0:00 - We'll Help You Pick a Daily Planner
0:29 - Similarities
0:52 - Motion as Daily Planner + Project Manager
2:19 - When to Use Sunsama & Akiflow
3:22 - Differences between Sunsama & Akfilow
3:52 - How Sunsama Works
4:14 - How Akiflow Works
4:34 - Sunsama vs Akiflow Verdict
5:04 - Manual Task Planning or Automated?
6:37 - Daily Planner for Personal Use
7:04 - Routine: Limitations For Professional Use
8:16 - Final Verdict: Your Perfect Daily Planner
Not all daily planner applications are created equal, but on the surface it can be a bit difficult to differentiate between them. We'll help! Below you'll find a summary of our thoughts on Motion, Akiflow, Sunsama, and Routine, but if you're craving more, make sure to keep reading a deep dive on each tool below ⤵
In terms of the similarities, Motion, Akiflow, and Sunsama are all daily planner apps that were built for professional use, with a focus on time blocking (where you add and schedule tasks onto your calendar as blocks of time). Routine app is more for personal use and therefore the only free daily planner app mentioned in this best daily planner app review. That said, all four tools are digital planners with a ton of useful features to keep you organized!
Motion is the best daily planning app for busy professionals and small teams who are looking for a full-fledged project management solution, along with the ability to take tasks that are a part of your project and directly schedule them on your calendar.
And if you don't get a task done on time, Motion's AI scheduler will reschedule your tasks for you for the following day, or your next availability.
More than that, Motion has accounted for the fact that you schedule is always changing. Have a last minute appointment or meeting that has popped up? No problem, simply add it to your calendar and Motion will *automatically* rearrange all your tasks for you to accommodate the changes.
Adding tasks in Motion is super easy. A quick keyboard shortcut opens up their AI scheduler where you can simply type "Review presentation ASAP" and Motion will know what to do, pushing all your existing tasks down the priority list for the day. If you're on the road and using the iOS app, you can also ask Siri to add a task in Motion for you, making it truly feel like an integrated personal assistant.
Motion's ability to help you manage your projects and replace project management tools like Asana and ClickUp combined with their AI scheduling capabilities is really what differentiates them in this daily planner app category. Team members that use Motion collaboratively say it helps them focus on important tasks and get more work done.
Start your 7 day free trial of Motion here.
Akiflow and Sunsama are very similar daily planner apps. You can use them as standalone task managers/daily planners, although they only allow you to add tasks to your calendar manually. This means that while you have your list view, you still need to drag tasks onto your calendar one-by-one. Miss a deadline? You are still left rearranging your schedule for the next day, while Motion does it automatically.
If that doesn't bother you and you perhaps prefer the manual scheduling, Akiflow and Sunsama are both great tools to consider.
Akiflow and Sunsama are also both great tools to also consider if you are already using a project management tool like Asana or ClickUp and are craving a daily planning feature. Perhaps your team heavily relies on multiple tools at work like Gmail, Notion, Asana and Slack and you wish there was a central place where you can store all of your tasks that you need to get done and add them to your calendar.
Both Akiflow and Sunsama have native integrations with numerous business tools and can serve as great digital planners that centralize all of your to-dos.
If you're looking for the best daily planner app that has powerful integrations with other tools, Akiflow is the winner in this category as they have the most robust API. You can create powerful workflows, like for example, if a new lead is created in your CRM, you can create an integration between your CRM and Akiflow using Zapier, so that a task is created for you in Akiflow to follow-up with the lead.
Start your 7 day free trial of Akiflow here.
If you fit into the category of enjoying mindfully planning your day and don't mind spending 10-20 or so minutes at the beginning and end of everyday to plan with Sunsama, then you might find it the best tool of the bunch. If you are someone who is used to paper planners for task reminders, Sunsama would be a nice transitional tool to a digital planner. Sunsama can help with task reminders, time tracking and task management.
Start your 30 day free trial of Sunsama here.
Routine is the best daily planner app that is free, but it's only for personal use. It's good for routines, remembering important things, tracking habits and basic task management. That said, for professional use, we'd skip it at the moment as it lacks integrations with other tools and is a bit difficult to use if your schedule is changing a lot as you manually need to shift each task for the day if you want to make room for a new task.
Join the Routine waitlist for free here.
Ready to dive into each of these daily planner applications more deeply? Keep reading ⤵
The daily planning app category is relatively new, really only emerging in the past 5 years as an evolution to the tools coming out of the 2010's such as Todoist, Wunderlist (later acquired by Microsoft) and more advanced project management tools like Asana, Monday, and ClickUp.
While these tools allow you to put all your tasks in one place, when it comes to getting things done, there wasn't really anything that allowed you to actually plot your tasks on your calendar prior to the daily planner software category.
Daily planning apps provide a centralized platform to organize tasks, appointments, priorities. Create to-do lists, set deadlines, plot them on your calendar to help you visualize what needs to get done when. If you're anything like us you might have been already doing this on your calendar (for example in college or university), but it was a manual chore 👀
Daily planner apps help increase productivity, as you can plan out everything you need to get done a week or more in advance. They also reduce the cognitive overload that comes from wondering "what needs to get done next".
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Motion (also often referred to as Use Motion and Motion App) is in a category of it's own that we've been referring to as time management…
Let me explain:
Motion's main goal is to take care of all of your team's needs revolving around time. If you're someone that wakes up in the morning and looks at their calendar app to see what you have on for the day, Motion App will fit in like a glove.
It connects in deeply with your Google Calendar, Microsoft Calendar, and even Apple Calendar, allowing you to build out project management and task management for yourself and team members. The best part is that all of these tasks automatically organize themselves based on priority right onto your calendar (and your team's) to ensure the most important (and blocking) tasks get done.
If you've heard of the productivity app terminology of "time blocking", well Motion does that automatically using AI, no manual time blocking needed.
It even goes to the degree of allowing you to share meeting scheduler links with others, all while respecting your existing events across all of your calendars (and even your team's calendars), along with automatically inviting team members into the appointment once booked.
With your entire team using Motion, it's like you have a full-time personal assistant shared across the company, ensuring that everyone is getting deep work done all while focusing on what is most important (at the most ideal time), all while making sure that no one is ever double-booked.
All of this makes for an incredibly powerful tool for individuals, but exponentially more valuable with every additional team member you add. No other project management or daily planner tool on the market seems to go to this degree.
As compared to some of the best project management software on the market often mentioned like Asana, Monday, ClickUp, Motion has taken their sights on slightly smaller teams of between 1–50 people.
This team size target is based on their current feature-set, from what we've seen. For example, the larger teams that we work with who have many layers of management often require reporting capabilities over everything else. And with Motion, that's not something you're going to get, because they are currently focused on giving the only AI project management tool on the market focused on helping the individual and teams, over the needs of upper-management.
So if you and your team are used to spending a lot of time planning deadlines, and rearranging your "My Task" view in the existing tools on the market, Motion flips this on it's head with the use of AI. Something to consider if you're fed up with the manual work involved with traditional project management tools.
Compared to the best daily planner apps on the market like Sunsama and Akiflow, Motion is the only daily planner we've seen that actually leverages AI to plan your day for you. With all of the other apps in the category, you need to manually drag in tasks to time block and plan each day. This is an incredibly time consuming process, that some justify as being "more mindful", but once you actually have AI schedule your day for you, you realize how much time is actually wasted "mindfully planning your day".
Compared to the best calendar schedulers on the market like Calendly and Chili Piper, Motion bakes in the core functionality of these tools, with the added visibility of team tasks and urgent deadlines, actually booking off availability for you and your team if high priority work needs to get done by a quickly approaching deadline.
Large teams (100–500) with other enterprise software implemented will find integrating Motion more involved than other enterprise tools. When using an enterprise software stack like that of Salesforce, it's common for other project management tools to have native integrations.
With Motion, it will require a custom integration approach (something that we actually help teams do). But while it's possible, one might ask if it's worth making the large investment in a custom integration when you might be able to get something more native out of the box with the other tools focused on larger teams.
(This of course depends on the actual integration needs of your team, as native doesn't always do exactly what you'd like it to do).
Motion currently lacks advanced reporting and dashboard functionality. So while you can see at a top-level the status of projects and tasks in Kanban and Listviews, even a team workload view, that's about where reporting dashboards end, making it less suitable for large teams requiring extensive project analytics.
If all of that connects with you and you think it might fit your needs, they have a 7 day free trial that you can use along with your team to see what it's like having a personalized AI assistant.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
While there's currently no promo code available, if you use the link above and you let their team know that we sent you, they might even extend your free trial (if you write into support) 😉
The all-in-one work platform Routine is the next-generation platform for professionals and teams to get things done faster!
Routine app falls into the daily planner + productivity tools category. If you are looking for a habit tracking app to help with daily routine planning, task management and, time blocking for personal use, Routine is an app to consider.
Compared to Motion, Sunsama, and Akiflow which are all task management tools, Routine is the newest kid on the block in the category and aimed for more personal use, while the others are more professionally focused.
Routine is for individuals who are looking for a personal app to help with habit building, daily planning, task management and time blocking. It has a beautiful and thoughtful user interface that makes it very aesthetically pleasing. You can also use it as your main calendar (as it integrates with Google Calendar) and take personal notes within Routine. Routine is a great introduction to using a productivity tool to help form good daily habits and manage your daily schedule.
Motion, Sunsama and Akiflow were built to be tools that can help you better manage your workload, while Routine is something we'd consider using as a "light" version of task management. For example, if you want to time block in more or less static blocks of time and want to build a routine (without much regular rearranging of tasks) then Routine is a great app to consider. Tasks that should go in Routine are healthy habits (e.g. drinking water or tasks to help manage mental health like meditation).
Routine is very much for individuals at the moment, not professionals. Their integrations with project management tools are limited (Notion is currently available while Asana and ClickUp are coming soon, according to the Routine app website). So if you are looking to centralize your tasks from other tools, tools like Akiflow or Sunsama would be much better choices for you.
If you are looking for a comprehensive project management tool, Routine would not be a choice to consider as it is very much a personal routine planner, habit tracking app and task management tool. If your team is not yet using a project management tool (or you individually know you need to manage larger projects), then considering something like Motion might be best as it would eliminate your need for a project management tool + a daily planning tool (it offers daily planning, time blocking, and calendar scheduling capabilities in addition to full project management capabilities).
Rating: C
When comparing Routine app to it's two closest competitors, Sunsama and Akiflow, Routine doesn't have too much differentiation with key features. It feels several steps behind the two apps and while it allows you to have note-taking capabilities (differentiating the tool), we much rather recommend people use proper note taking tools instead like Slite or Notion. The reason is because all your notes end up getting stuck within Routine and you can forget ever being able to collaborate on notes with others. The only share feature Routine has with notes is "exporting" which essentially copies the entire text. Depending on where you send the notes, all formatting can be lost which makes for a very frustrating experience. If you take notes in Routine, we'd recommend making sure they are just for yourself and you won't plan on needing them anywhere else!
Beyond that, Routine is much more a tool to use if you want to plan out your morning routine, or are craving a habit tracking tool with the ability to use free time slots to schedule daily tasks.
Rating: A-
This is where Routine shines. It is the most beautiful task management productivity tools on the market in terms of design. Aesthetically it is very pleasing to use, a gorgeous interface with minimalistic design.
Rating: C-
While Routine is gorgeous to use, we found the user experience limiting and frustrating quite quickly. Initially, integrating with Google Calendar, adding tasks, and dropping them on your calendar is easy.
But what if a task will take you two hours to do, and you urgently need to get it done and you have other tasks on your calendar? You'd imagine that dropping in a task at a specific time would automatically move your other tasks to accommodate for the new task, right? This isn't the case with Routine. You can drag the task to be as long as the free time slot, and beyond that you need to manually rearrange your entire schedule to accommodate the new task 😬😬😬
When you compare Routine vs Motion, Motion uses AI capabilities to arrange your day. Simply making a task low, medium or high priority will auto-schedule it for you based on importance, rearranging all your other tasks. This makes it way easier to arrange your schedule instead of spending time fighting with the tool to get your schedule right. This is why we say Routine app is much better for habit building and planning your daily routine rather than granular tasks.
Because of this, we'd say Routine might be helpful for static tasks like "Mental Health Check-In" or "Cook Dinner" but it's difficult to get super granular with tasks and time blocking as you would need for professional work.
Rating: B-
Routine only has an iOS app which is relatively new (only 4 reviews on the app store to date), with Android is coming soon. Routine can be used as your main calendar app on your phone (instead of Google Calendar) and it is much more beautiful than the others on the market.
Rating: C-
Routine currently doesn't integrate with very much beyond your Google Workspace tools and Notion. You can add tasks in from your email, Notion or manually enter tasks into the app. According to Routine's website, Slack, Asana and ClickUp integrations are coming soon. Although, even with these integrations, the tool doesn't appear to have an API coming in the near future which would make it difficult to build workflows with Routine. If you are using Asana or ClickUp and are looking for a time management tool with deep integrations and powerful workflows, consider Motion or Akiflow.
Is Routine app worth it? Routine currently has a free plan for hobbyists and students and this is where we think the tool probably fits best (not professional use). If you are looking for a productivity tool to help you track new habits, healthy habits, banish bad habits, and plan your daily routine then we think it can be a great app for that. The premium version is very much still under construction (coming soon).
If you're a business, we'd say it's probably best skipping Routine and opting in for something like Motion that along with their AI capabilities, will make you feel like you have a personal assistant helping you plan your projects, tasks and day. Alternatively, if you still enjoy manually planning your day, perhaps Sunsama would be the next best alternative for a workplace app.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
The digital daily planner that helps you feel calm and stay focused.
Sunsama fits into the day planner app category, helping with task management and time blocking. Sunsama is one of the best planner apps for those who want to mindfully and manually plan their day.
Sunsama is great daily planning tool if you especially like physical (pen and paper) note taking/to-do lists and are looking for a way to bring tasks into the digital world. Sunsama definitely knows their target customer well as the software reflects a zen-like philosophy and ethos incredibly well. It has a calming minimal design and is super easy to use.
Sunsama's philosophy is centered around creating a healthy relationship with work, intentionally planning tasks and avoiding burning out. Those seeking more focus, calm, and harmony should try Sunsama.
Get Sunsama Extended 30 Day Trial.
When you open Sunsama each morning, the software asks "What do you want to get done today?". It shows your previously planned tasks and your calendar side-by-side, giving you an overview of your schedule. From there, you can either add or remove tasks from your day, and drag tasks onto your calendar for time blocking.
At the end of the day, you also participate in a daily shut down routine which shows you all the tasks you completed that day and how you spent your time.
While Sunsama is a daily planner, it is not a project manager. Users typically connect in other tools such as Monday, ClickUp, and Asana to pull in tasks from their project management software. Sunsama then takes care of the daily planning piece with your weekly view and calendar view.
When you compare Sunsama vs Akiflow, they are very similar. The differences more so lie within their marketing/philosophy. For instance, Sunsama has a stronger philosophy around taking a zen-like approach work, while Akiflow is more for those who just want a tool to triage through tasks. If "zen-like" approach doesn't sound like you, then check out Akiflow.
When comparing Sunsama vs Motion, you're going to get two very different experiences. Motion uses AI to intelligently plan your tasks onto your calendar, taking into account meetings and appointments, task priority and deadlines. Motion also is a full-fledged project management tool that teams can use.
Sunsama, on the other hand, has been very clear they don't intend to build AI auto-scheduling tools as they want to encourage their users to take the 10-15 minutes per day to plan their schedule (while Motion, for example, does this automatically).
If you've read to this point and phrases like "zen-like approach", "mindful planning" and "intentional scheduling" resonate, Sunsama is probably the right daily planner for you.
Make sure you use the link below for an extended 30 day trial (normally only 14 days, but with the link below you get a full month—and no credit card is required).
Get Sunsama Extended 30 Day Trial.
Sunsama's philosophy is built around taking the time each day to manually plan your tasks. With that, Sunsama doesn't plan on building any auto-scheduling features, like Motion for example, that uses AI to intelligently plan your day.
For some people, Motion's AI is overwhelming and they prefer having dedicated task planning sessions. For others, Sunsama feels a bit too manual therefore gets left by the wayside, wishing the app would help more with proactive planning.
Sunsama aggregates all of your tasks from the different tools that you use, like Monday, ClickUp, Asana, Trello, Gmail, and Slack. Using the native integrations available, you can drag tasks from the above tools into time blocks onto your calendar, and within a weekly planning view.
If you're a part of a team that is using any of the tools above and you're seeking a daily planner, Sunsama is a happy medium.
However, Sunsama does lack in task management functionality for multiple people and it also leaves much to be desired when it comes to planning and managing larger projects. With that, you'd need to use a project manager (e.g. Monday, Asana or ClickUp) to manage projects, and use Sunsama solely for daily planning.
Sunsama won't be building a project manager (likely ever) as they're clear they prefer you to integrate with third party tools to aggregate your tasks. If you're looking for a tool that can help with daily planning and project management and team collaboration, then we recommend checking out Motion.
Get Sunsama Extended 30 Day Trial. No Credit Card Required.
Is Sunsama worth it? If you are someone that thrives on daily task planning and enjoys the process of planning your day, give Sunsama a shot.
It might be the key to keeping you more organized, all while bringing you a bit more enjoyment in the day-to-day and with that, it's definitely worth it.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
A daily planner tool to help you centralize your schedule.
Akiflow is one of the best daily planning apps that helps you consolidate your tasks from many different apps in one central inbox. The Akiflow team built the app as a responsive to the frustration of using multiple tools to manage calendars, tasks, and plans. With Akiflow, you have one app that allows you to time block tasks and manage all your to-dos without having to switch between tabs and windows.
Akiflow has a relatively simple UI/UX with a powerful command bar that helps you complete, plan or snooze tasks straight from your keyboard.
Say you're using Trello, Slack, Google Calendar, Notion, and Todoist for work. Akiflow integrates with all of these tools to pull your tasks from each app into one central inbox. The idea is that having all of your tasks in one place will mean less forgetfulness when it comes to your to-dos and staying on top of what you need to action.
From your central inbox, you can drag tasks onto a calendar for time blocking or you can triage through your tasks with keyboard shorts such as "P" to plan for later or "S" for snoozing. Akiflow keyboard shortcuts are similar to those of Superhuman, so the tools compliment each other quite well. You can also use Akiflow's shortcuts anywhere on your desktop. Say there is a webpage you want to read later? Add it to Akiflow within seconds by opening up your command bar.
Akiflow also allows you to quickly share your availability and create bookable links for others to schedule meetings onto your calendar.
Start your 7 day free trial of Akiflow here.
Normally folks compare Akiflow vs Sunsama or Akiflow vs Motion. Akiflow is most useful for someone whose main problem is the lack of task consolidation from third party apps.
Compared to Sunsama, Akiflow has a basic API so you can pull in tasks from any app that has a Zapier connector (e.g. Monday, Salesforce, or Copper to name a few).
Sunsama also takes a more "zen-like" approach to daily planning and is marketed to folks who want to "intentionally plan their day". If you like the idea of daily planning, but the words "mindful planning" don't resonate, Akiflow is better suited for you.
When comparing Akiflow vs Motion, the tools are very different. Motion is a full-fledged project manager and uses AI to automatically plan your tasks on your calendar. If you're looking for an assistant when it comes to planning, Motion would be a better bet.
If leveraging AI to plan your day sounds overwhelming or "too much", and if you're main pain point is just "getting all tasks from different apps in one place" then Akiflow could be the best app for you.
Start your 7 day free trial of Akiflow here.
You can easily add too many tasks to Akiflow so some self-discipline is a good idea. For instance, if you're adding a bunch of website links, Slack messages, email messages and task + project management tasks, you can end up with a very flooded central inbox leading to feeling overwhelmed.
To get the most out of Akiflow, we recommend only adding in medium to high priority tasks that you need to action, and being careful to not add every task under the sun.
If you're overwhelmed with tasks from different apps, and want a central inbox to consolidate all of your tasks, then Akiflow can help. However, once the tasks are in your central inbox, you still need to manually plan your day and time block, which means you need to stay on top of triaging your tasks.
For some folks that enjoy manual task planning and can allocate 10-20 minutes per day to daily planning, this won't be a limitation but rather a benefit. For others, the manual task planning means that Akiflow can become cluttered and you can "fall behind" on using it to help you manage time effectively. You really need to use Akiflow daily as a part of your workflow to get the most of it.
Is Akiflow worth it? Well, if you are struggling to stay on top of your tasks from different apps and want a tool to help you consolidate all of your tasks in one place, then it might be worth giving it a shot. If you have other more robust needs (e.g. project management + daily planning), there are other tools to consider like Motion who are priced similarly and offer more features to help you manage your time and schedule.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
7-day free trial + $10 off your next billing by using the link above.
Amie is a calendar app that helps you manage tasks and easily add emails as tasks to your calendar.
Amie doesn't try to hide what it is and isn't. It's a calendar at the core and like many of the other best daily planners on the market, they've gone and added some basic task creation functionality.
Where they've gone a step further is actually pulling in email to the mix. Depending on the type of person you are, maybe you want to turn emails into tasks and schedule them directly on your calendar in a time blocking fashion.
Amie is definitely not a full email client, although it is listed on the best email clients page, that's because it allows you to time-block on your calendar emails, and then respond to those emails from right within Amie.
That said, view it as more of a "feature" and less of a software category. When comparing Superhuman vs Amie for example, there's no match—Amie is not a full-fledged email client.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
An intelligent habit and task time-blocking and event scheduling layer atop your calendar.
Reclaim AI is a unique tool sitting in a bit of an in-between product category. It's a lay on top of a calendar that utilizes AI to help you better manage your time by finding the ideal times for your daily habits, meetings, and focus work.
It's a layer on top of your Google Calendar, but it's not a replacement for a project or task manager (you'd integrate your existing task manager or project manager in with Reclaim).
You enter in your habits into Reclaim, like "lunch" and you tell it to schedule your lunch between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Using AI, Reclaim will make sure to schedule your lunch break everyday between those hours, depending what you have to get done. If your schedule shifts, Reclaim will make sure you still get a lunch break.
If you're working a corporate job, are in constant meetings and want to protect your time from getting pulled into meetings, then Reclaim can help you get more focus time and, well, simple things like a lunch break. Engineering, product, or marketing teams that need heads down focus time will benefit the most from Reclaim.
You've probably heard people comparing Motion vs Reclaim, but to be honest, Reclaim is competing more with something like Clockwise, not really Motion. Reclaim isn't your go-to for project management or even for detailed task management (while Motion excels at both these aspects).
You might like Reclaim if you fit into one or all of the below categories:
Using Reclaim as your scheduler leaves a lot to be desired—you can't add basic questions for someone to answer upon filling out the booking link. This makes it impossible to replace other scheduling tools like Calendly and Motion (learn more in the full Motion App Review) unless your booking needs are quite simple (e.g. internal meetings or meeting with friends).
If you're thinking of using Reclaim for task management, be prepared for something pretty basic. Reclaim more so wants you to integrate your project management tool. It's going to allow you to set task priority and deadline, but it won't let you manage greater projects, collaborate with your team, or get a bigger picture of all of your tasks at hand. Read our full Reclaim AI review.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
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