Google Tasks vs Sunsama: Why You Probably Need Both

Many productivity tools are designed to make you feel good about being unproductive.

You know what I’m talking about. That endless list of shit you need to do but never actually do. That digital graveyard of good intentions that just sits there, judging you.

Yeah, I’ve been there. For years, I was that guy who’d try every new productivity app that promised to fix my life.

They just gave me fancier ways to disappoint myself.

But wait. This isn’t another rant about how all productivity tools suck. Because I found two that don’t: Google Tasks and Sunsama.

And they’re interesting precisely because they don’t pretend to solve all your problems.

Tools can’t fix your procrastination, your perfectionism, or your tendency to overcommit. But the right ones can help you see these patterns more clearly.

That’s why this comparison matters.

TL;DR Summary

Google Tasks is a sticky note in your Google apps. No features, just capture. It’s free because it doesn’t care what you do with your tasks.

Sunsama is a coach that makes you plan when you’ll actually do things. It costs $20/month because it’s trying to change your behavior.

You probably need both: Tasks to capture quickly, and Sunsama to face reality.

Google Tasks vs Sunsama At A Glance

Google Tasks Overview

Google Tasks is a to-do list that lives inside your Google apps. That makes it different—it’s not trying to be a standalone task manager, but rather a natural extension of Gmail and Calendar.

Most of us don’t need a complex task management system. What you and I need is a frictionless way to capture tasks when they come up.

When you’re reading an email and need to do something about it, you can turn it into a task with two clicks. No context switching, no complicated workflows.

It’s the digital equivalent of jotting something down on a sticky note, except this note shows up in your calendar and won’t get lost under your coffee cup.

The magic is in what Google Tasks can’t do.

There are no priority matrices, no complicated tagging systems, and no endless customization options. Just lists, subtasks, and due dates.

This simplicity comes with a trade-off, of course. You can’t do complex project planning or create detailed workflows.

What’s particularly clever is how Google Tasks integrates with Calendar. When you add a due date to a task, it shows up alongside your meetings and events.

This subtle feature changes how you think about tasks—they become as real as your other commitments, not just items on an endless to-do list.

But perhaps the most powerful aspect of Google Tasks is something that’s easy to miss: it’s always there, right inside the tools you’re already using.

When you’re in Gmail, tasks can link directly to emails. When you’re in a Calendar, they appear alongside your schedule. When you’re in Docs, they’re just a click away.

It’s this seamless presence that makes Google Tasks more useful than its feature list might suggest.

What we like about Google Tasks

• It lives where you work. Not in some separate app, but right inside Gmail and Calendar.
• The integration is thoughtful. Turn emails into tasks with two clicks. Tasks show up in your calendar like real appointments. It’s friction-free task management.
• Works across all devices. Phone, laptop, tablet—your tasks follow you everywhere. More importantly, they sync instantly.
• Voice input through Google Assistant works. Most voice interfaces are clunky. This one isn’t.
• The simplicity isn’t a bug—it’s the killer feature. No endless customization options to waste time on.

What we don’t like about Google Tasks

• No standalone web interface. Sometimes you want to plan without seeing your inbox/calendar. Can’t do that here.
• The notification system is too basic. A simple heads-up about due tasks would help. Right now, it’s easy to miss things.
• Google’s history of killing products makes it hard to fully commit. It’s like building your house on rented land.
• Can’t sort tasks the way you want. No tags, and no priority levels beyond starring. For some people, this is a dealbreaker.
• The simplicity that makes it great also makes it limiting. You can’t do complex project management here. Then again, maybe that’s not what a task manager should do.

Sunsama Overview

Sunsama reimagines the daily planner for people who believe time is more valuable than tasks.

Sunsama forces you to treat your day like the finite resource it is.

Here’s what that means in practice:

When a task comes in—whether from Trello, Asana, or your endless Gmail threads—Sunsama makes you schedule it.

Not just assign a due date, but block time for it.

People often ask me why that matters. After all, isn’t planning just another form of procrastination?

That’s what I thought, too, until I realized something:

Most of us work like firefighters, jumping from one urgent task to another. Our inbox and Slack notifications drive our day. We’re just reacting to whatever’s burning brightest.

Sunsama breaks this cycle by forcing you to think before you act.

If Google Tasks is about capturing everything quickly, Sunsama is about choosing things carefully.

The $20 monthly price tag shocks some people, especially compared to Google Tasks being free.

But they’re missing something crucial: The real cost isn’t money—it’s the mental drain of constantly juggling priorities without a system.

The genius of Sunsama isn’t just in planning—it’s in reflection. Every day, it prompts you to review what you have accomplished.

Not to make you feel bad, but to help you plan better tomorrow.

What we like about Sunsama

• The integrations are comprehensive. It pulls together your tasks from Gmail, Trello, Asana, and other tools into one thoughtful interface.
• The daily planning ritual works. It’s not just another to-do list—it helps you think deliberately about how you spend your time.
• Reflection is built into the workflow. The end-of-day review pushes you to learn from what you accomplished.
• The support team cares. When something goes wrong, you get real help from real people who understand the product.
• The calm interface isn’t just pretty—it’s purposeful. Every design choice aims to reduce the mental noise that comes with task management.

What we don’t like about Sunsama

• Project management features are too basic. You can’t handle complex team projects here.

Google Tasks vs Sunsama Features Comparison

1. Task Management

Google Tasks and Sunsama occupy opposite ends of this spectrum. One is ruthlessly simple, the other ambitiously complex.

The difference becomes clear when you look at how they handle a basic operation: adding a task.

In Google Tasks, you just type. That’s it. The interface is so clean it’s almost empty.

But this simplicity is deceptive.

Remember how we talked earlier about Google Tasks living inside your workflow?

That’s not an accident. It’s designed to be invisible until you need it.

Sunsama takes the opposite approach. It doesn’t want to be invisible – it wants to be your control center.

When you add a task in Sunsama, you’re not just recording something to do. You’re planning when you’ll do it.

The difference extends to how they handle existing tasks. Google Tasks gives you basic sorting options and lists.

Nothing fancy. Just like we saw in the earlier sections, it’s betting that simplicity beats features.

Sunsama, on the other hand, pulls in tasks from everywhere – Asana, ClickUp, Gmail, Todoist, even Slack.

Both even approach focus differently.

Google Tasks assumes your focus comes from elsewhere. Sunsama builds it in with Pomodoro timers and focus modes.

Here’s what it comes down to: Google Tasks is for capturing thoughts quickly. Sunsama is for managing time intentionally.

You can see this in how they handle task organization.

Google Tasks gives you simple lists.

Sunsama gives you #channels, which sounds simple but enables a whole different way of thinking about task organization.

The integration story tells the same tale. Google Tasks integrates deeply with Google Workspace, as we saw earlier. Sunsama integrates broadly with everything.

2. Integration Capabilities

Let’s start with Google Tasks.

Are you reading an email and need to remember something?

Google Tasks is already there, waiting. No new tab. No context switch. Just two clicks and done. That’s what real integration looks like.

Google Tasks is perfect for what it does, but it is impossible to use anywhere else. It’s permanent furniture in Google’s house.

Sunsama took the opposite bet.

Look at Sunsama’s connections: Trello, Asana, Todoist, and Slack. The list goes on. Each works fine, but none feels as natural as Google Tasks in Gmail. That’s the price of flexibility.

Here’s the practical difference:

If your work life revolves around Google’s tools, Google Tasks feels inevitable. Like it couldn’t exist any other way.

But if you’re the type who jumps between three project management tools before lunch, Sunsama’s broad reach matters more than Google’s deep integration.

Most task managers fail because they miss this distinction. They try to be deep and broad, ending up neither.

That’s what makes Google Tasks and Sunsama interesting. They picked a side. Google Tasks said, “do one thing perfectly.” Sunsama said, “connect everything adequately.”

So ask yourself: Do you need a tool that feels native to your main workspace, or one that can talk to all your workspaces?

3. Planning Features

Lists are where good intentions go to die. I’ve seen this happen countless times, both to myself and to others. You spend hours organizing tasks, only to find yourself drowning in them later.

Google Tasks is just a better way to write things down. You capture tasks and subtasks quickly, add due dates, and maybe add them to appropriate lists.

And that’s fine. Sometimes you just need to remember things.

Sunsama takes the opposite approach. It doesn’t want to be your notepad—it wants to be your time coach.

When you add a task in Sunsama, it demands to know when you’ll actually do it. Not just the due date, but the specific time block you’ll use.

Most people hate this at first.

Why add friction to task management?

Why not just dump everything into a list and figure it out later?

But “later” is the problem Sunsama is trying to solve.

Most productivity tools pretend your time is infinite. Keep adding tasks. Don’t worry about reality. That’s why Google Tasks feels so frictionless—it never forces you to confront the limited hours in your day.

Sunsama is almost annoying in its insistence on reality. Every morning, it makes you plan. Not just list hopes—assign actual times to tasks.

This might seem like overkill until you think about your last perfectly organized task list.

How many times have you had every task neatly categorized, yet still ended the day wondering where the time went?

That’s the illusion of traditional task management. Lists feel like control but aren’t.

When you drag a task into Sunsama’s calendar, you’re doing something most productivity tools never ask you to do: decide what won’t get done today.

This connects back to those broad integrations we discussed. Now they make more sense. Sunsama isn’t collecting tasks—it’s forcing you to allocate your attention.

The truth is, most of us need both approaches. Use Google Tasks to capture quickly. Use Sunsama to face reality.

Because better planning isn’t about better lists. It’s about better decisions.

No tool can make those decisions for you. But Sunsama at least makes you make them.

4. User Experience

The best productivity apps that I have seen break the rules of good design.

Google Tasks and Sunsama take opposite approaches to this problem. One disappears completely. The other deliberately gets in your way.

With Google Tasks, you mention something that needs doing, they just nod and write it down. No questions asked. The interface is so minimal it might as well be invisible.

Sunsama is different.

It asks a lot of questions. “When exactly will you do this? How long will it take? What about your other commitments?” Sometimes you want to tell it to shut up.

But here’s the thing: those questions are the whole point.

In Google Tasks, adding a task takes one second. Type, enter, done. It’s the digital equivalent of scribbling on a Post-it.

Sunsama makes you work harder. Each task feels like a tiny commitment ceremony. But that ceremony forces you to think about things you’d usually avoid until your task list becomes a monster.

5. Notifications and Reminders

Notifications are where Google Tasks and Sunsama reveal their deepest assumptions about human nature.

Think about how your friend reminds you about things.

Some friends just text “don’t forget.” Others ask “what’s your plan?”

That’s the difference between these tools.

Google Tasks is your low-maintenance friend. It just nudges you when something’s due. No questions asked, no judgment passed.

Image source: Google Workspace Updates

If you’ve used it as we discussed earlier, you know it fits right into that “write and forget” philosophy. This is either brilliant or terrible, depending on your personality.

That’s where Sunsama’s approach starts making sense.

Instead of just pinging you about due dates, Sunsama asks you to plan.

Every morning, it prompts you to plan your day. Not just to look at your tasks, but to actually decide what you’ll do. It’s like having a coach instead of an alarm clock.

Neither approach is universally better. Just like we saw with their planning features, it depends on what you’re trying to solve.

If you need help remembering, Google Tasks is enough.

If you need help deciding, Sunsama’s constant presence might be worth the mental interruption.

6. Collaboration Features

Collaboration features define how well a tool works when more than one person is involved.

Google Tasks takes this to an extreme. It barely acknowledges other people exist.

Sure, you can technically share a Google Tasks list through Google’s broader ecosystem. But it feels bolted on, like trying to share a personal diary.

Sunsama takes the opposite approach. It assumes from the start that work happens with other people.

Remember how it forced you to plan your day?

Now imagine that planning happening across an entire team. When you schedule a task in Sunsama, your teammates can see it. Not just the task, but when you plan to do it.

When you’re planning your day in Sunsama, you see your teammates’ availability. When you assign a task, you see their workload.

Which is better?

That’s the wrong question.

The real question is: Are you writing a personal to-do list, or are you coordinating with a team?

If you’re just managing your own tasks, Google Tasks’ lack of collaboration features is a blessing. It can’t get in your way.

But if you’re working with others, Sunsama’s constraints become valuable guides. They force everyone to be realistic about time and commitments.

The truth is, most of us need both. We have our personal tasks and our team commitments.

How Does Google Tasks & Sunsama Price Compare?

Google Tasks is free.

Sunsama costs $20 a month. You can also pay annually at $16 a month.

Free tools often end up being more expensive.

When you use Google Tasks, you’re paying with something else: your attention. It’s happy to let you pile up endless tasks because it costs Google nothing when you do.

Sunsama’s price tag forces it to deliver real value. At $20 a month, it can’t just be a list. It has to change your behavior.

Think about it this way:

If Sunsama saves you an hour a month of better planning, it’s paid for itself. That’s less than 3 minutes a day.

Final Thoughts on Google Tasks vs. Sunsama

You probably need both.

Use Google Tasks to capture thoughts quickly. When an email needs action, make it a task. When a meeting creates follow-up work, write it down. Quick, simple, done.

Then use Sunsama to actually plan your time. Pull in those Google Tasks, and decide what gets done today.

So stop looking for the one tool to rule them all.

Instead, ask yourself:

Am I trying to capture or plan?

Remember or decide?

The answer will tell you which tool you need right now.