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hianna.ai Moms in Tech · April 21, 2026

The Invisible
20 Hours

Systems and AI to cut your family admin in half

Dilani Kahawala · Founder, Anna

Hi, I'm Dilani

I run an AI company for parents
And it still feels like a madhouse

  • Mom of 3 kids under 7
  • Husband is CTO at a Series D startup
  • Both of us have unwell parents. Sandwich generation in real time.
  • Pivoted Anna to this problem because I live it every day
  • Talked to hundreds of parents while building Anna
Anna · The Invisible 20 Hours
02
The data

Time with kids has doubled since the 1980s

A working mom today spends more time with her kids than a non-working mom did in 1975.

16 12 8 4 0 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015 Women Men

Ramey & Ramey, "The Rug Rat Race" · via Corinne Low, ParentData, 2025

03
The invisible part

And most of the load is mental,
not physical

71%
of cognitive household labor falls on mothers
Regardless of income.
University of Bath · 2025
"You can outsource the task. You can't outsource the thinking."
You still plan, notice, manage, decide.
Bath · cognitive stickiness, 2025
04
What we'll cover

Five ways to cut the invisible 20 hours

  • 01
    AI tools for day-to-day ops
  • 02
    Systems that work
  • 03
    How to outsource
  • 04
    How to worry less
  • 05
    How to drop the ball
05
The shift that matters

One agent, not twelve apps

A general agent replaces a whole stack of specialized tools.

Which tools can you stop using?

06
AI for daily ops

Anna
My daily ops layer

Catches tasks from email, calendar, WhatsApp, school apps. Turns rambly voice notes into tasks and calendar events. Sends a daily brief. You text her like a friend.

Live Demo
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What makes this work

Four concepts behind an AI assistant

01
Simple conversation, no UI
Text or voice. No dashboards, no tabs, no learning curve. We've gone back to just talking.
02
Long-running agent
Always on, always aware of your family's state. The hardest piece to build. The harness around it is where the real work is.
03
Proactivity
Asks "what can I do next?" in the context of your family. Doesn't wait for you to remember.
04
Source to action
Reads from one source (email, school app), takes action on another (calendar, SMS, shopping). Connects the dots you used to hold in your head.

Talks to you where you are

  • Talk via your preferred channel: SMS or WhatsApp
  • Turns rambly midnight texts into structured tasks and events
  • Works like texting a friend
Claude Code
  • Twilio MCP server for outbound SMS
  • /voice command (hold spacebar, speak)
  • Pair with a WhatsApp bridge for inbound
OpenClaw
  • 25+ channels: WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Signal
  • Scan QR to pair WhatsApp
  • Cross-channel memory (start on WA, continue on Telegram)
08

Proactive family management

  • Catches tasks buried in school newsletters and emails
  • Full calendar management with your preferences
  • Daily brief with what's coming up
  • Connect your email, calendar, WhatsApp, school apps
  • Collaborate with your spouse: shared tasks and visibility
Claude Code
  • Gmail + Calendar connectors (first-party OAuth)
  • Create a /daily-brief skill in SKILL.md
  • Cloud Routines run with laptop closed
OpenClaw
  • HEARTBEAT.md with task intervals
  • Morning brief at activeHours start
  • Runs 24/7 as a daemon, survives restarts
09

Customizable, easy to set automations

  • Sets reminders and follows up
  • Meal planning on a schedule
  • Podcast summaries
  • Health news on demand
  • What the kids did today at childcare, on demand
  • Tell Anna what you want automated and she sets it up
Claude Code
  • SKILL.md with YAML frontmatter
  • /schedule for Cloud Routines (hourly, daily, weekly)
  • Inject live data via shell commands in skills
OpenClaw
  • HEARTBEAT.md scheduler (configurable intervals)
  • 13K+ skills on ClawHub registry
  • Always-on daemon, no session needed
10

Knows you and has all the answers

  • Learns your family as you go: kids, schools, routines, preferences
  • Ask her anything about your family and she'll know the context
  • Auto-find gift options when a birthday is coming up
  • Text a health question, she pulls from Emily Oster's research
  • The more you use her, the better she gets
Claude Code
  • CLAUDE.md loads family context every session
  • Auto-memory persists across conversations
  • WebFetch for ParentData articles on demand
OpenClaw
  • SOUL.md + USER.md for family context
  • MEMORY.md persists across sessions
  • Context follows you across all channels
11
Three more quick hits

The rest of my AI quick stack

Quick questions
Google
Google's AI answers are actually pretty damn good now. ChatGPT is too slow when you just need to know if the library is open.
Voice instead of typing
WisprFlow
Cut my typing in half. Turns rambly speech into coherent sentences in real time. Started for work, now I use it for everything.
Kid health tracking
ChatGPT folders
One folder per kid with age, weight, blood tests. Ask interpretation questions anytime. Growth over time, always in context.
12
Systems that work

There's no system
every parent loves

They fail unless one person becomes the grouchy enforcer. The principle is still worth knowing.

13
The principle

Total Responsibility Transfer

The other person owns it end-to-end: conceive, plan, execute. If you're still tracking whether it got done, you haven't actually transferred anything.

Book · Card deck
Fair Play
100 cards, divided between partners. Each owned end-to-end. Works if you can hold an explicit contract.
Eve Rodsky
PM tools
Asana · Notion · Trello
Family board for chores, meal planning, school admin, bills. Works if one of you already lives in a PM tool at work.
Research-backed
Redistribute a whole domain
Not tasks. All medical, or all school, or all finances. Survive 60 days of turbulence without stepping back in.
Daminger, 2025
14
System hacks

Smaller moves that compound

These often work better than enforcing a full system. Less to maintain, less to fight about.

Partner on every form
15-min batch update. Kills a category of pings.
Match tasks to the person
Deadline partners get lunches. Planners get medical.
Daily schedule email
Oster's day-by-day Sunday email.
Repeatable family routines
Mornings, bedtimes, weekends on rails.
Plan meals weekly
Weekly rotation, not daily decisions.
Custom weekend plan
Activities filtered for weather and ages.
15
How to outsource

Two kinds of tasks, two kinds of help

Research & planning → all AI now
AI · Research
Claude Code · browser agents
AI · Ops & follow-through
Anna
Tasks that still need a real human
~$10 / hr
TaskBullet
One-off phone tasks and chores.
$169 / month
Duckbill
Humans + AI. Appointments, bookings.
$1.5k–$3.6k / month
House manager
Needs real decision authority to pay off.
16
The outsourcing stack rank

What pays off the most

Prepared meals
7–14 hrs/wk
$150–300/wk
Weekly cleaner
3–5 hrs/wk
$150–300/wk
Laundry wash-and-fold
2–4 hrs/wk
$40–100/wk
Grocery delivery
1–3 hrs/wk
$15–40/wk
Lawn / garden
1–3 hrs/wk
$150–400/mo
17
How to worry less

Most mental load is worry

The rule: don't care about anything without real data behind it.

18
Three categories to stop worrying about

Pick the one you lose the most hours to

Category 1
Medical & wellness
Red light masks. Multivitamins. Microplastics. Breastfeeding past one. Thin data either way.
Category 2
Developmental milestones
Crawling at 9 months. Talking by 2. Fine motor. The normal range is huge.
Category 3
Early education & enrichment
Montessori vs. play-based. Chinese immersion. Music at 2. Thin evidence, same Rug Rat Race.
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One shortcut for all three

Connect to ParentData once
Ask questions whenever a worry comes up

If Oster hasn't covered it, or she has and the evidence is thin, drop it. Hundreds of hours saved on things I really shouldn't care about.

20
How to drop the ball

Pick one ball

Drop it this week. Usually, nothing happens.

Be a "yes and no" parent.

21
Specific balls parents dropped

Pick one

  1. 01
    No organized activities until they turn 3
  2. 02
    Cap each kid at one sport per season
  3. 03
    Don't consume everything about your kid's day
  4. 04
    Stop volunteering at school
22
Two smart offloads

Stack time
Outsource the entertaining

Multi-task where you can
I read to my daughter while I'm stretching at the end of a run. I call my parents while I'm stacking the dishwasher at night. Two things in one slot.
ChatGPT voice mode for the kids
You don't have to be the 24/7 question-answering service. Open voice mode, hand them the phone, and let them go from Minecraft to dinosaur evolution. Perfect for long drives and cooking time.
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hianna.ai

Founding Families offer

Refer 10 families and get Anna free for life.

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