For those who’re something like me, you then might need gone by way of your fair proportion of activity administration or to-do checklist apps. I’ve tried all of them, from easy to-do checklist managers in my notes app all the best way to the large hitters like Monday, Todist, Asana, ClickUp & Notion. All of them did what I wanted them to do, however there was at all times one thing that made me cease utilizing them, whether or not it was simply providing an excessive amount of or not sufficient.
My activity administration wants
For my private use case, I wanted a activity administration app that might do the next:
- Set venture goals with (smooth) deadlines; I like to maneuver my deadlines sometimes
- Sync with my calendars
- Have the properties of a SCRUM board so I can transfer initiatives from stage to stage
- Have the ability to handle skilled and private duties
- Straightforward to arrange and never a chore to make use of
Previous activity administration apps
I attempted to make use of the common Apple Notes app to begin, however after a couple of duties, it bought extraordinarily messy. Apple Notes is nice for grocery lists, or perhaps a brief checklist. However as an overarching to-do app, it was not sufficient for me.
So I went to the large gamers. I attempted all of them. I attempted Asana, Notion, ClickUp, Todoist, and Monday, however all of them had been both lacking one thing, took too lengthy to arrange, or had been simply doing an excessive amount of for me. These companies tried to make it so that you run your complete life on there and never simply act as a activity supervisor or venture administration software program. Monday was the one service that I caught with for some time, however on the finish of the day, it nonetheless felt like work or an added step that I used to be making myself take
Sunsama & their method
A good friend of mine instructed me about Sunsama virtually a yr in the past and stated that I ought to give it a strive. It was a calendar-first centered guided day by day planner. The important thing phrase right here is “guided” – it virtually seems like a day by day train, however I’ll clarify extra in a bit.
While you join Sunsama’s free trial (use the hyperlink for 30 days as a substitute of 14!), you get taken by way of a fantastically curated intro and setup course of.
It begins off by asking which planners you’ve used prior to now, and it’ll checklist off the entire companies that I beforehand talked about and extra. All of the companies and apps talked about truly built-in properly with Sunsama, so for those who nonetheless need to use Asana as you migrate over to Sunsama, then they’ll simply work collectively. However as soon as you choose your integrations, that is the place the guided side comes into play.
The Sunsama “train”
The remainder of the setup course of seems like a morning yoga session. It is going to ask you while you wish to plan your day and set it as a routine; the thought is to take 5-10 minutes each morning to plan your day. You might be then instructed to plan your day by day objectives, then mirror on what you completed the day gone by, and be aware of what you intend to perform the next day. Every part with a really optimistic connotation, which is what brings me again to this each morning. It’s virtually like a respiration train earlier than taking over the day.
Utilizing Sunsama as my activity supervisor
As soon as you’re arrange you get introduced into your dashboard view, and from right here, it’s very simple. You create your duties, assign them a deadline, assign the size of time you anticipate engaged on it and start to assault your duties within the order you see match. The UI is a pleasure to make use of; it’s very self-explanatory on the floor degree, but additionally has some intricacies which can be there to assist.
On the left, you’ve your calendar view together with your particular channels that you could customise. Within the heart is your Mon-Fri view of all of the duties it’s good to get achieved and to the far proper is your integrations toolbar. Every part works with the plus button on the highest of every day after which you possibly can click on and drag duties all through your week. So if you’re not achieved with one thing, you simply transfer it to the following day.
Notable options
Some final options to say are the integrations, in fact. You’ll be able to simply combine with the entire third celebration companies and what works nice is that each activity or e mail may be simply dragged into your Sunsama calendar. As you possibly can see within the picture beneath, there’s a little Gmail icon on every activity that got here from my mail integration.
You too can simply create completely different channels that you could assign to sure duties. I exploit three essential channels – 9to5 YouTube, 9to5’s web site, and private. This manner I can preserve my duties as organized as attainable.
Wrap-up
As I discussed, Sunsama has became this morning train that I do Monday to Friday. I sip my espresso, login, see what I completed, and see what I’ve developing; it’s a easy and visible means of getting work achieved. I’m somebody that struggled mightily with group, activity administration, and all the things in between, and Sunsama has helped significantly in maintaining me centered on the duty at hand. And, it jogs my memory on the finish of the day to get off the pc and go take pleasure in time with my household, which is all we work for anyway!
What do you employ to handle your duties? Do you employ your native notes app? Do you employ one thing like Sunsama? Or do you retain all the things memorized in your head like I used to suppose I may do? Let me know within the feedback!
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