If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’m passionate about systems — not just tools. In my blog post series, I talk about how you need five core apps:

1. Email
2. Tasks
3. Notes
4. Calendar
5. Passwords

But what if I told you there’s a tool that bridges three of these systems so seamlessly that it transforms how your workday feels? Let’s talk about Sunsama, and why it’s become the core of my productivity system.

And, yes, this post is sponsored by Sunsama. I partner with their team often because I love their system and I’ve used this tool for years. I don’t do sponsored posts unless I actively use the tool I’m promoting.

The Problem with Disconnected Systems

Here’s a workflow that might sound familiar:

1. You get an email requesting something
2. You create a task in your task manager
3. You check your calendar to see when you might have time
4. You go back to email to respond with a timeline
5. Later, you have to search your emails to find the context for the task
6. You have to track time to invoice later in yet another tool

That’s six different actions across four different tools — and a whole lot of mental energy wasted on coordination rather than creation. This is why most productivity systems fail. Not because the tools are bad, but because the gaps between the tools become mental sinkholes. One small task that should take 20 minutes, ends up feeling much more intimidating and taking much longer than it needs to (even with a good system).

Sunsama: Tasks + Calendar + Email + Time Tracking

Sunsama isn’t just a task manager. It’s a daily planner that unifies your workflows by bringing together:

• Your calendar events (from Google Calendar, Outlook, etc.)
• Your tasks (from Todoist, Notion, Jira, Clickup, Asana, Trello, natively in Sunsama or with Zapier)
• Your email (Gmail and Outlook)
• Your time tracking (Via Toggl, in the Native reports or with Zapier)

Let me show you how this works within a typical workday.

The Sunsama Daily Planning Ritual

Sunsama’s superpower is the daily planning ritual it promotes. Here’s what happens:

1. Morning check-in: Sunsama prompts you to start your day intentionally
2. Calendar integration: See your meetings alongside available work blocks
3. Task curation: Choose which tasks make sense for today, tomorrow and next week (not an endless backlog)
4. Time estimation: Add time estimates to be realistic about your day
5. Categorization: Add channels to see where you spend most of your time
6. Prioritization: Drag and drop tasks into your actual timeline

This one routine eliminates the biggest problem with most task managers: the never-ending, guilt-inducing task list that has no relationship to the reality of your calendar.

Turning Emails Into Actionable Tasks

Here’s where things get incredibly helpful. Sunsama allows you to:

1. Forward an email directly to your Sunsama inbox (with a separate today and backlog email)
2. Drag emails from Gmail/Outlook into Sunsama as tasks
3. Maintain the email as context within the task (even if you archive it in your email system)
4. Schedule the task into your actual day
5. Choose how the email is managed once the task is complete (archive, label, etc)

This feature alone has transformed my email workflow. Instead of using my inbox as a makeshift task manager (which we’ve all done), I can instantly convert communications into scheduled blocks of work — without losing the context.

The “Channel” System That Replaced My Project Management Tool

Sunsama uses “Channels” which function as projects or areas of responsibility. I’ve set mine up to include:

• Client Work: Divided by client name
• Content Creation: Blog posts, newsletters, videos
• Business Development: Pitches, partnerships, strategy
• Admin: The necessary evil stuff
• Personal Development: Courses, reading, learning

Each task gets assigned to a channel, which helps me see at a glance how I’m balancing my attention across different areas of my business. Plus, I get to see exactly how I’m spending my days, weeks, months and how balanced the workload is.

I say my own business is the priority, but is that what is reflected in my time reports? Seeing this breakdown is a great way to review your work and make sure you’re prioritization is aligned with your goals.

The Weekly Review That Actually Works

Most of us know we should do a weekly review, but how many actually do it consistently? Sunsama builds this into the workflow with:

1. A dedicated weekly review interface
2. Statistics on how your week went (tasks completed, focus time, etc.)
3. Easy rolling over of incomplete tasks to the next week
4. Analysis of your workload and capacity

This closed-loop system means you’re constantly improving your planning based on real data about your work patterns.

Replacing Three Tools with One (Almost)

By using Sunsama as my central command center, I’ve been able to:

1. Simplify my task manager: I now use Sunsama for daily/weekly tasks, keeping my Notion just for longer-term project planning
2. Make my calendar more realistic: My Google Calendar now accurately reflects what I’m actually working on, not just meetings
3. Process email faster: My inbox consistently stays at zero because emails immediately become tasks or get archived
4. Reduce context switching: I spend less time jumping between apps and more time in focused or pomodoro mode

The Five Core Apps, Revisited

Remember those five core apps I mentioned? Here’s how Sunsama fits in:

1. Email: Still need an account, but Sunsama integrates with it
2. Tasks: Sunsama becomes your daily task hub
3. Notes: Still need a separate tool (I use Notion)
4. Calendar: Sunsama integrates with your existing calendar(s)
5. Passwords: Still need a dedicated manager

Essentially, Sunsama becomes the bridge that connects three of these core systems, eliminating the gaps where things fall through the cracks. This becomes even more useful if you have multiple apps that you use for various clients. For example, client A uses google tasks, client B uses Asana, and client C uses ToDoist. They all end up in Sunsama though, where I can plan my day as one person — not three.

Is Sunsama Worth $20/month?

Let’s be honest — at $20/month, Sunsama isn’t cheap for a productivity tool. But here’s how I think about it:

If Sunsama saves me:

• 15 minutes per day in context switching
• The mental load of coordinating between multiple apps
• The cost of missed deadlines or forgotten tasks
• The stress of an overbooked calendar

…then it’s returning multiples of its subscription cost in reclaimed time and mental energy. For creators and small business owners, your attention is your most valuable asset. Tools that protect and focus that attention aren’t expenses — they’re investments. An investment of 65 cents a day is well worth it in my opinion (or 52 cents a day if you pay yearly).

How to Know If Sunsama Is Right for You

Sunsama might be perfect for you if:

• You juggle multiple projects or clients
• Your calendar never seems to reflect your actual workload
• Email often becomes your sub-par task manager
• You struggle with realistic daily planning
• Context switching is eating up your productive time

It might NOT be right for you if:

• You have a very simple workflow with minimal tasks
• You don’t use calendar extensively for work planning
• You’re already happy with your current task and time management
• You prefer extreme minimalism in your tools

Getting Started With Sunsama: A 5-Day Plan

If you decide to try Sunsama, here’s a simple onboarding plan:

Day 1: Connect your calendar and import tasks from your current task manager 

Day 2: Set up your channels (projects/areas) and organize existing tasks 

Day 3: Start using the daily planning ritual and time blocking 

Day 4: Set up email integration and practice converting emails to tasks 

Day 5: Complete your first weekly review and adjust your workflow

Or check out my Getting Started in Sunsama video that walks you through the full sign up process.

The New Daily Highlights Feature

One of Sunsama’s newest and most powerful features deserves its own spotlight: AI-Assisted Daily Highlights. This feature alone has changed how I track my progress and communicate with clients and team members.

What Are Daily Highlights?

At the end of each workday, Sunsama automatically generates a summary of everything you accomplished — pulled directly from your completed tasks, calendar events, and integrated work tools. This isn’t just a list of tasks marked off, it’s an AI-assisted narrative of your day that:

• Summarizes your completed work across all connected platforms
• Visualizes where you spent your time
• Creates a searchable record of your accomplishments
• Helps you reflect on your productivity patterns

Why Daily Progress Documentation Matters

There are three main reasons this feature has become essential to my workflow:

1. Evidence-Based Performance Tracking

When it’s time for client reports, team check-ins, or your own performance review, you have a detailed, chronological record of exactly what you’ve accomplished. No more scrambling to remember what you did three weeks ago.

2. Reflection and Fulfillment

Let’s be honest — at the end of most days, we feel like we didn’t get enough done. The Daily Highlights feature shows you the objective reality of your productivity, which is almost always more impressive than your subjective feeling.

3. Automated Reporting

If you’ve ever spent an hour at the end of the week trying to compile a status report, you know how tedious it is. Daily Highlights automates this completely, saving hours of administrative overhead.

Connected Tools That Power Your Highlights

What makes this feature particularly unique is how it pulls information from across your digital ecosystem:

• Development platforms: GitHub, Linear
• Project management: Asana, Todoist, Trello, Jira, ClickUp, Monday.com
• Knowledge bases: Notion
• Communication: Google Mail, Outlook Email, Microsoft Teams
• Calendar: Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar

The AI doesn’t just list what happened in these tools — it intelligently summarizes the work, creating a coherent narrative of your day.

How I Use Daily Highlights

Here’s my personal workflow:

1. End-of-day review: After completing my shutdown routine, I review the AI-generated highlight
2. Personal reflection: I add a quick note about how the day felt, challenges I faced, or insights I gained
3. Sharing options: Depending on the day, I might:
    — Send it to clients as a daily update
    — Share with team members via Slack
    — Keep it private as part of my productivity journal
    — Use it to populate my weekly review
4. Pattern recognition: Over time, I’ve noticed trends in my productivity that have helped me restructure my ideal week

Getting Started With Daily Highlights

The setup is incredibly simple:

1. Enable the feature in your Sunsama settings
2. Connect your work tools (many of which you may already have integrated)
3. Customize your preferences for what gets included in your highlights
4. Choose your sharing preferences (private, email, Slack, Teams)

After that, the system runs automatically, sending you a daily summary to review and share as needed.

Beyond Tools: The System Is What Matters

Remember — Sunsama itself isn’t the solution to overwhelm. It’s the system you build with it:

• The habit of daily planning
• The ritual of weekly review
• The practice of realistic time allocation
• The discipline of email-to-action conversion

The best productivity tool is the one you’ll actually use consistently. For me, Sunsama has become that tool because it bridges the gaps between my calendar reality and my task intentions.