Channels and Contexts

Overview of how to use Contexts and Channels in Sunsama to categorize and filter your work.

Purpose

Channels enable categorization of tasks, events, and objectives to help understand time allocation. The ritual flows display a breakdown organized by channel.

Contexts group multiple channels together, allowing quick focus shifts. For example, you can filter to a “#work” context for work tasks only, or “#personal” for personal tasks.

Walkthrough

How to use

Filtering your workspace by channel

Click the “Filter” button or press Shift F to reveal the context/channel dropdown. Select via clicking, typing, or arrow keys. Tasks created while filtering auto-assign to that channel.

Assigning a channel to a task

Press # while in the add task modal, or click the channel field to assign a channel.

You can change an existing task’s channel by clicking the channel name or pressing Q.

Settings

Access channel settings via the main dropdown menu or “Manage channels” in the filter dropdown.

Personal setting: Toggle to designate a context for personal tasks. Personal tasks don’t count toward your workload. See Planned and actual times for more.

Default channel: Enable to assign all new tasks to a specific channel by default. Note: this disables the AI: Channel recommendation feature. Channel filtering overrides this setting.

Integration links: Link channels with Slack channels, Asana projects, or Trello boards.

Calendar and channel link: When timeboxing tasks, working sessions are created on the linked channel’s calendar. Imported events and meetings are assigned to the linked channel.

Best practices

• Use Shift F shortcut across all views
• Maintain 5-7 channels per context maximum
• Keep channels high-level (e.g., #hiring instead of separate #phone-screens, #interviews, #debriefs)
• Designate a personal context as personal in settings, even in private workspaces