Push back non-essential tasks

Purpose

Now that you've created a list of all the things you might want to do today, the third step asks you to trim your list down to focus on what you need to actually get done by pushing tasks to a future date.

Walkthrough

How to use

Review your workload counter · 1:33

The workload counter, at the top of today's column, shows you how much work you have allocated. If your planned time for tasks in work contexts is getting close to your workload threshold you'll see an orange warning, if it exceeds your workload threshold, you'll see a red warning.

Pushing back tasks · 2:23

If your workload threshold says you are overcommitted, you should move tasks that won't get done or aren't essential to get done to a future day by dragging and dropping them to one of the nearby columns. The second and third columns give you easy access to tomorrow's column, and the column for next week (i.e. next Monday).

The "tomorrow" and "next week" options are provided for convenience, in case you want to revisit something when you plan the next day or week.

If you know when you want to revisit a task, you can set a specific date with the start date menu (calendar icon button) that appears on any task.

If you don't know when you want to revisit a task or it's not that important, you can send it to your backlog. The easiest way is with the keyboard Shortcut Z

Caution: Unpredictable workload · 3:36

If you have not set time estimates on the majority of your tasks, you'll see the "Unpredictable workload" reminder. It's very difficult to plan an achievable workday when you don't add time estimates to each task. If you are struggling to set time estimates, don't worry about being perfect and take a look at these tips.

Hit Next

When you've trimmed your list to a reasonable set of tasks you can actually finish, hit Next.

Best practices

• This step only works well if you've imported your meetings as tasks and added time estimates to most of your tasks.
• You can customize your workload thresholds in your account settings.
• During daily planning, the workload counter shows your planned time for tasks in your "work" contexts only. If you want to see your "workload" across all your tasks, you can click on the workload counter to toggle different views.
• When you first start using Sunsama, shoot for a planned time significantly lower than the hours you'll be "at work". For example, if you are working from 9 AM - 5 PM, with a lunch break, a good workload to aim for would be 5.5 hours. As you use the product more, your ability to focus and estimate tasks will improve.