion app is only ever going to annoy me and make me like your product less.
That’s a shame, because I really enjoy the main event. Sunsama ritualises planning my day.
Rituals
The application asks me at what time I want to finish my day, and then marks the answer on a schedule. Also on the schedule are my calendar events (from Google). I'm invited to add tasks. I can type them in, or pull them in from a list called “backlog” which is almost a Task Manager on its own. With click of a button, I can see my actual Task Manager, Todoist, from where I can drag tasks into my day.
If not already done, I assign an expected duration to each task. By now, I have a big list of tasks. The next screen asks whether there’s anything on the list that I might want to defer. From there the application (sorry, the AI), slots the tasks into a timeline, creating a visual representation of my day. As each task has a channel (Sunsama) or a label (Todoist), I’m presented with a cheerful colourful graphic.
It’s at this point that I may remark how little I actually do, or how poorly I estimate what I can get done in a day. If the plan has me working until midnight, I start dragging tasks into the following day or week.
Once I’m happy with the volume, I might have a tweak of the order, typically loading more creative tasks earlier. Then I press go.
As I start on the first task, I click a “play” button, that starts a timer. Through the magic of AI (or computing as it used to be called), the pressing of that button also begins a timer in Toggl.
I can pause the timer, stop the timer, or even tick the task as completed. If I want to push on through the “gong”, I can do that too. When I do mark the task as finished, the next one in the schedule is automatically presented to me and I repeat the process.
As a mechanism for keeping me focused, this is brilliant. My planning is done first thing, and then I switch to execution mode - and just work through things. This has eliminated a failure point for me. If I don’t plan the day, the I have a tendency to do one thing, then open Todoist to see what’s next. This is a cue for me to noodle about in the task manager for half an hour. It’s easy to spend a lot of time this way. Sunsama reports back to Todoist - so when a task is completed in the planner, it is marked as complete in Todoist.
At the end of the day, the application reminds me to do a shutdown. (And, in the spirit of fairness, I can sort of do this on the mobile app). Here, I can move anything that wasn’t got to, and tidy up the day. I’m invited to think a little about what went well and even make a note.
More functionality
Oh there’s plenty. More integrations too. I’m not going to attempt to cover everything, there’s YouTube for that. The power of the process for me is through the enforcement of daily planning and daily review. Hardly new or unique concepts, but I enjoy the disciplined approach that Sunsama fosters.
Caveat
I initially saw the backlog functionality and thought, “Oh great! I can use this for task management.” It’s possible. The backlog is a perfectly serviceable task manager. However, it’s not Omnifocus nor Todoist. There’s a reason those two applications have such fanatical user-bases; they are brilliant at what they do, while the backlog in Sunsama is simply “good”. For example, I have some repeating tasks that occur once every other year, or after seven months. I can do every year in Sunsama, and every 1,2,3,4,5,or 6 months, but not every other year or after seven months. Sunsama is a planning app. It works superbly with a task manager, why would you try to use a planner for tasks or a task manager for plans? They are separate functions.
Conclusion
I put my money where my mouth is and purchased a subscription at the end of the free trial. If you would like to being some intentional time blocking to your day, Give it a try. If you sign up, use this link and we both get a free month.
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