Why I Built Unstuck: A Mom’s Search for a Planner That Actually Works
I built Unstuck, an online student planner, because every paper planner my two kids tried was really just a to-do list. My daughter has ADHD and my son doesn’t, and both needed help with the hard part: breaking big assignments into steps and fitting them into real days before the deadline.
I have two kids, 16 and 13. Two very different brains, two very different ways of doing school. And for years, one thing they had in common was a planner system that never quite worked.
5 min read · By Kate, mom and the parent behind Unstuck
We tried them all
Planner systems came and went in our house. We tried just about every kind: plain ones, ADHD ones, colorful ones, minimalist ones.
Some got forgotten. At school. At home on the kitchen counter. Once, memorably, on a sports field. Others worked for a while, and then stopped working the minute middle school arrived, with its multiple teachers, overlapping deadlines and long-term projects that all seemed to be due the same week.
We couldn’t find a physical planner that ticked all the boxes.
The fancy planner that changed nothing
At one point I went all in. I designed a custom planner on one of those fancy planner websites. I put in their classes. I added space for habits and for tracking music lessons. It looked beautiful. It cost a fortune.
And it didn’t move the needle at all compared to the blank ones you can grab at the drugstore.
That’s when it clicked for me. The problem was never what was printed inside the planner or how the pages looked. From the start, the system itself was basically a glamorized to-do list, a place where due dates went to die.
Summer 2026: one more planner purchase
This past summer, I was getting ready to buy yet another planner. I was thinking about both of my kids.
Instead of buying another planner, I started playing around with building an online system on a personal platform, just for them. Something that would actually help with the planning part, not just the writing-it-down part.
The more I built, the more I realized that what I was making for them might help a lot of other families too.
Then I showed my daughter the Plans feature, the part that takes something big and breaks it down into small steps on real days. My daughter, who is not easily impressed by anything her mother makes, looked at it and said:
“Oh, wow. That’s actually very cool.”
My (very particular) 16-year-old, seeing Plans for the first timeThat’s when I knew I might be onto something.
What’s changed at home
If it works in my chaotic house, with two very different kids…
I don’t believe there’s one perfect system that works for every kid. Kids are different, families are different, and what works one week might need tweaking the next.
But I built Unstuck around what I saw working for my own two kids: one in middle school, one in high school, one with ADHD and one without.
It won’t make every school challenge disappear. But it’s designed to make the parts that feel overwhelming a lot more manageable.
And if it’s helped bring a little more structure to our household, there’s a good chance it can help yours, too. My hope is that Unstuck makes school feel less overwhelming for your kid, gives them more control over their workload, and takes a little of the pressure off you, too.
Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that no family needs more homework drama than it already has.
Unstuck is an online student planner for middle and high school. It breaks big assignments into small steps, puts them on real days before the deadline, and shows what needs attention today. Built for ADHD, helpful for every student.
