|  March 18, 2014

My favorite calendar app: Manage your day with Sunrise

Let me start out by saying that I don’t consider myself to be a naturally organized person. I lose every piece of paper I come into contact with, can’t find anything on a messy desk, and my apartment’s state of default is somewhat in shambles. But it’s one of those things I overcompensate for big time. Keep losing paper… take all notes in Evernote. Can’t keep track of email… attack them by getting to “inbox zero” with Mailbox. So even though I’m not good at being organized, I am good at finding ways to help myself.

So I thought I’d continue to share my favorite apps for organization and productivity… and for today, here’s my favorite calendar app – Sunrise.

sunrise calendar app 5

A few of my favorite things about Sunrise…

1. It connects all your different calendars (I have 3) plus other apps:

Sunrise connects to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Account, and any calendars you have to get everything in one place. There are so many benefits to seeing all of your plans in one centralized place. Each calendar will have it’s own color so you know where the item is coming from. I especially love the feature where it brings in everyone’s birthdays from Facebook so you never miss one.

sunrise calendar app - birthdays

If you RSVP yes to attend any Facebook events, they’ll also appear in your Sunrise calendar and since it knows all of your Facebook friends, when you make plans with them and add them to the invite, it’ll even have their face pop up in a cute little icon like the below.

sunrise app details2. It’s very well-designed:

My number one criteria with apps (especially productivity apps) is nice design. I want to genuinely enjoy using it and Sunrise definitely checks that box. It’s interface is nice and simple but has some great details, like having people’s faces come up in your daily feed if you have plans with them or if it’s their birthday.

There is fun design feature that automatically adds icons based on what you write. If you write “Drinks with…” it’ll give you that martini glass you see above. If you write “Meeting with…” you get this icon below. It’s the little things, right?

sunrise app icons

3. It has tons of features that just make your life a little easier

There are other features in this app that go a long way for me. Like automatically including the weather (as shown above) and the app automatically looking up the location of where you’re going as you start to type it in (and yes, I’m going to Perry street vs. Argentina tonight).

sunrise app details 2

Then when it’s time to actually head to dinner you can click into the location and get a handy map to tell you where you’re going.

sunrise app details 3

It will even integrate any reminders you have from your iPhone reminders app.

sunrise details 4

Best of all… it’s free (ok maybe that’s my number 1 criteria). There are probably other goodies and features of this app I haven’t even tapped into yet, but it’s my favorite calendar app I’ve used so far.

Also worth mentioning, I have no affiliation with Sunrise or incentives to write this post, other than genuinely wanting to share it! Try it out and let me know what you think!

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