Most of our waking hours are spent working.
And we don't need to suffer through it.
Work should bring fulfillment and meaning to our lives but we often feel overwhelmed, overworked, and overcommitted.
We deserve tools that help create a healthy relationship to work, ensure our time is well-spent, and that we can do good work, day-in and day-out, without burn out.
We built Sunsama to be that tool - to help us work with focus, calm, and harmony.
Our philosophy
of work
A few ideas on how we think about work. Our philosophy guides every product decision we make and how we run our own business.
Read the full manifestoWork that makes you feel bad should not be normal
For many people, work is a source of great stress and anxiety. Going to work isn’t something you eagerly look forward to each day. It’s something you dread and wish you didn’t have to do.
We don’t accept that. We want work to be a great source of meaning and fulfillment in our lives. This is important to us because work takes up more of our lives than just about anything else.
We think this should be possible for most kinds of work (the exception being work you feel is inherently evil or harmful to the world).
We don’t accept that. We want work to be a great source of meaning and fulfillment in our lives. This is important to us because work takes up more of our lives than just about anything else.
We think this should be possible for most kinds of work (the exception being work you feel is inherently evil or harmful to the world).
We work for fulfillment
Work, once it delivers on our basic necessities, is only worthwhile when it acts as an avenue for fulfillment and human flourishing. Working in a way that causes anxiety, stress, and burnout is not acceptable. We should demand that our workdays and work environment create fulfillment and joy.
Work never ends
For ambitious and motivated people, work never ends. There’s always more to do than can be done. We need an approach to work that emphasizes prioritization, focus, and deep attention. An approach to work that focuses on getting more done faster is akin to asking Sisyphus to move faster.
Work like a human, not a machine
We’re suffocated by ideas of productivity that come from industrialization. Human beings are not machines whose success is measured by efficiency (output per unit time). Our success isn’t measured, it’s felt and understood within us. We should work in a way that cultivates an inner sense of well being and success.
Focus on how you feel, not what you accomplish
It’s human nature to never be satisfied with our accomplishments and hungry for the next one. Since we won’t feel fulfilled simply reaching our goals and milestones at work, it’s important to cultivate a feeling of fulfillment and harmony each day as we work towards those milestones.
Choose “deep work”
Long sessions of uninterrupted focus allow us to do our best work and feel fulfilled doing it. Because meetings are the default way we collaborate, true Deep Work is inaccessible to most knowledge workers. However, even people with a lot of meetings can access the benefits of Deep Work by intentionally timeboxing working sessions on to their calendar.
Our Story
Building the tool we always wanted to help us organize our day
