Hi, I'm Adam R Farley, an engineering manager with over 10 years of experience building and leading high-performing engineering teams. I'm passionate about creating tools that help people take control of their digital lives while maintaining their privacy and data ownership.

My Journey

For the past decade, I've been working at the intersection of technology and human productivity. I started as a software engineer and gradually moved into engineering management, where I discovered my passion for building both great products and great teams.

What Drives Me

I believe that technology should serve people, not the other way around. That's why I'm committed to building local-first, privacy-respecting applications that put users in control of their data and their digital experience.

Engineering Philosophy

• People First: I focus on creating environments where engineers can do their best work. And I don't want to ever forget who we are building software for.
• Privacy by Design: In an era where data is the new oil, I believe users should own and control their personal information.

Background

I have been writing code for the better part of 20 years. I've worked on desktop software, graphics and sound plugins, web and now web apps. I've slowly seen the software I came to rely on degrade. Software like evernote, google sheets on mobile, google reader (RIP), google calendar, microsoft teams, google chrome has consistently left me running for the hills and amped up with anxiety. Why isn't there more software that fills modern niches, but resembles something closer to emacs or vim. Are the days of software that is maintained, improved, stays the heck out of the way and can handle anything you throw at it behind us?

The pace of my homelife doubled (at least!) with the birth of my daughter. I think I count every precious minute I have to get something done from my growing list of todos. I've got errands around the house, making progress on larger projects like replacing failing appliances, doing meal planning, cooking those meals and getting some much needed exercise. And when I spend time with my daughter, I want to be there. Not thinking about another todo.

The last few years have meant a deep dice into GTD (revisiting it again after 10 years, now that ai really need it), various tools and techniques and templates that have been shared. I started with a google sheet. Google sheet stunk on mobile, so I used an app to give it a better skin. Some combination of google's updates and the app looking for more money broke the experience. I coded up a version using google scripts which lasted a good 2 years.

I tried importing things into notion, obsidian and a few others only to be disappointed with the slowness, the poor mobile experience, the clunkiness of building the 10,000 version of a todo app. I tried clickup and lost some important todos due to bugs. Most recently I have tried anytype which is largely nice, but a still very clunky mobile experience. So here we are.

This is a labor of love. I am building it for everyone out there who is counting their minutes like pennies while the number of important things you've got to do just keeps getting bigger.

I want software that just works. Works faster than I expected. Doesn't ask me too many questions. Doesn't throw out the user experience every 5 years. Adds functionality not just "features". Scales to a user who has gone deep for the past 10 years. Software that picks up work that I am doing and does it competently. Software I pay for when I get real value from it. Software that lets me ease the burden on others.

When I'm not thinking about engineering challenges, you can find me exploring new productivity methodologies, reading about digital privacy rights, or working on open-source projects that advance the local-first movement.

Let's build a better digital future together—one where users are in control of their tools and their data.