Recurring Tasks

Create tasks that repeat on a regular basis for routine work.

Recurring tasks allow you to create tasks that you need to do on a regular basis: work that needs to be done each day, week or month, and routines you do at a set time and want to check off. If something just needs to sit on your calendar, a recurring calendar event is often the better fit. See Recurring tasks versus recurring calendar events.

Walkthrough

How to use

Creating a recurring task (0:46)

Start by creating a normal task in Sunsama. Open the task, click the “…” menu at the top of the task page, then click “Repeat”. Sunsama will copy the various details of this task into all instances that will be created when you make it repeat. It’s best to set things like channels, subtasks, notes, and time estimates before you make it repeat.

Choose how the task repeats: Daily, Weekdays (Monday to Friday), Weekly, Monthly or Yearly.

For tasks that repeat only on certain days of the week, select Weekly, then select the days you want the task to appear.
Weekly tasks can repeat every week, every other week, or every third, fourth, sixth, seventh or eighth week. Monthly and yearly tasks can repeat every month or year, every other, or every third, fourth or sixth.
Monthly tasks can repeat on a day of the month, like the 15th, or on a weekday, like the first Monday.

Tasks linked to an integration, such as a Linear issue, can’t be made to repeat.

Giving a recurring task a start time (3:30)

A recurring task doesn’t need a start time. Leave it empty when the timing changes from day to day, like “Review pull requests” or “Clear inbox”.

When you do set one in the At roughly field, it does two things:

It tells Sunsama when to auto-schedule that task if possible.
It helps determine the chronological order of your task list.

For example, you might pick “9:00 AM” for your “Review Inboxes” task and “7:30 AM” for your “Daily Journaling” task. That way, your “Daily Journaling” task will always show above your “Review Inboxes” task.

Rigid scheduling: a fixed start time

Once a recurring task has a start time, the Rigid scheduling toggle appears under it. It decides whether that time is fixed or rough. There’s also a Parallel toggle, which lets each occurrence run alongside adjacent parallel tasks (see Planned and actual times).

On (fixed): each day, Sunsama places the task as close to its start time as possible, and the task holds its chronological spot in your list. When agentic daily planning drafts your day, it plans around the task rather than moving it. Use this for routines you do at a set time: the gym at 6:30, breakfast at 8, medication at 8 PM.
Off (rough): the start time is a suggestion. Sunsama uses it to order your list and to auto-schedule the task when there’s room, and is free to place it elsewhere as your day fills up. Use this for things you do “around” a time, or that move with your meetings.

New recurring tasks follow your account default, Rigid recurring task scheduling by default, under Settings → Timeboxing. It’s on unless you’ve turned it off.

Navigate through a task series (6:01)

If you need to navigate through a recurring task series for any reason, such as to find a previous or future instance, one way to do this is to click on any task in that series, and use the “previous” and “next” buttons.

Editing a recurring task series (6:36)

Open the task then click “Edit task series”. Options include:

Stop repeating: This will keep the current instance and any instances before this task intact. All instances after this will be removed.
Change repeat frequency: Use this to change the frequency at which the task repeats, as well as the approximate “at roughly” start time.
Change start time: Use this to change the At roughly start time of the task series.
Delete all incomplete instances and stop repeating: This will delete all incomplete instances of this task. If you previously marked instances of this task as complete, they will not be deleted.
Extend series: On the last instance of a series, use this to keep it going.
Update all incomplete instances to match this task: This is the option you want to use when you want to edit all items in a series. You do this by making changes to this individual instance (e.g. changing the title, adding subtasks, notes, etc) and then choosing this option. Please note that this will change all incomplete instances not just instances after the one you clicked.

Also use this to hide or show subtasks on all future instances.

FAQ and common issues

Understanding rollover (9:17)

The rollover behavior of recurring tasks is slightly different than normal tasks.

Unlike normal tasks, recurring tasks rollover until they collide with another instance of the same task. For example, if you’ve got a daily recurring task for “Check Email” and you don’t check it off today, you will not see two instances of it tomorrow. You will only see tomorrow’s instance.

There is one note-worthy exception. If you make significant edits to a task (changing its title, notes, subtasks, etc) Sunsama will preserve that task. In other words, Sunsama only hides rolled over recurring tasks when they provide no valuable information.

In our example above, if we were to add some notes to today’s “Check Email” task, then we’d see two instances tomorrow. The one from yesterday with notes and today’s un-edited task.

I made an old task recurring and now I see several copies of it

If a task was created, sat around rolling over for a few days, and you then set it to repeat, you’ll see one copy for each day it rolled over. Those copies are the task’s own rollover history, not new instances, and you can safely delete the extras. The remaining task will repeat normally from there.

Recurring tasks versus recurring calendar events

Both can put something on your day at the same time every day. A recurring task with a rigid start time differs from a recurring calendar event in five ways:

It doesn’t appear on your external calendar (Google, Outlook) by default. Its spot on your calendar lives in Sunsama, unless you timebox an occurrence.
It doesn’t block the time for other people, so colleagues can still book meetings over it. A calendar event marked busy does.
It has to be checked off. If you don’t mark it complete, it rolls over. A calendar event simply ends.
It can be bumped. Sunsama keeps it as close to its start time as the rest of your day allows, but other things can push it out of position. A calendar event always stays put.
It’s on your task list. A calendar event only shows up there if you import it.

Make it a recurring calendar event in Google Calendar or Outlook when:

It needs to block your calendar, so colleagues can’t schedule over it. “Pick up kids from school” or a fixed lunch break are good examples.
It isn’t really a task to check off, and you’d rather see it on your calendar than on your list for the day.

Make it a recurring task with a rigid start time when it’s something you do at a set time and want to check off, and it’s fine for it to live only in Sunsama: a morning workout, journaling at 7, taking vitamins with breakfast.

Make it a recurring task with no start time, or a rough one, when the work matters but the timing doesn’t. For example, I have a daily recurring task to review my email, and the time I do it changes each day based on my other obligations.

If you choose a calendar event, you can use auto-import to bring it onto your task list automatically, or import it as you plan each day in Sunsama.

Subtask behavior

If you create a recurring task with subtasks, by default, all the future instances will show the subtasks as collapsed so as to not clutter your daily task list.

If you want to show or hide all subtasks on future instances of a recurring task series, here’s how:

Show/hide them on an instance of the task series
Open that same task
Click “Edit task series”, then “Update all incomplete instances to match this task”
The rest of the task series will now match that task when it comes to subtasks being hidden or shown.

Best practices

Creating a daily task to go through inboxes can help you feel less overwhelmed by your inboxes. Learn how in our guide on merging linked tasks to make your inboxes more accessible.