Sunsama Review: How This Calendar Blocking App Solved All My Productivity Problems in Just Seven Days

My Problems

Just when I thought my productivity system was close to perfect, something happened. It was a simple thing, really, and something that my system should have been able to handle.

It couldn't.

In short, my workload (across my day job, personal, and business life) increased. Not just in one area. In all three. My system couldn't cope.

This increased workload left me constantly adding tasks to my task manager that became part of a seemingly never-ending postponement loop. The impact on my productivity - and, more importantly, my wellbeing - was becoming concerning.

The fundamental problems were:

1. Increased volume of projects and tasks (some were linked to projects, some were not - there was just more of everything).
2. Underestimating how long tasks were going to take.
3. More meetings (I suspect this was the cause of my increased workload rather than the workload increasing and leading to more meetings).
4. A mix of systems - I run my work life from Microsoft Outlook and my personal and business life from Google.
5. Calendar management issues - I underestimated the time I needed between meetings or tasks (for making notes, updating project plans, travelling, and breaks.)

It is important to note at this stage that I'm not trying to fit my increased workload into the same amount of time as before. That would not be sensible. My response to this increase in workload has been practical - not emotional. Things will take longer, and I am managing the expectations of those around me accordingly. Furthermore, steps are being taken to enable me to delegate some of the additional tasks.

That being said, my productivity system should be able to handle a greater diversity of tasks, meetings, and projects, and it couldn't. Something had to change.

Having identified the problems, I started to work on a solution.

After seven days of experimenting, I am convinced the solution is Sunsama.

The Solution

What is Sunsama?

According to their website, Sunsama is:

"an all-in-one daily task manager that organises all tasks, meetings, emails, and more in one place."

Let me explain what that means in my case.

Sunsama brings together my:

1. Outlook (work calendar and emails)
2. Gmail (personal/business emails)
3. Google Calendar (personal calendar)
4. Todoist (task manager)
5. Notion (project manager)

Everything lives in a beautiful, web-based interface which makes my busy brain very happy.

How Does Sunsama Work?

Sunsama is ultimately a planning tool. It trains you to plan and shut down your day at set times. There's a distinct process for this.

In the daily planning stage, you can pull tasks from (in my case) Todoist, Outlook, Notion, and a backlog within Sunsama. You schedule your tasks between existing calendar commitments.

An example of daily planning is below (please note, this is from a weekend, so far fewer tasks than in the week).

The shutdown process is an opportunity to reflect on how the day went and how much time you spent on various tasks.

It's possible to toggle between personal, work, and business contexts/calendars (and break these contexts down further for task types). This is achieved through channels and is an essential feature for me as it allows me to look at everything together and put boundaries in place when needed. My current channel setup is below.

Other features of Sunsama that I am enjoying include being able to:

• Set weekly priorities and align tasks with those priorities.
• Time my tasks and track how long things are planned to take versus the actual time.
• Use simple keyboard shortcuts.
• Access analytics for my weekly review.

Pros and Cons of Sunsama

The pros of Sunsama are:

• The web-based experience is excellent (this is important because I cannot have external apps installed on my work PC).
• The Mac app is excellent (useful for home).
• And the big one... it solves all of the problems I mentioned at the start of this article? More on that under The Verdict.

The cons of Sunsama are:

• At $16 a month (billed annually), it's expensive. However, the folks at Sunsama are very open about their pricing manifesto (here), and, honestly, I find it hard to argue with. Sunsama's value is far greater than the cost.
• Sometimes, I find it hard to ignore work emails at the weekend if they are just one click away. I could do with more friction here (although I do not want to delete the Outlook connection entirely).
• The iOS app is a companion app, so it lacks some functionality. The widget on my iPhone is helpful, though.

This is a minor point, but I would love the team at Sunsama to spend some time and energy developing their YouTube channel (or providing more video content elsewhere for paying subscribers).

The Verdict?

But wait, Martine, your pros and cons list above looks pretty balanced, with three on each side...

It's not balanced.

The pros of Sunsama far outweigh the (relatively minor) cons. Let's refer back to the problems I outlined at the start of this article; I will explain how Sunsama is solving them for me.

If you'd like a reminder of my productivity problems, see them below (toggle to open).

And the solutions:

1. Sunsama is not reducing the number of tasks and projects I have; however, it does give me one point of truth for my workload. I know what I have now, which is a huge help.
2. There's something about the process of calendar blocking (physically adding your tasks and their estimated length to your calendar) that makes underestimating the time required more difficult. This feels very close to being solved for me.
3. Knowing tasks will be added to my calendar makes me book fewer meetings. Those meetings that I do book are now shorter to allow time in-between calendar blocks.
4. Mixing systems (e.g. Microsoft and Google) is no longer an issue with Sunsama.
5. As alluded to in the points above, putting everything on my calendar means I must be more realistic about my time.

Sunsama is improving my daily routine; I love the planning and shutdown rituals. It's making time more visible and tangible; I suspect neurodivergent readers will relate to this.

On top of all of this, it is a delight to use. It makes me feel calm and in control.

The verdict?

Sunsama is a firm YES from me!

What's Next?

I will continue experimenting with Sunsama and will most likely stop using my task manager (there is no need when I can add all tasks to my Sunsama backlog for scheduling).

I intend to explore using Notion for project management further to improve how it integrates with Sunsama; the integration is there, but I am not maximising how I use Notion yet.

Watch this space for updates.

If you want to try Sunsama (and I highly recommend you do) click the button below for a free 14-day trial (no credit card required).