56. Master Time Management as a Mom Entrepreneur with Marisa Lonic
Time management looks completely different as a mom, especially when transitioning from corporate life to entrepreneurship. In this episode, I sit down with Marisa Lonic, author of Time Momagement and former corporate executive turned business owner, to explore both the mindset and tactical elements of managing time while wearing all the hats.
As a mom of four who built her business while working full-time, Marisa brings a unique perspective on what it really takes to make time work for you. She shares her personal journey of realizing how constantly saying no to herself was modeling unworthiness for her children, and how that pivotal insight led her to develop systems that work for busy moms juggling multiple responsibilities.
Join us in this episode as we dive into practical strategies for scheduling what matters, the psychology behind wearing busy as a badge of honor, and the importance of stepping into your identity as a business owner. Marisa also opens up about her three-year transition from corporate executive to full-time entrepreneur, proving there's no one-size-fits-all approach to building a business while managing a family.
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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
How to shift your mindset from scarcity to abundance when it comes to time.
Why scheduling is essential for making your goals and dreams real.
The importance of morning routines, even if you only have 5 minutes.
Why stepping into your identity as a business owner matters for success.
The connection between time management and modeling worthiness for your children.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Time Momagement by Marisa Lonic
25. Reparenting: Find Joy as a Parent and Energy for Your Business with Crystal Haitsma
Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hello brilliant and beautiful moms. Today we're diving into something every mom entrepreneur, and really every mom, I'm sure, struggles with, managing time while wearing all of the hats. And I'm thrilled to introduce you to Marisa Lonic, a time management expert who literally wrote the book on Time Momagement. And yes, that clever play on words is intentional. Marisa's journey is one many of you can absolutely relate to. She climbed the corporate ladder as a working mom of four, juggling executive responsibilities while raising twins and two other kids.
But here's what makes her story particularly compelling. She didn't just survive the chaos, she figured out how to thrive in it. And then she built a successful business teaching other moms to do the same. And what I love about Marisa's approach is that she gets real about the mindset shifts that have to happen first. She talks openly about her own baptism by fire into motherhood with twins, the guilt that comes with saying yes to yourself and that pivotal moment when she realized she was modeling unworthiness for her kids by constantly saying no to things that mattered to her.
In today's conversation, we explore the psychology behind why we wear busy like a badge of honor. I know we've all been there. We also talk about practical strategies for actually scheduling the things that matter, not just hoping that they'll happen. And Marisa shares with us her three-year transition from corporate executive to full-time entrepreneur. And I love hearing stories like this because it really shows us that it never looks exactly the same. There is no one right answer on how to do it.
She shares the exact systems that work for her family of six, so meal planning to morning routines, all the things. And I love it because she also gets honest about the identity shift that comes with calling yourself a business owner. But perhaps most importantly, Marisa tackles that voice in your head that says, I'm just not good at time management because spoiler alert, that belief is exactly what might be keeping you stuck.
Okay, so whether you're drowning in your current schedule, if you're dreaming of starting a business or already in the thick of entrepreneurship but struggling to manage it all, this conversation is packed with both the mindset shifts and tactical strategies that you might want to hear. Please enjoy my conversation with Marisa Lonic.
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Jenna Rykiel: Hello, Marisa. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
Marisa Lonic: Yes, thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.
Jenna: Yes. So, you are an expert at time management. I know we'll talk a lot about the book that you have Time Momagement. And it's something I talk about a lot too with my audience because as moms transitioning maybe out of a corporate role and into entrepreneurship and wearing all the hats, how we manage our time is really such an important part of life.
And I want to dive right in to some of the strategies because I know even in going through your book, I was constantly highlighting things and saying yes and this is so important. So, what do you think is one of the most important things for moms to think about when they are trying to manage their time?
Marisa: Oof, loaded question, but I love it. And thank you for calling me an expert. Some days I feel like I have it together and other days I feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants, but I think that's probably normal. I would say it starts here and I'm pointing to my head. And what I mean by that is with the mindset. I think that if we believe we are in a season where life is just overwhelming and unattainable for us to achieve our goals or feel like we have it together or if we truly believe that we're just not good at time management.
How many times have you heard people say that? I'm just not good at it. I'm not an organized person or it's just not my nature. We're not going to ever get good at it if we have that belief set in mind or if we believe we're in a season where it's just we're throwing our hands up in the air and we're like, well, it's just not going to happen. Like I have little kids. It's just what it is.
And so, I'm not saying that it's not different, especially when you're a mom of littles. It shifts, it changes. I mean, that's why I named the book Time Momagement because I think time management as a mom is completely different. But I also think we have to start within. We have to start with a true belief that we can totally do this and make this happen and make this work. We have to really understand that it is going to look different than maybe what it looked like five years ago, maybe what it looked like five months ago, five days ago. I don't know, five hours ago.
But if we can start with the mindset shift, that's essential. And I'm sure you would agree with me being a coach, our mindset's responsible for up to 95% of our success. And so if we're stuck in this sort of scarcity mindset about our time and how we manage it and our inability to do better with it, we're not going to be able to achieve what we want to achieve and do any better.
Jenna: Yeah. No, I love that. And something I talk with my folks about is even just toying with the idea to remove the language of I'm so busy. I know my husband and I made kind of a pact with one another to almost ingest, say, I've got all the time in the world. And we started saying that of and responding to each other with, sure, I got all the time in the world.
And not in a mocking tone, but really in this like, okay, let's embody having all the time in the world and what would we do, what would we say yes to for ourselves and our family if we had all the time in the world, right? And yes, it doesn't always feel like that, but it is it's interesting how powerful words are in this entire process.
Marisa: Yes. And people walk around with the busy badge of honor. I mean, it's sort of like this societal club we all want to be in of being busy because it's like if you're busy, that must mean you're thriving, your business is doing well, your kids are active and in all the activities or whatever it is. Like busy equates to good in a lot of ways, but I don't know about you. I don't necessarily love feeling busy. I don't love feeling inundated. I don't love feeling like I have too much on my plate. And so we have to remember that feeling busy isn't necessarily the same thing as feeling good. Feeling good is like feeling balanced.
Jenna: Yep, whatever that word means for each of us because I know it's different in different times of life. One of the things and this sort of this is a good segue in talking about that it's mindset that leads to or that is the first pillar of time management really. But you also talk a lot about, like worthiness and you talk a lot about, I know even in your first chapter, it's, do it for them. And the impact that us taking care of ourselves and that us viewing ourselves as worthy of that has on not just ourselves but our family. Can you talk a little bit about that concept and how you talk about it and really what it means for you?
Marisa: Yeah, absolutely. So, if it's okay, I'll share a quick story of how this kind of came to be for me. I entered motherhood as I think a lot of us do with just this very selfless attitude of just all of a sudden and for me, it was baptism by fire. I gave birth to twins as my first entrance into motherhood and it was I mean, it was crazy. It was chaotic. It was a lot. And I really dove into the role as a lot of moms do and just really put myself on the back burner, did all the things for all the people around me. And said no a lot to myself because I felt like funny enough, I didn't have time for me.
And so, fast forward a few years, I had probably, I guess I had 3 kids at this time. They were all, four and under maybe. And I had been invited to I was living on the West Coast and I had been invited to it was called Mom's Day Away. And it was a day in Napa Valley doing wine tasting. I mean, how fabulous does that sound? We lived about an hour away. It was just a wonderful opportunity to just connect with other moms, spend a whole day away, sipping wine, looking at the beautiful scenery, having good conversation.
And I got this invite and during this season, I was a corporate working mom, so, most days out of my house, commuting, seeing my kids for just a few hours a day. And my initial reaction was, I can't do that. Saturday's my day that I spend with my family. Saturday's my day that I grocery shop. Saturday's my day that I catch up on laundry. Saturday is my day that, fill in the blank.
And so, I ignored the invite even though I really desperately wanted to say yes to it. I ignored it. I was torn between wanting to say yes to this really cool opportunity and feeling guilty about it and feeling unworthy. And so what happened was about a week before, I got embarrassingly called out and I was a friend of mine reached out and was like, hey, are you coming or not? Like we need to know the head count. We have to know how many people are coming in this the party bus, whatever.
And I said yes and I tell you, I'm so happy I did, not for even just the reasons of what a great day it was, but it really made me think about this concept of worthiness and what I was modeling for my kids. If I had said no, as I was continuously saying no to other things, I was showing them that, oh, guess what? When you become an adult, you actually do nothing fun anymore or you are totally unworthy of doing anything that matters to you. Like you're just all self-sacrificing for your family, for your career, for whatever it is, fill in the blank.
And I was like, I don't want to raise a generation of kids like that. And so that really for me sparked a change in how I was showing up to the worthiness table. Like, no, I need to model this, not just for me, but I need to show them that this is part of a healthy adult life. This is part of a healthy parent life.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. And one of the quotes in your book that I just want to read if you don't mind because I think it's so important and it brings this point home. You said, I realized I had to step up and be worthy so I could raise a worthy kids. Kids who knew they deserved to be happy, who treated themselves with respect and who took care of the most important people to me, which is them.
And it's such an important point in so many facets of our life because we are constantly modeling and I even talk about this with starting a business, which we'll talk about your business as well and your transition from corporate. But sometimes it's going for that thing that feels selfish or that feels, like we don't have enough time or oh my gosh, we won't have enough time with our kids or whatever it is. But going for that thing and stepping into that, stepping up and doing the thing that we are passionate about or that we've been dreaming about, it shows so much to our kids and it's so much about raising the type of kids who then can go out and feel empowered to go after their dreams.
And so I love empowering moms who want to do that to do that because of what it means for the next generation for them. And I think we get caught up in the word selfish and that we're doing these things for us, but really it is such a shift to know that we everything that we're doing is for them even if it's the things that on the surface seem like we're just doing them for us. So I love that point that you bring up in the book.
This might feel like a major shift, but I want to get back to a little or I want to talk a little bit about tactics because in your book you talk about scheduling. Because I have an episode, episode 12, how to finally take control of your to-do list and it is all about the concept of just scheduling the things, right? Making sure that there's a time and a place to get the things done, not just that our task list is overflowing. And I want to ask you how you make time or not make time, like maybe create time to stick with that because I know personally and I know for my clients, it's really hard to remember to do it each week and to create time to plan. So, are there things that you do in your life that have built it almost as a habit for you?
Marisa: Probably lots. Yes, and I'll try to think about what all those are. This is a big one for me. This is something I've said for years and I didn't make it up. It comes from Marie Forleo if you're familiar with her. She says if it's not scheduled, it's not real. And I firmly believe that. I think that if it's not set in stone in my life, scheduled into my day, the chances of it happening are a lot less likely. And I mean this in so many ways, not just that it's on my calendar or anything like that, but that it's planned ahead, that it's communicated in advance, that it's written down somewhere visible. All of those things can equate to scheduling.
Like we all don't fit in this one size fits all box of how we manage our time. who uses Google calendar, who uses a whiteboard in the kitchen, who uses a paper planner. To be honest, I don't care what you use. If it's a method that works for you, that's what matters. If you're one of those people who buys the paper planner and thinks it's going to change their life and then uses it for 2 days and never opens it again, that's not your method. So you just haven't found your system that's working for you.
So, some things that I'll just say we personally utilize here is number one, meal planning, super helpful in a busy household where a family of six, four kids in four activities. We need to meal plan around life, around what's happening. And so, even if that plan is leftovers that night or, taking something out of a freezer and defrosting it and popping it in the oven or something like that. It's still a plan in advance where I don't feel like 5:30 comes around, everyone's starving and I don't even know what I'm doing. And that's stressful.
So, that's one thing. It's clearly visible. Nobody comes up to mom, 30 times a day and asks me what's for dinner. Check it out. That's where it is, like everyone's in the know if they know how to read at least or you can use pictures and other things if you've got littles. So that's a big one.
I have a solid morning routine I start my day with each and every day. This has shifted over the years and I get it if you're listening and you have very little kids who wake up very early. I feel you. I get it. But even if you can do five or 10 minutes for yourself before you are in service of others in the morning, it's going to set your day up for such success.
So this could be a quick meditation, this could be exercise, stretching, a cup of coffee in silence, whatever that looks like to you, journaling. I mean, I've done all of these things in different seasons. I've done more things where it's been a longer morning routine. I've done five minute morning routines. I mean, it's just it's always shifting and evolving as life shifts and evolves.
Other things are, yes, I am definitely an electronic calendar person. I love a good reminder that pops up on my phone and this could be actual appointments, like this conversation today. But it could also just be that I pop things in there of things I need to do that day. So, maybe it's not absolutely certain that I'm going to get it done at 10 when it's on my calendar, but the fact that it's a reminder that it's there, I appreciate and I can always move it if I can't actually get to it at that point.
But there's something to be said for writing something down and I'm going to equate to typing it in your calendar is a similar action. I think the stat is you're 42% more likely to achieve a goal if you write it down. And that's a very simple act we can be doing.
And I'm a coach too and I think the best coaches have coaches. So, that accountability factor, even when it comes to pieces like managing our time, organizing our goals, our schedules. That's incredibly impactful to have that motivational accountability piece, that clarity piece alongside you kind of walking the journey.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. That thought partnership. I love that. And I think too, there's a theme here when I talk to people because you're not the first person who has said have even just a mini practice in the morning. And I remember it was episode 25 with one of my guests who said even if it's two minutes. I think you said five or 10, but yeah, sometimes it's just two minutes that we have, but we have something for ourselves and it's so important to start the day that way instead of just hitting the ground and being immersed in the chaos. It's just an act of self-care in those moments to have something for yourself.
Marisa: Don't let that morning routine be looking at your phone. I'll just add that in. Yeah. It's very common to reach for the phone first thing in the morning. I mean, my phone's my alarm, so, I'm shutting it off. It's very common to pick it up, look at your email, look at your social. Don't start consuming that stuff before you've poured into yourself.
Jenna: That is such an, I was going to say easy shift, but it's hard, right? We love our phones so much, but it is one of those habits that if you can break and you can shift what you're doing first thing in the morning, it has such a big difference in how the day starts. Same thing with evening, I'm sure you've heard the stats on sleeping next to your phone and being on your phone right before sleep and the impacts. So yeah, I think managing the electronics is so important in so many ways. I want to definitely talk about your transition from corporate to entrepreneurship. And I want to start with, maybe if you give a summarized snapshot of that journey for you, but also what gave you the courage to actually make that shift.
Marisa: Yeah, absolutely. So, just to take you back a little bit further, I have always been a working mom on the traditional side, I would say, with having a, I was employed elsewhere in the corporate world. Always envisioned that for myself in a lot of ways. And at one point was offered this significant job promotion when my first two kids were toddlers, which meant we moved from New York to California. And I was terrified to take it at first because I already felt in that season, I was kind of early in my motherhood journey. I already felt in that season that I was, I didn't have the belief that I had enough time, right?
I felt like I never had time and I was a hot mess and I was just doing for others and I'd go through this vicious cycle of work, work, work and then, feel resentful, feel angry, feel defeated, do something very superficial to take care of myself, like go get a mani pedi or go have a coffee date with a friend and it was almost like slapping a bandaid on a gushing wound that needed 75 stitches at that point. And then repeating the cycle all over again. And so I was in a really rough patch.
And then what happened, I get offered this promotion and I'm like, I could never take this right now. But after a lot of thought, conversation with my husband, we're like, nothing's permanent, let's just try it. And so I did and what I realized in that move, in that shift, I realized managing my time didn't necessarily get harder, it just got different. And that ability because I know that a lot of your listeners are ambitious women.
If you're not feeding that ambition, something's lacking for you. And you're almost not able to show up and manage your time and your tasks effectively because you're not fueling something important inside of you. And so me taking that promotion almost leveled me up 100 points or something in how I was able to show up with my time effectively. I just got way more efficient, way more streamlined, way more intentional. I just, I don't know, I leveled up.
And so, I always had this entrepreneurial bug inside me. I had tried different businesses in the past, sort of side hustles, but life ebbing and flowing and things not landing and, all different things. And so, I had decided actually probably toward the end of the first year that I was living on the West Coast and I had kind of settled into my new normal, I wanted to start blogging because I loved writing and I was the epitome of living the working mom life at that point and I was like, I'm going to start blogging just about tips, tricks, things for working mom stories. I felt like there were a lot of resources out there for motherhood and for career advancement, but no one was talking about the two things together.
And so, I started this blog. It was kind of a hot mess. I talked about all things working motherhood. I had no exact real direction. In fact, the first post I ever posted was called Don't Label Me. Like all the hats we wear. I was like, I don't want to be labeled any of these. I don't want to be labeled corporate executive. I don't want to be labeled mom, wife, woman, nothing. I'm a human. I'm well rounded. I have all these interests and things and passions. And I wrote it as if I was writing it to the whole world and I told no one about it.
Honestly, I think it was therapeutic for me. And I probably had visions at one point that I would eventually tell people about this blog, but I don't know. That's just kind of where it was for the time being. And then I had my third son and I was on my maternity leave and I went back to work and for some reason, going back this time was so much harder than the other time. And I just wanted to have more autonomy, more freedom in my schedule.
I wanted to not have to commute three hours a day. I was like, what am I going to do here to just take care of this entrepreneurial bug I have in a way, take care of this other freedom, financial, time freedom, all these things that I really want. And I took a business course. In the beginning of that course, it was brainstorming all these business ideas and I'm like, well, what I like this, I like that. And for some reason, it just led me back to this blog.
And I was like, you know what? I'm going to go with this. And so, I felt really called to it. I told people about it finally. I started developing courses for the working mom. That was my background in corporate leadership prior to some other jumps I had taken, but I had done L&D. And I just went with that. And so Mama Work It was born. It was three years alongside the corporate job. And I say that because I think a lot of people think all people start these businesses and they're just all in on the business and quit their job that day and that is not how this went. I'm very risk averse. I waited three years. I juggled both these things. It worked. Honestly, if you manage your time effectively, I think it can work.
The reason when it stopped working is when I started to feel misaligned with it. I could have probably kept going and doing that for a really long time if I wanted to, but it was it just started to not feel right anymore to do both. My heart was just fully in the business. It wasn't in the corporate world anymore, even though I didn't hate my job. I wasn't a disgruntled employee. I loved my colleagues, the company I worked for, what I was doing, but when there's misalignment there and your intuition is telling you it's time to step into the next chapter, you got to listen. And so after a year of internal argument, I did and I stepped into business full-time.
Jenna: I love that because you're absolutely right. I always like for people to build an off ramp, right? Whatever that looks like. And sometimes the off ramp is during a time, I talk about how to make work suck less because a lot of people come to me and they don't like their jobs and they, they want an out. But there's so much value in that transition being done slowly and methodically or maybe not slowly, but definitely intentionally and methodically. The person who burns it all down because they just can't take it anymore without a plan is definitely, not in the best position to thrive in entrepreneurship.
So I love that you had this sort of slow build where you probably felt like you had the best of all worlds and then felt a lot more confident and there was less risk when you did decide to shift into full entrepreneurship. What advice would you give and normally I ask what advice you would give that person who was, starting the business maybe right at the transition of leaving corporate. But maybe I'll just leave it more broad because you may know a little bit more about the moments in that transition that were most tricky for you. So, what advice would you give your younger self as you were building this business?
Marisa: Well, I think it took me a long time to step into that identity and that held me back for a while. So, I was so ingrained, I had worked so hard and climbed the corporate ladder and I was so ingrained in that's how I'd introduce myself. That was the topic of discussion with what I did for work and things like that. It felt strange to me and almost imposter syndrome a little bit to call myself a business owner, to call myself an entrepreneur, to lead with that, to put it on my LinkedIn.
That was a big hurdle I think I had to jump through because I think especially early on in business when you're not bringing in tons of money or, you're still feeling a little bit new to this space or you're still questioning whether this is, you really are someone who can do this or not. You tend to just lean into the comfort and the comfort is probably where you have more of the experience and more of the longevity or the title or whatever it is. And so, I think really just stepping into that higher self version of myself sooner and more confidently would have been probably helpful in just showing up in that space.
Jenna: Was there anything, I mean, I assume that where you are now is much more confident and much more living in that entrepreneurial label, let's say.
Marisa: Most days.
Jenna: Well, are there things that you do now to help with the imposter syndrome or to help feel more confident as an entrepreneur? Because I know, I know that so many listeners and people I work with struggle with that this seeing themselves as business owners or entrepreneurs.
Marisa: Yeah, and it's crazy because it affects so many people, like even the most badass celebrities out there experience this. This is something I remind myself of a lot and I did this even back in the day when I would question my worth, my value, what I was bringing to the table is dumber people are doing this than you and becoming successful at doing it. You're an intelligent person, you're smart, you're savvy. Why are you doubting yourself? Just kind of being your own sort of tough love cheerleader a little bit.
So, I think that's a good way to sort of combat that sometimes. If I was having a really rough day, I would open up, I've got some courses on Udemy and they're great boosts to look at your ratings and your reviews on there. So I'd read through some of those or look at testimonials and be like, okay, no, this is really actually creating the positive impact I want it to. And I think sometimes when you're so in it, when you're in it every single day or just really saying the same things, right? Or just writing the same posts or doing the same, whatever it is, you feel like, well duh, obviously, this sounds so redundant.
But you have to remember that there's a lot of people out there that have never met you, have never heard what you have to say, have never experienced your product or service and it's new to them. And so, we have to kind of really put ourselves in those people's shoes too and remember that even when I originally wrote my first book, I was in a totally different season of life from where I am now. And it was necessary and beneficial at that point.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. I love that idea of I almost think of it as you're saying it as it's everything that you put out is a first impression. You get one chance to make a first impression and I actually just recently talked about this with shifting the mindset of there are people out there looking for you, right? And how would we show up differently in our work and in being visible if we believed that these people are trying to find us. How do we make it easier for them to find us or how do we connect with them in this one post?
And yes, they may never see it, but even just that shift. And I love the idea of really, you know, kind of going back and having almost like a, I think of it as like an ego boosting jar of accomplishments or nice things that people say. I know I save emails in this particular folder that I receive from listeners or clients that are just, you know, really nice. I always take screenshots of texts I receive from clients and I put them in a special place because we are wired to only remember the things that kind of hold us back and keep us down and the mistakes we made. It's so much easier to remember those things and to draw from them, but so we have to be intentional about pulling up some of these things that you mentioned like the reviews and the…
Marisa: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I tell my clients too to have a folder like that of all your good brag folder a little bit, you know, that you can go to.
Jenna: Yeah. Absolutely. Why not? Why not, right? Marisa, thank you so much. How can people learn more about you? What's the best way for them to interact with you? We'll obviously link everything in the show notes. What's the best way for people to get to know you, your work, learn from you, all the good things.
Marisa: Yeah, best way to connect is via my website which is www.mamaworkit.com spelled M A M A. That's where you'll find all the social links, ways to subscribe to our weekly newsletter, check out the podcast, check out the blog, free resources. And I also am at www.marisalonic.com spelled with one S.
Jenna: Fantastic. Well, we again, we will have all that in the show notes. 30 minutes or so is just not enough to pick your brain on all of the wonderful things that you can offer, but hopefully people now know you exist and will find all the things and the resources and be able to dig in. And hopefully we can do maybe a part two sometime down the line because there's so much more I know in your book and then you have a second book as well that we just didn't have time to dive into.
Marisa: I would love that. Thank you so much for having me.
Jenna: No problem. Okay. Thanks, Marisa.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
Hello brilliant and beautiful moms. Today we're diving into something every mom entrepreneur, and really every mom, I'm sure, struggles with, managing time while wearing all of the hats. And I'm thrilled to introduce you to Marisa Lonic, a time management expert who literally wrote the book on Time Momagement. And yes, that clever play on words is intentional. Marisa's journey is one many of you can absolutely relate to. She climbed the corporate ladder as a working mom of four, juggling executive responsibilities while raising twins and two other kids.
But here's what makes her story particularly compelling. She didn't just survive the chaos, she figured out how to thrive in it. And then she built a successful business teaching other moms to do the same. And what I love about Marisa's approach is that she gets real about the mindset shifts that have to happen first. She talks openly about her own baptism by fire into motherhood with twins, the guilt that comes with saying yes to yourself and that pivotal moment when she realized she was modeling unworthiness for her kids by constantly saying no to things that mattered to her.
In today's conversation, we explore the psychology behind why we wear busy like a badge of honor. I know we've all been there. We also talk about practical strategies for actually scheduling the things that matter, not just hoping that they'll happen. And Marisa shares with us her three-year transition from corporate executive to full-time entrepreneur. And I love hearing stories like this because it really shows us that it never looks exactly the same. There is no one right answer on how to do it.
She shares the exact systems that work for her family of six, so meal planning to morning routines, all the things. And I love it because she also gets honest about the identity shift that comes with calling yourself a business owner. But perhaps most importantly, Marisa tackles that voice in your head that says, I'm just not good at time management because spoiler alert, that belief is exactly what might be keeping you stuck.
Okay, so whether you're drowning in your current schedule, if you're dreaming of starting a business or already in the thick of entrepreneurship but struggling to manage it all, this conversation is packed with both the mindset shifts and tactical strategies that you might want to hear. Please enjoy my conversation with Marisa Lonic.
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Jenna Rykiel: Hello, Marisa. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
Marisa Lonic: Yes, thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.
Jenna: Yes. So, you are an expert at time management. I know we'll talk a lot about the book that you have Time Momagement. And it's something I talk about a lot too with my audience because as moms transitioning maybe out of a corporate role and into entrepreneurship and wearing all the hats, how we manage our time is really such an important part of life.
And I want to dive right in to some of the strategies because I know even in going through your book, I was constantly highlighting things and saying yes and this is so important. So, what do you think is one of the most important things for moms to think about when they are trying to manage their time?
Marisa: Oof, loaded question, but I love it. And thank you for calling me an expert. Some days I feel like I have it together and other days I feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants, but I think that's probably normal. I would say it starts here and I'm pointing to my head. And what I mean by that is with the mindset. I think that if we believe we are in a season where life is just overwhelming and unattainable for us to achieve our goals or feel like we have it together or if we truly believe that we're just not good at time management.
How many times have you heard people say that? I'm just not good at it. I'm not an organized person or it's just not my nature. We're not going to ever get good at it if we have that belief set in mind or if we believe we're in a season where it's just we're throwing our hands up in the air and we're like, well, it's just not going to happen. Like I have little kids. It's just what it is.
And so, I'm not saying that it's not different, especially when you're a mom of littles. It shifts, it changes. I mean, that's why I named the book Time Momagement because I think time management as a mom is completely different. But I also think we have to start within. We have to start with a true belief that we can totally do this and make this happen and make this work. We have to really understand that it is going to look different than maybe what it looked like five years ago, maybe what it looked like five months ago, five days ago. I don't know, five hours ago.
But if we can start with the mindset shift, that's essential. And I'm sure you would agree with me being a coach, our mindset's responsible for up to 95% of our success. And so if we're stuck in this sort of scarcity mindset about our time and how we manage it and our inability to do better with it, we're not going to be able to achieve what we want to achieve and do any better.
Jenna: Yeah. No, I love that. And something I talk with my folks about is even just toying with the idea to remove the language of I'm so busy. I know my husband and I made kind of a pact with one another to almost ingest, say, I've got all the time in the world. And we started saying that of and responding to each other with, sure, I got all the time in the world.
And not in a mocking tone, but really in this like, okay, let's embody having all the time in the world and what would we do, what would we say yes to for ourselves and our family if we had all the time in the world, right? And yes, it doesn't always feel like that, but it is it's interesting how powerful words are in this entire process.
Marisa: Yes. And people walk around with the busy badge of honor. I mean, it's sort of like this societal club we all want to be in of being busy because it's like if you're busy, that must mean you're thriving, your business is doing well, your kids are active and in all the activities or whatever it is. Like busy equates to good in a lot of ways, but I don't know about you. I don't necessarily love feeling busy. I don't love feeling inundated. I don't love feeling like I have too much on my plate. And so we have to remember that feeling busy isn't necessarily the same thing as feeling good. Feeling good is like feeling balanced.
Jenna: Yep, whatever that word means for each of us because I know it's different in different times of life. One of the things and this sort of this is a good segue in talking about that it's mindset that leads to or that is the first pillar of time management really. But you also talk a lot about, like worthiness and you talk a lot about, I know even in your first chapter, it's, do it for them. And the impact that us taking care of ourselves and that us viewing ourselves as worthy of that has on not just ourselves but our family. Can you talk a little bit about that concept and how you talk about it and really what it means for you?
Marisa: Yeah, absolutely. So, if it's okay, I'll share a quick story of how this kind of came to be for me. I entered motherhood as I think a lot of us do with just this very selfless attitude of just all of a sudden and for me, it was baptism by fire. I gave birth to twins as my first entrance into motherhood and it was I mean, it was crazy. It was chaotic. It was a lot. And I really dove into the role as a lot of moms do and just really put myself on the back burner, did all the things for all the people around me. And said no a lot to myself because I felt like funny enough, I didn't have time for me.
And so, fast forward a few years, I had probably, I guess I had 3 kids at this time. They were all, four and under maybe. And I had been invited to I was living on the West Coast and I had been invited to it was called Mom's Day Away. And it was a day in Napa Valley doing wine tasting. I mean, how fabulous does that sound? We lived about an hour away. It was just a wonderful opportunity to just connect with other moms, spend a whole day away, sipping wine, looking at the beautiful scenery, having good conversation.
And I got this invite and during this season, I was a corporate working mom, so, most days out of my house, commuting, seeing my kids for just a few hours a day. And my initial reaction was, I can't do that. Saturday's my day that I spend with my family. Saturday's my day that I grocery shop. Saturday's my day that I catch up on laundry. Saturday is my day that, fill in the blank.
And so, I ignored the invite even though I really desperately wanted to say yes to it. I ignored it. I was torn between wanting to say yes to this really cool opportunity and feeling guilty about it and feeling unworthy. And so what happened was about a week before, I got embarrassingly called out and I was a friend of mine reached out and was like, hey, are you coming or not? Like we need to know the head count. We have to know how many people are coming in this the party bus, whatever.
And I said yes and I tell you, I'm so happy I did, not for even just the reasons of what a great day it was, but it really made me think about this concept of worthiness and what I was modeling for my kids. If I had said no, as I was continuously saying no to other things, I was showing them that, oh, guess what? When you become an adult, you actually do nothing fun anymore or you are totally unworthy of doing anything that matters to you. Like you're just all self-sacrificing for your family, for your career, for whatever it is, fill in the blank.
And I was like, I don't want to raise a generation of kids like that. And so that really for me sparked a change in how I was showing up to the worthiness table. Like, no, I need to model this, not just for me, but I need to show them that this is part of a healthy adult life. This is part of a healthy parent life.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. And one of the quotes in your book that I just want to read if you don't mind because I think it's so important and it brings this point home. You said, I realized I had to step up and be worthy so I could raise a worthy kids. Kids who knew they deserved to be happy, who treated themselves with respect and who took care of the most important people to me, which is them.
And it's such an important point in so many facets of our life because we are constantly modeling and I even talk about this with starting a business, which we'll talk about your business as well and your transition from corporate. But sometimes it's going for that thing that feels selfish or that feels, like we don't have enough time or oh my gosh, we won't have enough time with our kids or whatever it is. But going for that thing and stepping into that, stepping up and doing the thing that we are passionate about or that we've been dreaming about, it shows so much to our kids and it's so much about raising the type of kids who then can go out and feel empowered to go after their dreams.
And so I love empowering moms who want to do that to do that because of what it means for the next generation for them. And I think we get caught up in the word selfish and that we're doing these things for us, but really it is such a shift to know that we everything that we're doing is for them even if it's the things that on the surface seem like we're just doing them for us. So I love that point that you bring up in the book.
This might feel like a major shift, but I want to get back to a little or I want to talk a little bit about tactics because in your book you talk about scheduling. Because I have an episode, episode 12, how to finally take control of your to-do list and it is all about the concept of just scheduling the things, right? Making sure that there's a time and a place to get the things done, not just that our task list is overflowing. And I want to ask you how you make time or not make time, like maybe create time to stick with that because I know personally and I know for my clients, it's really hard to remember to do it each week and to create time to plan. So, are there things that you do in your life that have built it almost as a habit for you?
Marisa: Probably lots. Yes, and I'll try to think about what all those are. This is a big one for me. This is something I've said for years and I didn't make it up. It comes from Marie Forleo if you're familiar with her. She says if it's not scheduled, it's not real. And I firmly believe that. I think that if it's not set in stone in my life, scheduled into my day, the chances of it happening are a lot less likely. And I mean this in so many ways, not just that it's on my calendar or anything like that, but that it's planned ahead, that it's communicated in advance, that it's written down somewhere visible. All of those things can equate to scheduling.
Like we all don't fit in this one size fits all box of how we manage our time. who uses Google calendar, who uses a whiteboard in the kitchen, who uses a paper planner. To be honest, I don't care what you use. If it's a method that works for you, that's what matters. If you're one of those people who buys the paper planner and thinks it's going to change their life and then uses it for 2 days and never opens it again, that's not your method. So you just haven't found your system that's working for you.
So, some things that I'll just say we personally utilize here is number one, meal planning, super helpful in a busy household where a family of six, four kids in four activities. We need to meal plan around life, around what's happening. And so, even if that plan is leftovers that night or, taking something out of a freezer and defrosting it and popping it in the oven or something like that. It's still a plan in advance where I don't feel like 5:30 comes around, everyone's starving and I don't even know what I'm doing. And that's stressful.
So, that's one thing. It's clearly visible. Nobody comes up to mom, 30 times a day and asks me what's for dinner. Check it out. That's where it is, like everyone's in the know if they know how to read at least or you can use pictures and other things if you've got littles. So that's a big one.
I have a solid morning routine I start my day with each and every day. This has shifted over the years and I get it if you're listening and you have very little kids who wake up very early. I feel you. I get it. But even if you can do five or 10 minutes for yourself before you are in service of others in the morning, it's going to set your day up for such success.
So this could be a quick meditation, this could be exercise, stretching, a cup of coffee in silence, whatever that looks like to you, journaling. I mean, I've done all of these things in different seasons. I've done more things where it's been a longer morning routine. I've done five minute morning routines. I mean, it's just it's always shifting and evolving as life shifts and evolves.
Other things are, yes, I am definitely an electronic calendar person. I love a good reminder that pops up on my phone and this could be actual appointments, like this conversation today. But it could also just be that I pop things in there of things I need to do that day. So, maybe it's not absolutely certain that I'm going to get it done at 10 when it's on my calendar, but the fact that it's a reminder that it's there, I appreciate and I can always move it if I can't actually get to it at that point.
But there's something to be said for writing something down and I'm going to equate to typing it in your calendar is a similar action. I think the stat is you're 42% more likely to achieve a goal if you write it down. And that's a very simple act we can be doing.
And I'm a coach too and I think the best coaches have coaches. So, that accountability factor, even when it comes to pieces like managing our time, organizing our goals, our schedules. That's incredibly impactful to have that motivational accountability piece, that clarity piece alongside you kind of walking the journey.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. That thought partnership. I love that. And I think too, there's a theme here when I talk to people because you're not the first person who has said have even just a mini practice in the morning. And I remember it was episode 25 with one of my guests who said even if it's two minutes. I think you said five or 10, but yeah, sometimes it's just two minutes that we have, but we have something for ourselves and it's so important to start the day that way instead of just hitting the ground and being immersed in the chaos. It's just an act of self-care in those moments to have something for yourself.
Marisa: Don't let that morning routine be looking at your phone. I'll just add that in. Yeah. It's very common to reach for the phone first thing in the morning. I mean, my phone's my alarm, so, I'm shutting it off. It's very common to pick it up, look at your email, look at your social. Don't start consuming that stuff before you've poured into yourself.
Jenna: That is such an, I was going to say easy shift, but it's hard, right? We love our phones so much, but it is one of those habits that if you can break and you can shift what you're doing first thing in the morning, it has such a big difference in how the day starts. Same thing with evening, I'm sure you've heard the stats on sleeping next to your phone and being on your phone right before sleep and the impacts. So yeah, I think managing the electronics is so important in so many ways. I want to definitely talk about your transition from corporate to entrepreneurship. And I want to start with, maybe if you give a summarized snapshot of that journey for you, but also what gave you the courage to actually make that shift.
Marisa: Yeah, absolutely. So, just to take you back a little bit further, I have always been a working mom on the traditional side, I would say, with having a, I was employed elsewhere in the corporate world. Always envisioned that for myself in a lot of ways. And at one point was offered this significant job promotion when my first two kids were toddlers, which meant we moved from New York to California. And I was terrified to take it at first because I already felt in that season, I was kind of early in my motherhood journey. I already felt in that season that I was, I didn't have the belief that I had enough time, right?
I felt like I never had time and I was a hot mess and I was just doing for others and I'd go through this vicious cycle of work, work, work and then, feel resentful, feel angry, feel defeated, do something very superficial to take care of myself, like go get a mani pedi or go have a coffee date with a friend and it was almost like slapping a bandaid on a gushing wound that needed 75 stitches at that point. And then repeating the cycle all over again. And so I was in a really rough patch.
And then what happened, I get offered this promotion and I'm like, I could never take this right now. But after a lot of thought, conversation with my husband, we're like, nothing's permanent, let's just try it. And so I did and what I realized in that move, in that shift, I realized managing my time didn't necessarily get harder, it just got different. And that ability because I know that a lot of your listeners are ambitious women.
If you're not feeding that ambition, something's lacking for you. And you're almost not able to show up and manage your time and your tasks effectively because you're not fueling something important inside of you. And so me taking that promotion almost leveled me up 100 points or something in how I was able to show up with my time effectively. I just got way more efficient, way more streamlined, way more intentional. I just, I don't know, I leveled up.
And so, I always had this entrepreneurial bug inside me. I had tried different businesses in the past, sort of side hustles, but life ebbing and flowing and things not landing and, all different things. And so, I had decided actually probably toward the end of the first year that I was living on the West Coast and I had kind of settled into my new normal, I wanted to start blogging because I loved writing and I was the epitome of living the working mom life at that point and I was like, I'm going to start blogging just about tips, tricks, things for working mom stories. I felt like there were a lot of resources out there for motherhood and for career advancement, but no one was talking about the two things together.
And so, I started this blog. It was kind of a hot mess. I talked about all things working motherhood. I had no exact real direction. In fact, the first post I ever posted was called Don't Label Me. Like all the hats we wear. I was like, I don't want to be labeled any of these. I don't want to be labeled corporate executive. I don't want to be labeled mom, wife, woman, nothing. I'm a human. I'm well rounded. I have all these interests and things and passions. And I wrote it as if I was writing it to the whole world and I told no one about it.
Honestly, I think it was therapeutic for me. And I probably had visions at one point that I would eventually tell people about this blog, but I don't know. That's just kind of where it was for the time being. And then I had my third son and I was on my maternity leave and I went back to work and for some reason, going back this time was so much harder than the other time. And I just wanted to have more autonomy, more freedom in my schedule.
I wanted to not have to commute three hours a day. I was like, what am I going to do here to just take care of this entrepreneurial bug I have in a way, take care of this other freedom, financial, time freedom, all these things that I really want. And I took a business course. In the beginning of that course, it was brainstorming all these business ideas and I'm like, well, what I like this, I like that. And for some reason, it just led me back to this blog.
And I was like, you know what? I'm going to go with this. And so, I felt really called to it. I told people about it finally. I started developing courses for the working mom. That was my background in corporate leadership prior to some other jumps I had taken, but I had done L&D. And I just went with that. And so Mama Work It was born. It was three years alongside the corporate job. And I say that because I think a lot of people think all people start these businesses and they're just all in on the business and quit their job that day and that is not how this went. I'm very risk averse. I waited three years. I juggled both these things. It worked. Honestly, if you manage your time effectively, I think it can work.
The reason when it stopped working is when I started to feel misaligned with it. I could have probably kept going and doing that for a really long time if I wanted to, but it was it just started to not feel right anymore to do both. My heart was just fully in the business. It wasn't in the corporate world anymore, even though I didn't hate my job. I wasn't a disgruntled employee. I loved my colleagues, the company I worked for, what I was doing, but when there's misalignment there and your intuition is telling you it's time to step into the next chapter, you got to listen. And so after a year of internal argument, I did and I stepped into business full-time.
Jenna: I love that because you're absolutely right. I always like for people to build an off ramp, right? Whatever that looks like. And sometimes the off ramp is during a time, I talk about how to make work suck less because a lot of people come to me and they don't like their jobs and they, they want an out. But there's so much value in that transition being done slowly and methodically or maybe not slowly, but definitely intentionally and methodically. The person who burns it all down because they just can't take it anymore without a plan is definitely, not in the best position to thrive in entrepreneurship.
So I love that you had this sort of slow build where you probably felt like you had the best of all worlds and then felt a lot more confident and there was less risk when you did decide to shift into full entrepreneurship. What advice would you give and normally I ask what advice you would give that person who was, starting the business maybe right at the transition of leaving corporate. But maybe I'll just leave it more broad because you may know a little bit more about the moments in that transition that were most tricky for you. So, what advice would you give your younger self as you were building this business?
Marisa: Well, I think it took me a long time to step into that identity and that held me back for a while. So, I was so ingrained, I had worked so hard and climbed the corporate ladder and I was so ingrained in that's how I'd introduce myself. That was the topic of discussion with what I did for work and things like that. It felt strange to me and almost imposter syndrome a little bit to call myself a business owner, to call myself an entrepreneur, to lead with that, to put it on my LinkedIn.
That was a big hurdle I think I had to jump through because I think especially early on in business when you're not bringing in tons of money or, you're still feeling a little bit new to this space or you're still questioning whether this is, you really are someone who can do this or not. You tend to just lean into the comfort and the comfort is probably where you have more of the experience and more of the longevity or the title or whatever it is. And so, I think really just stepping into that higher self version of myself sooner and more confidently would have been probably helpful in just showing up in that space.
Jenna: Was there anything, I mean, I assume that where you are now is much more confident and much more living in that entrepreneurial label, let's say.
Marisa: Most days.
Jenna: Well, are there things that you do now to help with the imposter syndrome or to help feel more confident as an entrepreneur? Because I know, I know that so many listeners and people I work with struggle with that this seeing themselves as business owners or entrepreneurs.
Marisa: Yeah, and it's crazy because it affects so many people, like even the most badass celebrities out there experience this. This is something I remind myself of a lot and I did this even back in the day when I would question my worth, my value, what I was bringing to the table is dumber people are doing this than you and becoming successful at doing it. You're an intelligent person, you're smart, you're savvy. Why are you doubting yourself? Just kind of being your own sort of tough love cheerleader a little bit.
So, I think that's a good way to sort of combat that sometimes. If I was having a really rough day, I would open up, I've got some courses on Udemy and they're great boosts to look at your ratings and your reviews on there. So I'd read through some of those or look at testimonials and be like, okay, no, this is really actually creating the positive impact I want it to. And I think sometimes when you're so in it, when you're in it every single day or just really saying the same things, right? Or just writing the same posts or doing the same, whatever it is, you feel like, well duh, obviously, this sounds so redundant.
But you have to remember that there's a lot of people out there that have never met you, have never heard what you have to say, have never experienced your product or service and it's new to them. And so, we have to kind of really put ourselves in those people's shoes too and remember that even when I originally wrote my first book, I was in a totally different season of life from where I am now. And it was necessary and beneficial at that point.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. I love that idea of I almost think of it as you're saying it as it's everything that you put out is a first impression. You get one chance to make a first impression and I actually just recently talked about this with shifting the mindset of there are people out there looking for you, right? And how would we show up differently in our work and in being visible if we believed that these people are trying to find us. How do we make it easier for them to find us or how do we connect with them in this one post?
And yes, they may never see it, but even just that shift. And I love the idea of really, you know, kind of going back and having almost like a, I think of it as like an ego boosting jar of accomplishments or nice things that people say. I know I save emails in this particular folder that I receive from listeners or clients that are just, you know, really nice. I always take screenshots of texts I receive from clients and I put them in a special place because we are wired to only remember the things that kind of hold us back and keep us down and the mistakes we made. It's so much easier to remember those things and to draw from them, but so we have to be intentional about pulling up some of these things that you mentioned like the reviews and the…
Marisa: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I tell my clients too to have a folder like that of all your good brag folder a little bit, you know, that you can go to.
Jenna: Yeah. Absolutely. Why not? Why not, right? Marisa, thank you so much. How can people learn more about you? What's the best way for them to interact with you? We'll obviously link everything in the show notes. What's the best way for people to get to know you, your work, learn from you, all the good things.
Marisa: Yeah, best way to connect is via my website which is www.mamaworkit.com spelled M A M A. That's where you'll find all the social links, ways to subscribe to our weekly newsletter, check out the podcast, check out the blog, free resources. And I also am at www.marisalonic.com spelled with one S.
Jenna: Fantastic. Well, we again, we will have all that in the show notes. 30 minutes or so is just not enough to pick your brain on all of the wonderful things that you can offer, but hopefully people now know you exist and will find all the things and the resources and be able to dig in. And hopefully we can do maybe a part two sometime down the line because there's so much more I know in your book and then you have a second book as well that we just didn't have time to dive into.
Marisa: I would love that. Thank you so much for having me.
Jenna: No problem. Okay. Thanks, Marisa.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
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