Most of these thoughts are raw and intuitive, based on experience and the ongoing process of building. We're in the middle of accumulating this knowledge as we haven't yet created a sustainable company, but we feel like we're on the way. Currently we're living the reality of work that we wish to share with many people, as there's an opportunity in the present moment to build a future where work provides security, independence, and meaning.
When we think about the future of work, the subjects of time and agency are central to the conversation. In our experience, workplaces in general do not take into consideration the personal natural rhythms of energy, focus, and creativity that vary between individuals and across days. The recent experiments with remote work gave us a glimpse of how work could be more fluid and nuanced, but that necessary 'work from homw' shift in the early 20s happened too rapidly, and it is safe to say that we as a society were completely unprepared for it.
In the new reality that is rapidly approaching with the next wave of tools, there is a constant conversation about traditional job loss, and we are starting to feel the dynamics of this new reality. More and more people are actually losing their traditional jobs.
At the same time it is without a doubt that we live in a moment of extraordinary opportunity. Current tools amplify our capabilities, and the barriers to creating and building have never been lower. The opportunities are real, but realizing them requires the ability to organize ourselves in time without the crude framework of the traditional workday. Cadence is our attempt to address this systemic issue.
Often it feels we need something called agency to make good use of this historical moment with all of the advanced tools and opportunities.
Agency is complex, not something one can just have. It seems to grow through small, consistent actions, both in the realm of the individual and the realm of the collective. Over the last year at Cadence, we've been exploring what agency means for each person and for our team as a whole.
At first, our actions were simple. We started meeting regularly, talking, and thinking out loud together, working on a set of prototypes. Our rhythm was three meetings a week, each one hour long: some for planning, some for reflecting, and some just for spending time together.
The world today is constantly remaking itself, and many of us live in a state where nothing feels stable for long.
Last October, collectively we — Andrea, Bruno, and Oleg — found ourselves in that exact place: the overwhelming space between what had ended and what had not yet begun. For most of us, work provides the framework around which our lives are organized. When that framework disappears, we are left floating in time, free, but disoriented. This kind of freedom is deceptive: it offers a wealth of possibilities, at the same time underneath it all lurks unease and a flood of worries. Without a clear schedule, time becomes a blur, and the absence of clearly defined commitments begins to be a burden.
The seven-day week is so embedded in human civilization that we rarely pause to question it.
On the closer look it becomes indisputable this ancient unit of time has shaped how humanity organizes itself more profoundly than any other temporal measure.
Throughout human history, different cultures have grappled with time's nature.
We're excited to announce that the official Cadence Documentation is now live! 🎉