Sunsama Review – My all-time favourite to-do app

I have been looking so long for a to-do app which can collect tasks from multiple project management software into one view. And this is exactly what Sunsama does. But there is one big problem with Sunsama, let’s dive in.

Now this is the platform Sunsama where you have a quick overview of what’s going on the next four days. Of course, depending on your screen size, but this is what I really like. You can plan your day and when the day is over, Sunsama even lets you reflect about your day. But it’s very simple as you know it from other to do apps. We can easily add tasks here.

1. Features of Sunsama
2. Sunsama Pricing
3. Future of Sunsama
4. Pros & Cons using Sunsama
5. Last thoughts on Sunsama

Features of Sunsama

We can see the tasks we have created already here. We can add comments, notes, you can even make channels. Here I have YouTube as a channel, I have my own website as a channel and then work. And then based on these channels you can see that each task has a specific channel and these tasks I can either say it’s done. I can say that I need to schedule this one on the calendar.

I can snooze it or last but not least, I can say approximately how long would this take? So let’s say this one will take 15 minutes. What I can then do is that I can put it on my calendar, so it will be part of my calendar, so I know when I need to focus on this specific task. So if I click on my calendar over here, you can see right now I have some different elements that I need to do, but otherwise then I can actually plan my calendar with the tasks here. So over here, if I click on Sunsama then we have the task here.

Then I can drag it over and say I want to focus on this at 03:00 p.m. And now it’s added to my calendar and there is an integration to my Google Calendar, so I will see it on all of my devices. I can easily, of course, delete it again from my calendar if I want to. But now it’s linked on my calendar, so I know when to focus on this one, and you can do that with all of your tasks. And the problem that that solves is that you will never take on more tasks that you know that you can finish on a specific day.

So let’s say you take in five tasks but two of them take 4 hours each. Then the rest of the task is just not possible for you to do within one day. Of course if you work more than 8 hours then it’s possible, but sometimes the task just prolongs each other and other elements comes in and interfere during the day. So I really like that this is a way for you never to promise more than you can manage to do in one day. That’s just one of the problems that this solves.

Another problem is that it pulls in tasks from multiple project management software. So over here, I have added an integration to Trello. So within Trello right now I’m just using this board as an example and here you have all the different tasks. I can take these tasks, and then I can move them over here to say that on Wednesday I need to focus on this specific reading time progress bar. And here is the cool feature.

In my automations, I can see down here that when I complete this specific task I need to move it to the next column in Trello. So I don’t even have to spend time on signing in to Trello, going into the board, finding the specific tasks and then manually moving it from column A to column B. This is done automatically within Sunsama and this is how you just pull in tasks from all of your different project management software. On the plus down here, you can see that we can add GitHub, we can add Jira, Asana, even Todoist and then Outlook as an email. Right now I have added Gmail as my email, so I can even pull in my emails from my current inbox and say that on Tuesday I need to focus on this specific email.

So you can see over here, for instance, I have this one here logins to mails. This one comes directly from my email, so I know that, okay today I need to focus on this specific email, and then I can complete it and then go to my email and answer it. Of course, that automation is not there yet. Then we can also work with objectives.

So you can set weekly objectives stating that you want to achieve something specific this week. Maybe it’s a project that you have that you want to finish this week. You can split it up into multiple tasks over the week and then in here you can always follow your objective to see how it’s going on the progress bar. Are you on the right path or do you maybe need to change a bit? Maybe remove some other tasks which are right now in the way of you finishing your objectives.

This can also be used for setting weekly goals. The possibilities are really endless with weekly objectives. Then we have our backlog and that I really like about Sunsama. So let’s say that I have an idea that I want to do something, but I don’t know a specific time that I want to do this on. Then I can just add it to my backlog. So when I plan my week out I just pull the task from my backlog to for instance, Tuesday here and then on Tuesday I need to focus on this task, I really like that.

A different thing could be that. Let’s say that I’m working on a task today, but I’m still missing some parts. Instead of just keeping on postponing it, then just move it to the backlog and wait until you have all the features that you really need. Then there’s also an archive, and you can search within all of your tasks. Here you can only see just updates from Sunsama about what is happening and that is the main functionality of Sunsama.

It seems very simple, but it’s just so useful when you start working on it, especially over here with all the different channels you can use, and you can even integrate it to Slack. So here you can see all the integrations to your workspace and there is of course Outlook, Calendar, Gmail, Outlook as I’ve just shown you. But they do also have Slack, so Slack can easily share your daily plan. You can also share your reflections if you want your reflections to be on Slack. Then here I can add all the members for this specific workspace and here you can set the Privacy customisation, and you can even email in tasks. So if you’re sitting in your email, and you get an idea, or you just have a task you need to get done then you just email into this specific email right here then the task will be added today.

Otherwise, you do also have a backlog email, so it will be added to your backlog, so you can just add it whenever you have time, and you want to. That is the integration into the workspace. When you work more with Sunsama they do also have analytics showing the amount of tasks you have finished, how it’s going on a daily breakdown and Furthermore, so that’s just small analytics. It’s not so useful now I would really like to see if we get some insights on how we can improve our work via the analytics to see okay when you work on this specific way or when you plan your day ahead then you usually finish all of your tasks instead of planning it the same day.

Then we do also have rituals and I really like these rituals because they help you not only plan your day and your week, but also help you reflect on your day and your week. So here I have the ritual of planning today. So as I’ve shown you already the weekly objectives would be here, and this is again to highlight what you need to focus on. Otherwise, you can add your Trello over here to pull in tasks. We do also have a backlog and an archive.

If you have archived any tasks right now, I have not archived any tasks, but if you think that these are fine, then you can fill them into your calendar. So you can see as soon as I say add one event, it changes to the calendar, and now I can start adding these tasks to my calendar. Personally I don’t like to add it to my calendar because then often other tasks just come in and interfere, and then I feel that I’m behind instead of I just have a list where I start from the top, and then I just work my way down. That’s how it personally works best for me.

Maybe it will work better for you if you add it to your calendar. Now going to the next step here, We can also plan next week, we can plan tomorrow, but we can also just keep it as it is and then just plan one day at a time. And when you are ready, and you think the amount of tasks is good, you have planned your calendar, then you just press looks good. And now you can see that you have your daily planning right here.

And then I can either post it to Slack or I can just get started on my plan. That is one way of planning your day. You can also plan your entire week. So first you see here that we saw last week. I did not use this one last week.

So there’s not really anything, but it just shows you an overview of what you have gone. Here you can see that we can start planning this week. So first we build out some objectives. I have here the YouTube video release. I will add that as an objective, and then I will go to the next one.

So right now my weekly plan is to release this YouTube video. I will then press done. So now I have a planned for the entire week and the focus of this week is to release a YouTube video. Now what I want to show you, which I really like, is the daily shutdown. Here you can see the amount of time you have spent on your tasks, what tasks you have finished already and what tasks you haven’t finished.

So if I press next here then you can see that we have our daily shutdown. Here you talk about how was your day, what did you learn about yourself working on these tasks? What do you need to improve for tomorrow? So here we just write some nonsense, and then we can wrap it up. I’m not going to press wrap up now because the day today is not finished.

But that’s just a great way for you to be able to go back to see how much you have improved. Another thing, we can maybe combine this with the analytics to say that okay, on every Tuesday when you make this task you don’t feel so good about it. This thing is going over and over again. Maybe you need to outsource this specific task. That could be a fascinating feature.

But overall, that is what I want to show you within Sunsama. Now I want to talk about the big problem there is with Sunsama.

Sunsama Pricing

Now to the pricing of Sunsama and this is where we see the big problem because Sunsama costs $20 per user that you add to your account and that’s a lot when we compare it to the alternatives TickTick and ClickUp. Even with ClickUp and TickTick, you can use it completely free. However, Sunsama they don’t really believe in free users, and they have got this pricing question so many times that they decided to make a pricing manifesto. Within this pricing manifesto they talk about that they don’t believe in free users, they only believe in people who want to invest in their product, so they can invest back to the users and deliver this premium product that they are talking about. But personally I don’t think they’re there yet, and I don’t think that the current product is worth the $20.

But when it all comes down to pricing compared to features, it is whether it’s worth it for you or for me, when it is, we need to invest in this product. In their pricing manifesto they mentioned that this product costs $1 per day to use. So, if you believe that this product will save you one dollar per day, it is worth it. It’s as simple as that. And personally for me, it saves me a lot of time, so it’s definitely worth it.

But when you compare it to the alternatives then you really have to think whether it’s worth it or not because you do get some more compatibility and some more features within Sunsama. However, is it enough? That is really the question. Let me know in the comment section below. What do you think of the pricing?

Future of Sunsama

Now I couldn’t find the roadmap for Sunsama and I do not think they have one, but they have a long list of features requested by the users and I sorted all of these by the amount of votes they got and here integrations is a huge pinpoint for them. They’re working on integrations to iCalendar. So if we’re using iOS, macOS and everything within the Apple environment then we can finally integrate our calendar into Sunsama. Then they are also working on adding more integrations to other project management software. So if you’re using Monday.com or even a third project management software then you can also take all of those tasks and put them into Sunsama to plan your day.

Pros & Cons using Sunsama

I really like using Sunsama, but I wish they would add the iCalendar integration and just lower the price to allow more people to come in and give feedback. With that being said, I really like their daily workflow the way that I can reflect on my day and the integrations and design overall.

Last thoughts on Sunsama

Sunsama is really a product of the future I have been looking for so long after a product we can collect tasks from multiple project management software into one view and the fact that I can even collect my emails, soon my reminders and just everything in my environment into one view makes it so much easier for me and I’ll just continue to save time using Sunsama and that is why I want to give Sunsama four and a half stars. They are just almost a perfect product with some small floors.

Thank you so much for reading. Let’s catch up on the next one.