Smitty
Honest writing from the team building Smitty. We're here to name the invisible work of running a family, question the tools we've inherited, and share what we're learning as we build something better.
I don't want AI to replace parenting. I want it to replace paperwork.
Mental Load
We've gotten better at understanding our brains, but family technology still assumes they all work the same. Why the goal isn't more productivity, but less paperwork.
8 min read · Jul 12
Read field note
Best Family Organization Apps for Busy Families in 2026
Tools & Comparisons
A practical comparison of Google Calendar, Cozi, Skylight Calendar, Ohai, and Smitty for families trying to keep track of school, sports, appointments, and household logistics.
6 min read · Oct 4
Best Family AI Assistants in 2026: Ohai, Smitty, Skylight & Cozi Max Compared
Tools & Comparisons
A fair, parent-friendly comparison of family AI assistants in 2026—Ohai, Smitty, Skylight Calendar, and Cozi Max—covering mental load, privacy, pricing, and how to choose.
10 min read · Sep 22
Cozi gives your family a place to organize everything. Smitty is designed to do more of the organizing for you.
Tools & Comparisons
Cozi gives your family a place to organize everything. Smitty is designed to do more of the organizing for you. Here's how to choose.
5 min read · Aug 18
It's not that you're disorganized. It's that the information system is broken.
Family Operations
Back-to-school email overload is hitting inboxes hard with permission slips, Tdap reminders, sports physicals, and orientation dates. Here's why it happens and how to fix it without another app.
7 min read · Jul 31
The calendar wasn't the problem.
Mental Load
Between paper printouts, patient portals, and reminder emails, family medical appointments arrive in a dozen different formats. Here's the system that finally worked for mine.
9 min read · Jul 11
A shared calendar doesn't reduce the mental load. It just makes it look prettier.
Mental Load
The mental load isn't a scheduling problem. It's a reading, deciding, and remembering problem — and no shared calendar can solve it.
6 min read · Jan 15
One shows you what you already know. The other makes sure you know it in the first place.
Field Notes
Shared calendars don't reduce the mental load, they just redecorate it. Why modern families need a family operating system, not another calendar app.
5 min read · Jun 9
Invisible labor is the work you only notice when it stops happening.
Mental Load
Invisible labor is the unseen work of running a family — reading, deciding, and remembering. Here's why shared calendars don't help, and a new way to share the load.
8 min read · Jan 22
One email inbox was never designed to be the family's shared source of truth.
Family Operations
Tired of being the family's human inbox? Here's how forwarding school emails to a shared calendar works, why it beats manual entry, and how to set it up in minutes.
8 min read · Jul 18
The backpack, the fridge, and your memory were never built to be a tracking system.
Family Operations
A crumpled permission slip and a missed picture day aren't a filing problem. They're a system problem. Here's how to build one that actually catches everything.
8 min read · Jul 18
We weren't bad parents that night. We were just parents without a system.
Family Operations
Every school sends a color-coded spreadsheet nobody opens twice. Here's how one stepmom turned a phone screenshot into a calendar that actually reminds her.
5 min read · Jul 24
It's not elegant. It's posterboard. But it's the first system in our house the kids have used consistently without being nagged.
Family Operations
A smart wall display, a hand-drawn posterboard calendar, and a family shopping list. Here's how one family's messy mix of systems finally started talking to each other.
5 min read · Jul 24
Analytics and advertising measurement