I Was Doing All The Things. But I Wasn't There For Any Of Them.

The story behind Lantern: why I built a tool for people with executive dysfunction who feel like they're failing at "enough."

Lantern is a passion project. I hope it helps people who find themselves in the same spot I regularly find myself in. But to understand what I mean by that, you need to know what inspired Lantern in the first place.

The biggest wake up call of my life wasn't a dramatic crash out. It wasn't a missed anniversary or a moment I didn't show up for my kids. On paper, I was doing everything right. I hadn't dropped a single ball.

And that was exactly the problem.

The Week I Thought I Was Winning

It had been a hefty week at work. Busy season had hit. I was the new hotshot brought in to fix things, with about nine months under my belt, seasoned enough to make my mark and still hungry enough to prove myself. So I locked in.

I was writing new procedures meant to revolutionize how the team worked. I was the subject matter expert and the team lead, all in one. Client escalation calls came to me first, because I could either route the problem or solve it myself. Research, build, write, talk people down off the ledge. I was the internal and external on call armchair therapist.

And here's the part that felt like winning: I didn't drop anything at home either.

I was up with the kids. Packing lunches, making breakfast, getting everyone out the door. Laundry and dishes while taking conference calls through my earbuds from the home office. Prepping dinner, sometimes cooking it, before my wife and kids got home. And I was present with the family too. Listening to their day. Telling them about mine. Helping with dishes after. Bath time. A little PBS Kids (gotta limit the screen time).

I was doing it all.

"Can We Just Stop Talking About Work?"

Then my wife asked me, quietly, almost nervously, if we could stop talking about my work at dinner.

I didn't understand the question at first.

It turned out that was all I had been talking about. I wasn't listening. I was asking questions and waiting for my turn to talk again. I'd ask her opinion on a work problem. I'd sit "playing" with the kids while answering emails on my phone. I'd "watch TV" with my wife at night with my phone face up on the couch, replying to messages on Teams. And when it got bad, I'd excuse myself to the office for "five minutes" (or forty five, who's counting when you're hyperfocused).

I had been there. I was carrying the logistical load and sharing it with her, genuinely. But her husband had been replaced by a cleaner and a cook. The kids' father had become a babysitter. I was contributing. I was not present.

That was the wake up call. And I understood exactly why it was so hard for her to bring up. How do you tell your partner, "You're technically doing everything you're supposed to be doing. You're in the house. But you aren't here."

The "Borderline" Diagnosis

I've joked with friends, the way a lot of people in my generation do, that I've weaponized my ADHD. Hyperfocus can get my work done like nobody's business. Am I diagnosed? Tested, and the result was borderline.

Borderline means no medication. No specialist. It means "yeah, there's probably something a little off here, but you've made it this far, so keep doing what you're doing, I guess?"

But what happens when the tools you taught yourself stop being enough?

When the trick that worked for a single person living alone doesn't translate to a partner, a kid, a mortgage? When your twenty-year-old eating and exercise habits start showing up in your thirty- and forty-year-old body?

How do you change, when everything is demanding change at once? When the exact things you hyperfocused on — the things that made you successful — are now the things quietly draining everything else?

Why Lantern Exists

That question is Lantern.

Because the tools to manage a life already exist. They just all live in silos. The only entities thinking about you as a full, 360 degree person are health insurance plans, and they're doing it to manage risk (and spending billions to do it).

I have a lifting app that tracks my form, my reps, my sets, my RPE. It has no idea I twisted my knee in the snow last month.

I have a nutrition app that scans my food and tells me how many calories I have left, even gives me a "cheat day" when I need it. It doesn't build my meal plan or write my grocery list. It doesn't know I'm eating chicken nuggets not because I like them, but because I haven't cooked a meal for myself in months. I just eat what the kids don't finish.

I have a mindfulness app for moments of clarity. But when I'm locked in the bathroom just trying to breathe, digging through menus to find the right exercise makes me more overwhelmed, not less.

What Lantern Actually Does

Lantern is meant to be your outside voice - built from years of studying habit formation, behavioral science, and the kind of life genome that tracks what actually matters to you.

It's as hands off or hands on as you need. Track your macros if that's your thing. Or just log that you went outside today. Both count. Both are progress.

And when you're overdoing it, Lantern says so. Because there can be too much of a good thing. Balance is a moving target, not a fixed state, and Lantern is built to help you find it again when it slips.

Lantern is here to point out the bright spots and the blind spots, the way a good friend or partner would, on the days you don't have one around to do it.

For People Like Me

Lantern was made for me, and for people like me, who are all just doing our best.

I hope you like it.

Joe Mastrangelo, founder of Lantern