Beyond Time vs. Sunsama: Daily Planner vs. Life Mastery Platform

Sunsama is a beautifully designed daily planner that has earned a loyal following among professionals who want calm, intentional workdays. It pulls tasks from your calendar, email, and project tools into a single daily view, then helps you timebox each one. The result is a focused, manageable day instead of a chaotic task list.

But daily planning, no matter how elegant, solves only one layer of the productivity problem. It answers "What should I do today?" without ever asking "What am I trying to achieve this quarter, this year, or in my life?"

Beyond Time starts from that deeper question. It connects long-term goals to daily time through OKRs, habits, routines, and AI coaching. The difference is not about which tool has more features. It is about which layer of productivity you need most.

This comparison walks through every major dimension so you can make a clear, informed decision.

1. Core Philosophy: Daily Calm vs. Goal-First Time Mastery

Sunsama: The Mindful Daily Planner

Sunsama's design philosophy centers on the daily ritual. Each morning, you open the app, pull in tasks from connected tools, estimate how long each will take, and drag them into time slots on your calendar. The app nudges you to keep your day realistic, warns when you are overcommitting, and guides you through an end-of-day shutdown routine.

The workflow:

1. Pull tasks from Asana, Todoist, Trello, Slack, Gmail, or your calendar
2. Estimate duration for each task
3. Drag tasks into your daily timeline
4. Work through the day with focus timers
5. Complete a shutdown routine in the evening

This is daily planning done right. Sunsama reduces the overwhelm of a scattered task list by forcing you to confront reality: you have a finite number of hours today, and not everything will fit.

The limitation: Sunsama operates on a 24-hour horizon. It excels at organizing the day in front of you but does not track whether those days, stacked together, are moving you toward anything meaningful. You might plan a perfect Tuesday, every Tuesday, for six months and still be no closer to your biggest goals.

Beyond Time: The Goal-First Operating System

Beyond Time starts from a fundamentally different place. Before asking what you should do today, it asks what you want to achieve. You define objectives, set measurable milestones, build supporting habits, and then allocate your time in 15-minute blocks connected to those goals.

The workflow:

1. Define your most important objectives using the OKR framework
2. Set measurable milestones (key results) for each objective
3. Build habits and routines that support your goals
4. Allocate time blocks to goal-related work
5. Track planned vs. actual time and adjust weekly

The daily view exists in Beyond Time, but it is downstream of your goals, not upstream. Your day is shaped by what you are trying to achieve, rather than by what landed in your inbox.

The limitation: Beyond Time is not designed to aggregate tasks from a dozen external tools. It is a personal achievement system, not a task consolidation hub.

2. Goal Setting: Task-Level vs. OKR-Powered

Sunsama: Goals as Task Aggregation

Sunsama does not have a native goal-setting framework. Your goals exist implicitly, buried inside the task lists of your connected project management tools. If you are working toward "Launch version 2.0 of the product," that goal lives in Asana or Trello as a project with subtasks. Sunsama pulls those subtasks into your day but does not track the parent goal's overall progress.

There is no way to define an objective, attach measurable key results, or see a progress percentage in Sunsama. The tool trusts that if you complete enough daily tasks, the bigger outcomes will follow.

For professionals whose goals are already well-defined and tracked elsewhere, this is acceptable. But for anyone whose goals are personal, cross-domain, or not captured in a project management tool, Sunsama offers no scaffolding.

Common workaround: Some Sunsama users maintain a separate document or app for goals and manually check progress. This works but creates a disconnect between daily planning and long-term tracking.

Beyond Time: Native OKR System

Beyond Time implements OKRs as a core feature. Every goal you create follows a proven structure:

• Objectives: Clear statements of what you want to achieve
• Key Results (Milestones): Measurable outcomes that indicate progress
• Progress tracking: Automatic calculation as milestones are completed
• Deadline visibility: See how much time remains versus how much progress you have made
• AI milestone suggestions: Describe your goal and get a structured breakdown

This is the same goal-setting methodology used by Google, Intel, and high-performing organizations worldwide. Beyond Time makes it accessible for individuals, not just teams.

Example goal in Beyond Time:

Objective: Transition to a freelance career by Q3

Key Results (Milestones):

1. Build portfolio website with 5 case studies (20%)
2. Secure first 3 paying clients (30%)
3. Replace 50% of current salary with freelance income (30%)
4. Establish morning work routine and weekly client pipeline review (20%)

Progress updates automatically. You always know where you stand against your most important goals, not just today's tasks.

3. Time Management: Daily Timeboxing vs. 15-Minute Blocks with Tracking

Both Sunsama and Beyond Time take time management seriously, but their approaches differ in scope and depth.

Sunsama: Calendar-Centric Timeboxing

Sunsama's time management revolves around the daily calendar view. You assign a duration to each task, then drag it into a time slot. The app integrates with Google Calendar and Outlook, so your meetings and task blocks appear side by side.

Strengths:

• Two-way calendar sync keeps everything visible
• Duration estimates force realistic daily planning
• Focus mode helps you work through one task at a time
• End-of-day review captures what actually happened
• Weekly planning view for light forward planning

Limitations:

• No planned vs. actual analysis over weeks or months
• No time allocation by goal or life area
• No granular block sizes below task-level estimates
• No historical pattern recognition across time periods

Sunsama helps you fill your day intentionally. But once the day ends, that data does not accumulate into a bigger picture of how you are spending your life.

Beyond Time: Goal-Connected 15-Minute Blocks

Beyond Time's time blocking system is designed for long-term awareness, not just daily scheduling. Every time block is tagged to one of four life pillars: Work, Health, Sleep, or Life.

Key features:

• 15-minute block precision: Plan your day in fine-grained increments
• Four-pillar allocation: Visualize time distribution across all areas of your life
• Planned vs. actual tracking: Record what you intended to do and what you actually did
• Goal-linked blocks: Connect time directly to specific objectives
• Weekly time audits: Review patterns and reallocate for the coming week
• AI-powered insights: Get recommendations for better time allocation

The planned vs. actual feature deserves special attention. At the end of each day, you compare your intended schedule against reality. Over weeks, this reveals patterns: maybe you consistently lose morning hours to email, or your health pillar gets squeezed every time a work deadline approaches. This awareness is what the weekly review process is built on.

4. Habits and Routines: Missing vs. Full-Featured

Habits are the engine of long-term achievement. Research consistently shows that consistent daily practices drive more progress than sporadic bursts of effort. How each tool handles habits reveals a fundamental difference in scope.

Sunsama: No Native Habit System

Sunsama does not include habit tracking. If you want to maintain a daily meditation practice, a reading habit, or an exercise routine, you have two options:

1. Create recurring tasks in a connected tool (Todoist, Asana) and pull them into Sunsama daily
2. Use a separate habit-tracking app alongside Sunsama

Neither approach gives you streak tracking, habit analytics, or any connection between your habits and your goals. A missed day simply disappears. A 60-day streak is invisible.

For professionals who already have strong habits and do not need tracking, this is not a problem. But for anyone actively building lasting habits, the absence of a habit system is a significant gap.

Beyond Time: First-Class Habit and Routine Engine

Beyond Time treats habits and routines as first-class features, separate from tasks and directly connected to your goals.

Habit features:

• Pillar categorization: Organize habits into Work, Health, Sleep, and Life areas
• Streak tracking: Visual counters that celebrate consistency and motivate continuity
• Completion history: See your patterns over days, weeks, and months
• Goal connections: Link habits directly to the objectives they support
• AI habit suggestions: Get personalized recommendations based on your goals

Routine features:

• Morning routines: Stack habits into a sequenced start to your day
• Evening routines: Wind-down sequences for better rest
• Custom routines: Build routines for any recurring block of your schedule
• Time allocation: See how your routines fit within your daily time blocks

The connection between habits and goals is what makes Beyond Time's approach distinct. In Beyond Time, "Write for 30 minutes" is not just a checkbox. It is a daily practice linked to your "Complete first novel draft" objective, visible in your Health or Work pillar, contributing to a 45-day streak, and tracked in your weekly review.

5. AI Features: Basic Assistance vs. Goal-Aware Coaching

AI capabilities are becoming a deciding factor in productivity tools. The key question is not whether a tool has AI, but what the AI understands about your life.

Sunsama: Lightweight AI Assistance

Sunsama has introduced AI features focused on daily planning efficiency:

• Task summarization: AI helps summarize long email threads or Slack conversations into actionable tasks
• Daily planning suggestions: Light recommendations for how to structure your day
• Natural language task creation: Quick task input with basic parsing

These features make daily planning faster. But the AI does not know your quarterly goals, your habit streaks, your time allocation patterns, or your personal context. It optimizes the day in front of you without understanding what you are building toward.

Beyond Time: Context-Aware Goal Coaching

Beyond Time's AI is purpose-built for goal achievement. It operates with deep awareness of your personal context:

• Milestone generation: Describe an objective and receive a structured set of measurable milestones
• Habit recommendations: AI suggests habits that specifically support your current goals
• Routine optimization: Get routine suggestions tailored to your schedule and priorities
• Daily reflections: Personalized insights based on your progress, streaks, and time patterns
• Personal context memory: The AI remembers your preferences, challenges, work style, and history
• Progress coaching: Guidance when you are stuck, falling behind, or need to recalibrate

Example interaction:

You set a goal: "Run a half marathon by October."

Beyond Time AI: "Based on your goal timeline, here are suggested milestones: (1) Complete a 5K run without stopping, (2) Build to 10K distance, (3) Complete a 15K training run, (4) Finish a half marathon practice run at target pace. I also recommend adding a daily 'Run or cross-train' habit to your Health pillar and blocking three 45-minute morning slots per week for training. Want me to set these up?"

The AI does not just parse text. It understands the relationship between goals, milestones, habits, and time, then helps you build a coherent system.

6. Integrations: Connected Hub vs. Standalone Personal System

This is the dimension where Sunsama has a clear structural advantage for certain users. Understanding why requires looking at what each tool is designed to do.

Sunsama: The Integration Powerhouse

Sunsama's core value proposition depends on integrations. It connects to:

• Calendars: Google Calendar, Outlook
• Project management: Asana, Todoist, Trello, Jira, ClickUp, Linear, Notion
• Communication: Slack, Gmail
• Notes: Notion

This integration network is Sunsama's greatest strength. If your tasks are scattered across six tools, Sunsama pulls them into one daily view. You stop context-switching between apps and start working from a unified plan.

Best for: Professionals whose work is defined by external tools and team workflows. If your day is shaped by Jira tickets, Slack requests, and calendar meetings, Sunsama gives you a single cockpit.

Beyond Time: The Personal Achievement System

Beyond Time takes a deliberately different approach. It is a standalone system designed for personal goal achievement, not a task aggregator.

Why standalone?

Personal goals, habits, and life priorities do not live in Asana or Jira. "Run a marathon," "Read 30 books this year," "Build a side business," and "Spend more quality time with family" are not project management tasks. They are life objectives that require a dedicated system.

Beyond Time provides that system:

• Goals and milestones live natively in the app
• Habits are tracked without external dependencies
• Time blocks are self-contained
• AI coaching operates on your personal context, not your team's task board

Best for: Individuals focused on personal achievement across all areas of life. If your biggest challenges are not about managing team tasks but about making progress on what matters most to you, a standalone personal system is more effective than a connected task aggregator.

7. Pricing: Subscription Cost vs. Generous Free Tier

Price is often a deciding factor, especially for individuals paying out of pocket rather than through an employer.

Sunsama Pricing

Sunsama offers a single pricing tier after a 14-day free trial:

• Monthly: $20/month
• Annual: $16/month (billed annually at $192)
• No free tier: After the trial, you must subscribe to continue using the tool

At $16-20/month, Sunsama is positioned as a premium daily planner. The price reflects its polished design and deep integration network. For professionals whose employers cover tool costs, this is reasonable. For individuals, it is a significant ongoing commitment for a daily planning tool.

Beyond Time Pricing

Beyond Time takes a different approach to pricing:

• Free tier: Full web planner with core goal tracking, habits, routines, and time blocking
• Pro: Premium features including mobile apps, advanced AI coaching, and deeper analytics

The free tier is notably comprehensive. You can define goals, set milestones, track habits, build routines, use time blocks, and access basic AI features without paying anything. This is not a stripped-down trial. It is a fully functional goal achievement system.

Value Comparison

The pricing comparison is not straightforward because the tools serve different needs:

• Sunsama at $16/month gives you a premium daily planner with integrations. No free option exists after the trial.
• Beyond Time's free tier gives you a complete goal-tracking, habit-building, and time-blocking system at no cost.

If you need daily task consolidation from multiple work tools, Sunsama's price may be justified by the time it saves. If you need a personal goal achievement system, Beyond Time delivers substantial value before you spend a dollar.

8. Who Should Choose Which: Clear Recommendations

The right tool depends on your specific situation. Here are honest recommendations by persona.

Choose Sunsama If You:

• Work in a tool-heavy environment: Your day is shaped by Jira tickets, Slack messages, Asana tasks, and calendar meetings. You need a single view that pulls everything together.
• Struggle with daily overwhelm: You have too many tasks from too many sources and need help creating a realistic daily plan.
• Value calm, ritualistic planning: You appreciate guided daily planning and shutdown routines as a practice.
• Already have goals tracked elsewhere: Your OKRs live in a team tool, and you just need a better daily execution layer.
• Have employer-covered tool budgets: The $16-20/month cost is covered by your company.

Ideal Sunsama user: "I have 30 tasks scattered across Asana, Slack, Gmail, and my calendar. I need to make today manageable without losing track of anything. I want a calm, focused daily ritual."

Choose Beyond Time If You:

• Want to achieve specific life goals: You have objectives in career, health, relationships, or personal growth that are not captured in any work tool.
• Need a goal-to-time connection: You want every hour of your day linked to a purpose, not just filled with tasks.
• Are building habits and routines: You want streak tracking, routine building, and habit-goal connections in one place.
• Value AI coaching for achievement: You want an AI that understands your goals, not just your tasks.
• Want a free or affordable solution: You need a comprehensive personal system without a $200/year commitment.
• Think in quarters and years, not just days: Your planning horizon extends beyond tomorrow.

Ideal Beyond Time user: "I have 3-5 major goals this quarter. I want to track my progress, build supporting habits, allocate my time intentionally, and get AI coaching that understands the big picture. I need to see whether my daily actions are actually driving results."

9. The Complementary Approach: Using Both Together

Some professionals find that Sunsama and Beyond Time address different needs well enough to justify using both.

Use Beyond Time for:

• Quarterly and annual goal setting
• Milestone tracking on personal and professional objectives
• Habit building with streak tracking across life pillars
• Time allocation analysis (planned vs. actual)
• Weekly reviews with AI-powered insights

Use Sunsama for:

• Daily task consolidation from work tools
• Calendar-integrated timeboxing for meetings and deliverables
• Team task visibility and shutdown routines
• Managing the flow of external requests

This hybrid works because the tools operate at different levels. Beyond Time handles the strategic layer: what you are building over months and years. Sunsama handles the tactical layer: what you execute today using the tasks that arrive from external sources.

The key is to let your Beyond Time goals inform your Sunsama daily plan. When you sit down to plan your day in Sunsama, you already know which goals need attention because Beyond Time shows your progress, streaks, and time allocation gaps.

10. Making Your Decision

The choice between Sunsama and Beyond Time reduces to one question: Is your biggest productivity gap at the daily level or the strategic level?

If you are drowning in tasks and need daily calm, Sunsama is an excellent choice. It will not help you set or track goals, but it will make every individual day more manageable and intentional. That alone is valuable.

If you are completing tasks but not achieving goals, Beyond Time addresses the root cause. It provides the framework to define what matters, track whether you are getting there, build the habits that drive progress, and allocate your time to match your priorities.

Neither tool is universally better. They solve different problems at different layers of productivity.

The question to ask yourself is not "Which tool has more features?" but "Which gap is costing me more: disorganized days or directionless months?"

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Free Tools for Goal-Driven Productivity

Ready to shift from daily planning to goal-connected time mastery? Try these tools:

• AI OKR Generator - Create structured objectives and key results in seconds
• Weekly Schedule Optimizer - Allocate your 168 weekly hours to what matters most

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Beyond Time free to use?

Yes. Beyond Time offers a generous free tier that includes full goal tracking with OKRs, habit management, routine building, and time blocking. You can experience the entire goal-first workflow without a credit card. The Pro plan adds mobile apps, advanced AI coaching, and deeper analytics, but the core system is completely free.

Does Sunsama have goal tracking?

Sunsama does not include native goal tracking. It is designed as a daily planner that pulls tasks from external tools and helps you timebox them into your calendar. If you need goal tracking, you would need to use a separate tool like Beyond Time alongside Sunsama or maintain goals in one of your connected project management apps.

Can I use Sunsama and Beyond Time together?

Yes, and this combination can be effective. Use Beyond Time for strategic goal setting, milestone tracking, habit building, and time allocation analysis. Use Sunsama for daily task consolidation and calendar-integrated timeboxing. The strategic layer informs the tactical layer: your Beyond Time goals tell you what to prioritize when planning your Sunsama day.

How does Beyond Time's time blocking differ from Sunsama's?

Sunsama's timeboxing assigns estimated durations to tasks and places them on your daily calendar. Beyond Time's time blocking uses 15-minute increments tagged to life pillars (Work, Health, Sleep, Life) and connected to specific goals. Beyond Time also tracks planned vs. actual time, revealing patterns over weeks and months. Sunsama focuses on making today's plan; Beyond Time focuses on whether your time investment matches your goals.

What is the OKR framework that Beyond Time uses?

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. It is a goal-setting methodology pioneered at Intel and widely adopted at Google. You define a clear objective (what you want to achieve), then set 3-5 measurable key results (milestones that prove you achieved it). Beyond Time implements this as a native feature with AI-powered milestone suggestions, automatic progress tracking, and connections to habits and time blocks.

Is Sunsama worth $16 per month?

Sunsama delivers strong value for professionals who need daily task consolidation from multiple work tools. If your day is driven by Jira, Asana, Slack, and Gmail, having a single calm daily view can save significant time and reduce stress. However, if your primary need is personal goal tracking and you do not use many external project tools, the cost may be harder to justify when free alternatives like Beyond Time exist for the goal-achievement layer.

Does Beyond Time integrate with my calendar?

Beyond Time is a standalone personal achievement system rather than a task aggregator. It does not sync with Google Calendar or Outlook. Instead, it provides its own time-blocking system with 15-minute blocks, four life pillars, and planned vs. actual tracking. For professionals who need calendar integration for meetings, using Beyond Time alongside your existing calendar is a common approach.

Start Connecting Your Goals to Your Time

If you have been planning productive days without a clear picture of what those days are building toward, you are not alone. Most productivity tools optimize for daily efficiency without addressing the question of direction.

Beyond Time was built to answer that question. Define your objectives. Set measurable milestones. Build the habits that drive progress. Allocate your time in 15-minute blocks linked to your goals. Then review your week and see whether your daily actions matched your strategic priorities.

The shift from "What should I do today?" to "What am I building, and is today contributing?" changes how you relate to your own productivity. It does not make you busier. It makes you more intentional.

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