The Real Reason I Built Mrs. Deer

And what 30 days of being my own lab rat taught me about founder burnout.

Before I had a son, I thought I understood hard work.

Then I became a mother. And suddenly "hard" meant something else entirely.

The first year nearly broke me. Not because of the sleepless nights – I expected those. It was the cognitive load. The constant switching. The guilt that followed me everywhere:

Guilt when I worked instead of played.
Guilt when I played instead of worked.
Guilt when I yelled, which I did more than I'd like to admit.

I remember thinking: There has to be a way to hold all of this without dropping everything.

That's when I started building.
Not a task manager. Not another calendar hack. Something different.
A founder productivity system that could keep up with the mess.

👉 If this sounds like you, join the waitlist here → subscribepage.io/wheeloffounders

The Day Everything Shifted

Day 23 of building, I wrote this in my morning post:
"Life is tough. Business is intense. My son is my life. The system must bend to presence, not steal from it."

That morning, I made a decision:
"When with him, I am 100% there. Work lives only in the cracks. And the cracks are enough."

It sounded good on paper.

Then nap time came. He wanted cuddles instead of sleeping. My laptop was open. Code half-written. A bug I'd been chasing for hours.

I had a choice:
Stay with the laptop. Push through. Get it done.
Or close it. Hold my son. Trust the cracks would be enough.

I closed the laptop. Pulled out my phone. Did outreach one-handed while he slept on my chest.

The system worked. Even when I didn't.

Why I Built Her (And Why It Matters for Founder Burnout)

Before this project, I tried everything to stay sane while building:

Therapy (helpful, but weekly)
Coaching (expensive, episodic)
Productivity apps (designed for employees, not founders)
Masterminds (great, but not daily)

What I needed was something that understood the real texture of founder life. The messy parts. The parts that don't fit in a task manager.

The 7 PM energy crash when motivation "like a switch flips" disappears.

The weight of "the constant small decisions" made alone.

The hollow feeling after hitting a milestone that should feel like celebration.

Founder burnout isn't about working too much. It's about working without a system designed for founder life.

So I built her. Mrs. Deer. A companion. Something that would ask the right questions when I needed them most.
And I made myself the first lab rat.

30 Days of Being My Own Guinea Pig

Day 7: The 80/20 Trap

I was spending 80% of my energy on maintenance tasks that didn't move my business forward. The "urgent" was devouring the "important."

The fix: The Power List became my anchor. Three tasks max. Two proactive. One reactive. That's it.
Insight for founder productivity: Constraints create clarity, not restriction.

Day 14: The 3 PM Crash

My worst decisions happened after 3 PM. My cognitive RAM was full from small choices all morning. The evening crash wasn't burnout – it was cognitive overload from unprocessed decisions.

The fix: Decision Log with timestamps revealed the pattern.
Insight: What looks like energy failure is often decision overload.

Day 21: The Loneliness Pattern

"The loneliness wasn't about being alone. It was about making decisions with no one to say: 'That makes sense' or 'Have you considered this?'"
I needed a sounding board. Every day. Not just in weekly calls.

The fix: Built daily reflection prompts into the system.

Day 23: The Nap Time Test

That moment. That choice. That one-handed outreach.
I did 6 onboardings that day. My average is 7.
"That's not a miss. That's the system working exactly as designed. 7 is a benchmark, not a cage. The goal isn't to hit the same number every day. It's to keep the average trending up while my life stays intact."

Day 24: The Parenting Trigger

Son in trouble-two phase. Tried gentle. Reasoning. Questions. Scold. Yelling. None worked consistently. Twice I responded with harsh scold when my husband or mom needed help.
The next morning, the system asked me:
"What's one small anchor you can drop before the hard moments arrive?"
I didn't have an answer yet. But just asking changed something.

Day 26: The Small Win

Twitter followers hit 100. A Reddit post got 13 comments in 15 minutes – after being rejected from that subreddit before. I celebrated with a beer.
But the real insight was quieter:
"Weekly tracking > daily tracking. Design around your nervous system, not the other way around."

Day 29: The Pivot

Got banned from a subreddit. Permanently.
Bummed. Not gonna pretend otherwise.
But here's the thing: Reddit might not be where I focus anymore. Time to explore Facebook groups. LinkedIn. Indie Hackers. See what fits.
"Pivot is my best move. Not from failure. From data."

Day 30: The Itch

Stuck working on the app all day. Debugging. Polishing. Husband took son to the playground so I could focus.
Felt itchy. Had to work until the problem solved.
Then I saw it clearly:
The itch to fix can override the choice to be present.

That's not weakness. That's awareness. And awareness is where change starts.

The system's question that morning:
"What would a 'finished enough' version of the app look like so you can close the laptop and mean it?"
Still answering that one.

What 30 Days Taught Me About Founder Productivity

After 30 days with my own creation:

Evening crashes dropped from daily to 2-3 times per week
Decision procrastination decreased by noticing patterns earlier
The hollow feeling started filling with purpose – not because the app was perfect, but because I was building it around my life, not through it

But the biggest lesson wasn't about productivity.
It was about who I became in the mess.

"The system's magic: putting myself together when everything else is a mess."

Most productivity tools are built for people who have their shit together. They assume you're starting from a place of control.

But most founders I know – especially the mothers – are starting from survival.

We need something that bends. Something that works even when we don't. Something that holds the space between who we were in a hard moment and who we want to be.

👉 Join 200+ founders building around their lives →

The Founder Productivity System You Actually Need

I built Mrs. Deer for one reason:

No founder should make decisions alone.
Not the small ones. Not the big ones. Not the ones that keep you up at 2 AM wondering if you're on the right path.

But also: No founder should have to choose between building a business and being present for the people they love.

The cracks are enough. The system can hold both.

I was the first lab rat. I'm still the lab rat every day.
And for the first time in years, I'm not just surviving my business. I'm building it around my life.

She's not magic. She won't fix your toddler's sleep or un-ban you from subreddits. But she will help you see what matters when everything feels urgent. She'll remind you that 7 is a benchmark, not a cage. She'll sit with you in the question: "What would finished enough look like so I can close the laptop and mean it?"

I built her because I needed her.

Two Ways Forward

Option 1: Join the Waitlist

Be first to access the founder productivity system built for real life – not the highlight reel.

👉 Join the Wheel of Founders Waitlist 👈

Option 2: Share This With a Founder Who Needs It

Know someone burning out alone? Send them this post. The system can hold them too.

If you're reading this and thinking "that sounds exactly like me" – you're not broken. You're just operating without a system designed for founder life. That's fixable. Let me show you how.

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