Introduction:

Time management is crucial in enhancing productivity and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. A few years ago, I embarked on a journey to improve my time management skills, exploring techniques like time blocking, time boxing, and day theming. During this journey, I discovered the power of planner apps, which became the control center of how I spend my time, keeping me organized and sane. In this article, I will delve into the concept of planner apps and share my personal experience with Sunsama, a versatile tool that has revolutionized my time management approach.

What is a planner app?

A planner app acts as a centralized hub for managing tasks and schedules. It aggregates to-do lists from various sources and integrates multiple calendars. It often offers additional features that allow you to build and improve your workflow over time, like:

• Time-tracking;
• A set of statistics that help you reflect on the past week and day and detect whether you actually spent your time where it was the most effective;
• Tools for managing objectives and tell you how you work toward them;
• Support rituals for effective daily and weekly planning;
• Categories for analyzing tasks.

My preferred stack and methods:

Two years ago, I chose Sunsama as my go-to planner app. Its price is in the higher range of similar applications. It is not cheap, but I never regretted paying this price for it, considering the improvements he allowed me to achieve. My full stack is divided into two parts:

• Task and time management
• Information and knowledge management

My task management stack comprises Todoist, Fantastical, Trello, Notion, and Sunsama.

• Todoist is used for task and project management.
• Trello is used to manage my content calendar.
• Notion is used to create project pages that contain information shared with clients or contributors,

Sunsama seamlessly integrates with Todoist, Google Calendar, Microsoft Calendar, Trello, and Notion. It also integrates with Gmail and Outlook to pull tasks from emails. Sunsama, as a planner, empowers me to:

• Gain a holistic view of my meetings and tasks for the day. I can navigate through it quickly;
• Efficiently time-block my main tasks, create time boxes, or arrange day theming;
• Facilitate rituals for daily and weekly planning;
• Enable retrospectives at the end of each week;

I follow the Bento method, popularized by Francesco D'alessio, to structure my planning process and limit the quantities of tasks on each day. Before using it, I had a solid trend for overloading my days. This method lets me choose between large, medium, and small tasks to fill my schedule intentionally. It guides me in arranging the tasks during the day to consider my energy levels.

Let's dig into more detail on the workflow:

Capture of tasks and triage

I capture tasks in Todoist from my computers, phone, or iPad. The capture is easy and quick. The Natural Language Parsing of Todoist works fine and delivers precise results. All new tasks end in the inbox, and I review them, usually at night, to file them where they belong. I organized my tasks list by role ( largest customers, projects, family, etc.), and I use sub-projects for large categories and sections for smaller projects.

Sprints

For the last six months, I adopted an organization in sprints. It helped me get more organized and better plan my week ahead. During the sprint, I add tasks that are really urgent and absolutely need to make it into the current sprint. Other tasks go to the next sprint or a project list and will be only considered during my weekly planning session.

Sprint planning

On Sundays, the first day of the sprint, I set objectives for the week within Sunsama. I review the "next Sprint" label in Todoist, select the tasks that will make it into the new sprint, and change their label to "current Sprint." I assign due dates to the tasks to create a draft week schedule in Todoist inside the Upcoming board view. I verify that the number of tasks in each day is reasonable (about 9 per day) and that the number of large tasks per day is within the limit I set with the Bento approach (about 2 per day maximum). I then assign priority to the tasks, but at most two high priority per day. I experienced that this gives me more clarity on the day theming and more focus. When the schedule is ready, I import in Sunsama the tasks of the sprint into each day. I also pull the emails marked as todo that I want to solve during the sprint. Finally, I pull from Trello the article I want to work on during the sprint.

Daily Planning

Each morning, I review the day's tasks and time block the most important ones (they have the highest priority in Todoist and are, most of the time, large tasks). I may have to add a task if an emergency occurs during the morning email review. Sunsama offers a superior time-blocking experience, as the same task can be time-blocked in several blocks. This is convenient when you will work on the task at a different moment or when you cannot finish it in the time you initially thought (this happens quite often to me — I am still too optimistic about the time I allocate to tasks). The focus bar or focus mode of Sunsama allows me to track my time, making any subscription to Toggl or any equivalent useless, as I do not need to invoice my work based on time. During the day, I spend most of my time in focus mode. This mode only shows the task of the day and the calendar for that day.

Daily Wrap-up

I review how my day went when I disengage from work at night. Sunsama presents me with some statistics for my day: how many tasks were completed, worked on, or not even started, and the time spent by category. I can also go quickly through the tasks achieved, see if the recorded time aligns with the planned time, and learn how to improve my estimates. During the daily wrap-up, I process my inboxes (in Todoist and the emails) every night. In Todoist, I file the task into the project where it belongs. I add a label with the task size — XS (<10 min), Small (20 min), Medium (45–60 min), and Large (90–120 min), and If I think this task shall be performed next week, I add a label "next sprint." If the task must be done during this week, I add a due date, but I don't add a label "current sprint." This will help me evaluate how many tasks have been added to the sprint during the week. I usually review my emails twice daily, one in the morning and one at night. In the morning, I only check the emails related to my projects. I review all the remaining mail at night. If a mail needs an action, I mark it as todo. It will appear in Sunsama, ready to be pulled.

Sunsama automatically transfers the tasks that still need to be finished to the following day, allowing me to fine-tune the schedule. Doing this at night allows me to take this out of my mind, to be more precise with what I want to achieve the following day, and to spend only minimal time the next morning to finalize my schedule.

Weekly Wrap-up

Every Friday, I analyze my week at the end of the afternoon. I look at how aligned with my weekly goals I was and where I spent more time. This allowed me to improve the setting of my weekly objective and gain more focus on what I am doing. During this session, I decide on a few actions to include in the next sprint to grow by 1% daily.

Conclusion:

Sunsama has become the central pillar of my time management strategy, enabling seamless coordination between tasks, schedules, and objectives. While time blocking can be performed directly on platforms like Todoist or Fantastical, a dedicated planner app offers a more integrated experience. Furthermore, Sunsama's analytics features provide valuable insights into my productivity and aid in continuous improvement. By embracing planner apps and leveraging the power of time management techniques, I can enhance my efficiency, maintain a work-life balance, and achieve my goals with greater ease. The planner app market has grown substantially during the last few years, and now you can choose between several applications: Sunsama, Routine, Akiflow, etc. Try them and find the one that suits your work style. You will not regret the move.