software that gives your attention back.
hawthorne abendsen is a small studio. we make things you can put down — and come back to only because you want to.
your attention is yours.
most apps are built to keep you. ours are built to let you go: no feeds, no streaks, nothing to scroll when you're bored.
quiet by default.
no notification we wouldn't want ourselves. no numbers to chase. a good tool is one you forget about until you need it.
keep as little as we can.
every piece of data kept is a future burden. we'd rather not carry it, and we'd rather you didn't have to trust us with it.
no high castle. just an ordinary house.
hawthorne abendsen is a character in a philip k. dick novel: a writer said to live in a fortress, dreaming up a better version of the world.
when someone finally goes to find him, there's no fortress. just an ordinary house, and an ordinary person who wrote something true.
we liked that. it's roughly the plan.
every word is a room. the word is the first half of the sentence. you write the rest.