Channels and Contexts

Overview of how to use Contexts and Channels in Sunsama.

Channels allow you to categorize tasks, events, and objectives so that you can better understand where you are spending your time each day. The ritual flows will show you a breakdown of how you spent your time by channel.

Contexts allow you to group several channels together so that you can quickly focus your attention on one context at a time. For example, you can switch to your “#work” context to see just your work tasks, across all your channels related to your work. Or you can switch to your “#personal” context to see just your personal tasks, across all your channels related to your personal life.

Walkthrough

How to use

Filtering your workspace by channel

Click the Filter button at the top of your workspace, or use keyboard shortcut Shift F, to reveal a dropdown menu of your contexts and channels.

Click, type, or use arrow keys to select a channel or context. This will filter your view of your workspace to only show tasks assigned to that channel or context. When you add a task while filtering, the task will get assigned to the channel you’re filtering by.

Assigning a channel to a task

While typing a new task, hit # while in the add task modal to assign a task, or click on the channel field.

If the task is already created, you can change the channel of the task by clicking on the name of the channel (or using keyboard shortcut Q), and selecting a different channel.

Settings

Open the Sunsama menu in the top left corner, choose Settings, then Channels. You can also click Manage channels at the bottom of any channel picker.

Click a context or channel to edit it. Use Create Context and Create Channel to make new ones, or Create channel in next to a context. You can also create a channel while adding a task: type a new name in the channel picker and press Enter. If you don’t have a work or personal context yet, click Add a work context or Add a personal context.

Each context or channel has a name and a color. To delete one, open it and click Delete. Deleting a context doesn’t delete its channels; they stay, and you can assign them to another context with Assign to context.

Toggle off Enable next to a channel to hide it in your workspace. Contexts can’t be disabled.

Personal context

Turn on Personal context to make a context for personal tasks. Tasks assigned to a personal context or a channel within that context do not count towards your workload in Sunsama.

Default channel

Turn on Default channel to assign all new tasks to that channel by default. You can only have one default channel, so turning it on for a channel replaces the old one.

Note: With a default channel set, the AI: Channel recommendations feature cannot be used.

Note: Channel filtering and other automations will override your default channel setting.

You can link a channel with a particular Slack channel (for notifications of new and completed tasks) or with an Asana project or Trello board from the channel’s settings. Apple Reminders lists and Toggl Track tags, clients and projects are matched to channels in their own integration settings.

From Settings > Integrations > Calendar, link a calendar to a channel for either or both of the following effects:

Import channel: When you import an event/meeting from a calendar, the resulting task will be assigned to that linked channel.

Timeboxing channel: When you timebox a task, the resulting working session will be created on the calendar linked to that channel.

Best practices

  • Use the Shift F shortcut to filter your workspace to a specific channel or context regardless of what view you’re in (e.g. Today, Board, Daily planning, etc).
  • Don’t create too many channels per context. 5-7 channels is usually a good amount. It’s easy to get obsessed with finding the perfect taxonomy and organization of your data but it won’t actually help you work with calm and focus.
  • Channels help you understand where you are spending your time and that’s why they’re best kept fairly high-level e.g. just use #hiring instead of #phone-screens #interviews #debriefs.
  • Make sure to turn on Personal context in your personal context’s settings even if you are in a private workspace. This is useful for having personal tasks not count towards your workload.