Marketer and book coach Kelly Schuknecht has worked from home for 18 years. In this conversation on the Women Who Work From Home podcast, she shares how she built a career and, eventually, her own business around her family — covering block scheduling, delegation, productivity systems, and a hard-won, realistic take on what working from home actually requires.
Highlights
“Working from home isn’t just the ability to be home with your kids and not really work. You have to find ways to make it work for you.”
— Kelly Schuknecht
“If you’re going to work from home, I encourage you to still lean into your career — we can choose both our work and our families.”
— Kelly Schuknecht
“If you want something done, ask a mom. We will figure it out.”
— Mish Rivera
Introduction
Mish Rivera: Hey, so let’s go ahead and welcome Kelly. She is a marketer and a book coach with a passion for empowering professional women and entrepreneurs to share their stories and grow their brands. A little bit about Kelly: she originally created her blog to help authors navigate the world of social media for book promotion. Today it’s a resource hub for nonfiction authors and business professionals looking to make a meaningful impact through their books. So Kelly shares practical advice on book marketing, book reviews — typically nonfiction and women’s fiction — inspiring author interviews, and strategies to help authors connect with readers and amplify their message. So Kelly, welcome to the Women Who Work From Home podcast.
Kelly Schuknecht: Well, thank you so much for having me. I have been a woman who works from home for 18 years, so glad to be a part of your podcast.
Mish Rivera: It is so funny you say that, actually, because I’ve gotten a few requests on PodMatch from people, and they’re like, “Hey, I think I’d be a great fit for your podcast.” And I’ll kind of look at their background, and I was like, well, not only that, but they’re not a woman. There’s really two requirements for this podcast. I don’t think we’re going to be a good fit. So that’s so funny you say that.
Kelly Schuknecht: They don’t work from home. Kind of missing the point.
Meet Kelly: Family, Career, and Building a Business
Mish Rivera: The first thing is, tell me a little bit about your family and your business.
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah, okay, great. So my family — I love that you start with that question, because that is the reason that I work from home. My daughter is 20 years old. I was gonna say 21, she’s not 21 yet. She is a sophomore in college, and gosh, I just found a picture of me walking with her when she was a baby. Last night I just found this picture and I sent it to her. When she was born, I used to commute to work. I had a 45-minute commute. And I was so miserable and sad because I wanted to spend time with her. And I had a lot of pressure from family members going, “You shouldn’t be working during this time.” But I had to. I just had to work. I didn’t have an option.
Kelly Schuknecht: So, answering your question about my family — my second child, two and a half years later, I had him. So he is now 17. And it was when I was pregnant with him that I was desperate to find an option to stay home. At the time — well, now 18 years ago — that wasn’t a thing. People didn’t work from home. If you were working from home, people didn’t think you really worked. It was very rare to find a work-from-home opportunity. So when I was about five months pregnant with him, I found a work-from-home job, just very part-time, kind of doing this thing on the side. By the time he was born, I was then able to quit my job and was working from home full-time. So, two kids at home, working from home. Then I had a third. So I have three kids total. I had three kids within four years, which — I don’t know how moms do it when they have to go to an office every day. I was really fortunate to be able to be home with them and juggle all the things back then.
Kelly Schuknecht: My business, to answer your second question — I didn’t start my business until just the end of 2024. So all of that career before that, I was working in small companies. The second small company I was working in, where I was a marketing director, we were acquired, and then I lost my job as part of the acquisition. And so I decided at that point to start my own thing. I’d always dabbled in working with authors on the side, because my first job was in publishing. I always kept my foot in that door. I built a TikTok presence talking about book marketing. I have a blog that I’ve had for 15 years that I just did for fun. I jokingly call it — it wasn’t a side hustle, it was a side hobby, because I didn’t make any money doing it, but it was something I was just doing for fun, creative on the side. So when it came time to decide what to do after I lost my job, I decided to start a company kind of merging the worlds I had been a part of.
Kelly Schuknecht: On the book side, I had worked with authors for a long time and decided to continue on with that, but in the sense of working with nonfiction authors with professional books who wanted to develop a thought leadership platform. So that was kind of how I ended up in the space that I’m in now, which is working with those thought leaders, and then also doing a little bit of marketing strategy as well. That is all of it in a nutshell, but that’s been about the last 20 years of my life.
Mish Rivera: That is so cool. And I love how it was a step-by-step, gradual process to get there — where you were feeling it at first, and then it was like, okay, I need to do this. And then you’re working at home remotely, but then really branching into doing your own thing. I love that. My husband and I are in the exact same place. He lost his job last year and we were just like, why don’t we have a company? It’s just so accessible now; it doesn’t make any sense not to. And I did go through your blog — I found it to be a great resource. I was kind of laughing, too, because I read a lot of books, I’m a big BookTok nerd, and I’ve read a lot of books from independent authors and always wondered, how did they do this without a big publishing house behind them? Sitting there going through your blog, I was like, wow, this is so accessible now to authors. So thank you so much for sharing about your family, because I definitely want to talk to women who are in business, but I also want to talk to women who decided they were going to do both. And it’s never too late. It’s never too late to get in there — even with your oldest being in college. I just think that’s so fantastic.
The Biggest Surprise About Remote Work
Mish Rivera: So it looks like you already talked a little bit about your transition. What would you say is your biggest surprise about doing remote work, or now having your own company at home? Did anything surprise you about that process, or was it just an easy transition?
Kelly Schuknecht: Well, I don’t even remember going to work in an office. I did it for a few years — I mean, I remember, but it is so far from my mind. It has been such a long process for me of working remotely. What stands out to me now is this: I started working when I was living in the city. And when we decided to move to a more remote location, I had the ability to do that. We moved to this place where we’re 30 miles from town. To go to a restaurant is 30 miles away. To go to a grocery store is 30 miles away. And when we made the choice to move here, it never crossed my mind that it might be hard to find another remote job — this was 12 years ago when we moved here. But the state of the world has changed so much that, when it was time for me to find another job, it was so much more accessible than it used to be. The internet is better. People are used to meeting on Zoom. I don’t even think about where people are, unless they’re outside the United States and it’s hard to find a time to meet with them. But for the most part, I have just been so fortunate to have that lifestyle of being able to work from home.
Kelly Schuknecht: And then, with my kids, I always had that flexibility because I was working from home. Not to say that’s easy — flexible schedules as a working mom doesn’t mean easy — but sometimes now I sit and look at women who, you know, we’ll be at a kid’s game or whatever, and I think, how do moms do it when they have to go to a physical place and work set hours? Like, you’re a nurse or a doctor, and you have to be there from this time to this time. I don’t know how in the world women do it. I was lucky to have had the career path that I did. And I think that for anyone who’s not there yet, who wants to work remotely — there are so many options out there now, and it’s so much easier than it used to be. Don’t give up if you haven’t found that right fit for you yet. It’s out there.
Setting Boundaries and Block Scheduling
Mish Rivera: Speaking of flexibility — not always a gift, but also the greatest gift ever — how did you establish those boundaries between your work and your personal life? Do you use a planner? Do you use block scheduling? How do you make that work for you, having all that flexibility?
Kelly Schuknecht: All of the above. For me, just my own work style, it has always worked really well where, in my brain, when I’m working, I’m working; when I’m not, I’m not. I probably struggle more with shutting it off and focusing on my family — I tend to overwork at times. But I do all of the block scheduling. If you look at my calendar right now, it looks insane, but that’s partly because everything is color coded. Meetings, personal things — everything is color coded on my calendar, and I have every hour of the day blocked off, so I know exactly when I’m going to fit in the work that I need to do. Right now my youngest son is having to go through physical therapy — he had an injury playing football — and so I have all of that blocked off: his appointments, but also my travel to get him to those appointments. Because, like I said, we live 30 miles from town, and I make sure I have those cushions around it so that people can schedule with me around things, but I have the time blocked off.
Kelly Schuknecht: I learned that it’s really important to make sure that you have — not just that your calendar is open for people to book time with you — but that you also factor in those times like, I need a break between back-to-back meetings, or I need time to get to this thing or that thing. Making sure you’re always putting in those cushions in your schedule. It’s been years and years of practice and refining my approach to what works best for me. It’s obviously a lot easier now that my kids are 15, 17, and 20 than it was back when they were 5, 7, and 10, and somebody would be sick, or it’s a non-school day. But the planning is what’s so important. It took me a few years, when my kids were in school, to remind myself that when they don’t have school, I need to block it on my calendar so that I remember there’s no school that day, and I don’t plan meetings or things I cannot realistically do with three kids running around the house. All of those things I just learned from failing — from having experiences where things didn’t go well, and then learning how to apply the fix in the future.
The Challenge of Letting Go and Delegating
Mish Rivera: Yeah, it’s like you figure it out. So that goes into my next question: can you share a challenge with your home life and your career growth, and how you overcame it — either when you first started, or when you first started your business? What was the challenge for you that you feel like you overcame?
Kelly Schuknecht: So I would say — I mentioned I tend to be a bit of a workaholic. In my first job, I was in publishing for 10 years, and that was actually the job I was in when I first started working remotely with the kids when they were young. I had a lot of responsibility, a lot on my plate. And I would find that, if there were 26 hours in a day, I could have worked every one of them. It was really hard to shut it down because there was always more to do. During that time period, I didn’t do it well, but I got better at it during my next transition, my next job, where I learned how to delegate really well. That was really important — not seeing everything as something I needed to tackle, but delegating where I could, or prioritizing the work so I could be more realistic about what I could actually handle in the day. I built my team over the last seven years in my previous job, where I really entrusted people to get work done and to oversee different areas. A lot of people struggle with that delegation piece, but the more you can get work off your plate and have somebody else do it — where you can oversee that it’s getting done, but it’s not all on you — the more sane you can be.
A Day in the Life: Nine-to-Five vs. Free Spirit
Mish Rivera: So walk me through what a daily routine looks like for you. Are you a nine-to-five person? Are you an “I get work done better at 1 a.m.” person? What does that look like for you usually?
Kelly Schuknecht: I am definitely a nine-to-five person. That happened for a couple of reasons. For one, my job when I was in publishing — my kids were getting into school age, and then they were all school-aged during that period — and the best time to work was like eight to three when they were in school. I could get them off to school and then focus on work for the day. Then after that, I was in a corporate job where basically the expectation is that you’re available for meetings and working during the day. So it was just kind of what was natural. Now I basically work that eight-to-five kind of time on my schedule. But because I’m running my own business, that will also creep into the evenings and the weekends when I’m able. There are certain tasks that are just easier to do late at night when nobody’s on — you’re not bothering anyone, but you want to catch up on your podcast production, or organizing your list of things to do. Those admin-type tasks are easier to handle outside of business hours. I wish I had more of a free spirit, where I could say, you know what, I’m gonna go for a hike on a Wednesday and then work later in the evening. But my mind doesn’t work that way. It’s easier for me to just work during normal business hours and then play outside of those hours.
Mish Rivera: I totally get that. I would be what’s called a free spirit. And even I — I’m turning 40 this year — I laugh at how much I’ve assimilated to that nine-to-five schedule. I don’t know if it’s a productivity thing, or if our brains naturally want to be alert at those times. If I didn’t have kids, I’d probably pare it back and work from like 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. But if it works, it works. And that makes sense too, because if you’re transitioning from remote work where you have to be available at certain times, then even running your own business, there are probably more people available during certain times.
Support Systems That Make Working From Home Work
Mish Rivera: What support systems have you put in place for your business? You said your kids are older, so I’m guessing you don’t need a lot of childcare. But one of the biggest fears moms have about working at home is having that support system, because we just can’t do everything on our own. What would you tell a woman who’s considering working from home to have in place when she gets all this going?
Kelly Schuknecht: So one of the things I’ve seen, from working from home and from hiring people who want to work from home, is that they tend to think, I’m just going to work from home — basically, I want to be home with my kids and work from home. And then I think they’re shocked when they find out that it’s really hard to have a toddler running around the house and also try to be productive and think during the day. So I think it’s really important. I mentioned starting to work from home when my kids were little, little — they weren’t in school yet. At that time, I remember specifically I would get up in the morning and do a little bit of light work when the kids were eating breakfast or watching TV in the morning, kind of running around — a little bit of email-type work. But then I would go to the gym, and, as a lot of moms know, there are times where you can drop your kids off at the gym daycare and you get like a two-hour window. So you could do your workout and then squeeze in an hour or so of work. Then we’d go home and it would be nap time, and I could put them down for a nap and then work. So my schedule back then, when they were little, was very choppy — chunks of time throughout the day where it made sense.
Kelly Schuknecht: And a lot of times I’d put them down to bed — my husband had a weird schedule, so he would be gone at night — and then I could work from seven until 11 o’clock at night. Not the healthiest mentally for moms, when you’re basically working from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed, in these weird chunks throughout the day. But it worked really well for me to be able to do that. So, all of that to say: it’s really important to recognize that working from home isn’t just the ability to be home with your kids and not really work. You have to find ways to make it work for you — whether that’s getting a sitter certain days of the week, or using that gym childcare to the max every day, or working seven days a week. I did that for many years, working seven days a week, but not eight hours a day — squeezing it in on the weekends to be caught up for the week.
Kelly Schuknecht: Making sure you have the schedule in place that works for you to get work done, and the support systems like you mentioned — it’s for your own sanity, but also for your productivity. If you’re working for somebody else, or you’re trying to build a business, you have to spend dedicated time on that activity in order to be productive — to produce while you’re working, or, if you’re growing your business, to really spend time on the things that are going to help your business grow.
Mish Rivera: I love that you’re being realistic about that, because a lot of the time I see people who are like, “build your business from home, it’s super easy with kids.” And it’s like — it’s not impossible, but I wouldn’t call it easy. You do have to be realistic, especially if you have little ones. You have to have dedicated time, time when people don’t need you. But I love that you’re also telling women it can be done in these small chunks. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a six-, eight-, or ten-hour block in order to still accomplish big things and really build up. And it’s so funny you brought up the gym thing. My friend Katie — her husband is military and she built a business, and she was in charge of their finances too. I met her when my daughter was like one year old, so almost 13 years ago, and I remember her telling me, “Dude, it’s my hack. I go to the YMCA, I’ve got two hours, five days a week.” And I was like, she is brilliant. And they get to be socialized. I thought it was nuts when I first heard it, but then it hit me — genius, absolute genius. If you want something done, ask a mom. We will figure it out.
Kelly Schuknecht: That’s right. And I don’t know if it’s just a YMCA thing, but that’s funny, because where I was living at the time, it was a YMCA too, and that was my saving grace. It was that little bit of time I could have them being taken care of and, like you said, being socialized — they made great friends — but I got a little bit of time to work on stuff while they were awake. And then we’d go home and it would be nap time, and they’d go to sleep really easily because they had just been playing. You find ways to make it happen, for sure.
Mish Rivera: And it’s a season. I remember Katie telling me, “I have two hours in the morning, two hours while they’re at the Y, and two hours after they go to bed. That was just my season. That was my six-hour day and I was ready for it.” Women get stuff done.
Favorite Productivity Hack: Todoist + Getting Things Done
Mish Rivera: So let me see, we have about 15 minutes — a little quick-fire round. I think you might have already answered this, but just in case: what is your favorite work-from-home productivity hack?
Kelly Schuknecht: Which one do I pick? So I am kind of a geek when it comes to these things, but I would say probably my favorite is the tool Todoist. You played around in my blog a little bit — you probably didn’t get to this, but I did a few blog posts on using Todoist with the Getting Things Done methodology. If you’re not familiar with that, there’s a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen, and it’s about systemizing all of your to-dos. I read that book back in 2018, and it was life-changing for me as far as just getting my work — not even just work, but all of the tasks in our life. Even things like, I need to get my oil changed, I need to remember to get groceries — all those things that are constantly in your head. Getting them out of your head, and then he has a system for how to control all of that, so that you can breathe easy and relax because you know everything is within that system and working. So I actually configured my Todoist to help me practice the GTD, or Getting Things Done, methodology. I know — sorry, I’m a total geek. You asked me this question and I just went down this road.
Mish Rivera: No, that is brilliant! And I want to read this book now.
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah, check out that book — it’s a great book. But then also, configuring Todoist is not easy, and it’s not for the faint of heart when it comes to getting it set up the way I have mine set up. I did some blog posts walking through how to set up the different rules and things, so that basically I have different areas within Todoist: I know what’s super important, what needs to happen today, what is my someday-maybe list. Everything’s in there. Whenever anything comes up — my husband’s like, we need to buy this or whatever — I just stick it right in the app. And then I know it’ll come to my attention at the right time, and I don’t have to think about it again.
Mish Rivera: Okay, and do you have alarms and stuff? Does Todoist have alarms set up? I’m not familiar with that app at all.
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah, you can. You can set things up where, like, recurring tasks — every Monday I do this, or once a month on this day I do this. But also you can say, kind of like your phone app, “remind me to get eggs at the store.” I know I’m gonna be in town at three o’clock, so remind me at three o’clock — you can set certain times you want it to remind you of things. I don’t do that too much, because it’s a little crazy-making, trying to time things specifically. But if I know I need to be reminded while I’m in town to do a certain task, then I’ll have it remind me at that time. So I don’t know if you have the ability to link to one of those posts, but I can share one with you, and you can put it in the show notes if somebody’s interested and geeky like me.
Mish Rivera: Yeah, no, I will, absolutely. That’s like a whole other level of productivity hack. I’m also super type A, and I have an ADHD diagnosis too, so I’ve totally had to figure out ways like that. I’ve been using my Google Calendar forever, but I’m always complaining to my husband that it’s not detailed enough and it doesn’t alert me in the right way — which he laughs at, because he’s like, “what’s the right way to get alerted?” And I’m like, I’m just telling you, they could do better. Do better, Google.
Kelly Schuknecht: Well, and you can actually integrate your Google with Todoist as well. So you can email tasks to yourself in Todoist, and I think you can view the tasks on the side in Gmail — I’m not 100% sure on that, because I don’t use it for that. But you can integrate it so you can easily add stuff where you want in Todoist as well.
Mish Rivera: That is brilliant. That’s a great hack — again, it keeps you focused. For me, if I don’t have that separation between work and home, my mind is on work even when I’m with my kids. So I have to have a really clear line of: I don’t have to think about work, because I already have that planned out. And I think that’s huge.
Building a Dedicated Home Office
Mish Rivera: So I see you have a home office. Is this dedicated just to your workspace?
Kelly Schuknecht: Yes, it is. This is actually my daughter’s bedroom. I used to have a loft upstairs that was my office, which I don’t recommend, but I didn’t really have much of an option — three kids take up space, so I didn’t have an extra bedroom for an office. The loft office was fine most of the time, but if somebody came home, or the kids didn’t have school one day, it was just very, very distracting. So when she moved out last year for school, I was like, I’m just gonna put a desk in there and make it my office. Now I love it. This space is great — it’s kind of her bedroom and a guest bedroom, but my office. And then I have an office in town that I just rent, because, like I mentioned, I’m 30 miles from town. So if I have an appointment at nine o’clock in the morning, I can just stay there and work out of my office in town, rather than drive home or find coffee shops. I like having that option outside of the house, so if we have guests staying here, I can get away. But I like having the dedicated space in the house as well. I’m kind of spoiled.
Mish Rivera: No, I honestly — we live like 25 minutes outside of town. We live in Tennessee, in this little college town, and ours is so annoying because we don’t actually live that far, but 20, 25 minutes is enough that I don’t really want to go back up there and back. So we actually work in the coworking space here. And it’s funny you say you’re using your daughter’s bedroom, because my son, who’s six, only sleeps in his bedroom — he’s the biggest extrovert I’ve ever met, hates not being around people. So a couple weekends ago, my husband was like, “Michelle, why don’t we put his bed in a corner of the bedroom, put a divider up, and make a home office?” Because we work at the kitchen table all the time, and constantly people are like, “hey, can you jump on a podcast?” and we’re like, no, we cannot, because my kids are here. So that’s so funny you’re saying that. Are you going to actually redecorate the space, or are you just like, hey, I got a home office, this is awesome?
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah, it works. I have two big screens on top of my computer, my podcast mic, a ring light up here — it’s a whole thing. Now it’s basically my office that she can sleep in occasionally when she comes home. I think we’ll adjust as my boys end up leaving the house, and I’ll have plenty of space to reconfigure. But right now it works great. That’s definitely a challenge in working from home — figuring out the space and how to make room for it. But I think it’s really important to have that dedicated space for working. All the time, I’m here when I’m working, but when I’m not working, that helps separate things. If I leave here and go start making dinner, I am not bringing my computer with me. It stays here. I might work on my iPad on the couch, but I get away from the work mindset when I do that. So it’s really helpful if you can do it. One idea for you: I’ve seen those pods you can put in your yard — I don’t know if “pods” is the right word, but they’re almost like a tiny home, an office kind of thing you can put in your backyard. I’ve always thought those were really cool and would be really fun to have if you didn’t have space in the house, because not every house is big enough for home offices, especially for two people.
Mish Rivera: Totally. So my son is eventually going to use his room back, realistically. But we have one of those — the house we bought came with a prefab shed in the back, and we’ve been using it for gardening tools. A couple months ago I was like, we need to get that insulated and get an air unit in there — why is this not our office? My husband is podcasting a ton right now, and he’s like, we really need to do this. So right now it’s freezing, but we’re finally getting some quotes on getting that shed fixed up. There’s already electricity in it. Like, why are we not in there? I was even thinking of making a schoolhouse for my homeschool stuff — but my kids are such kitchen-table homeschool kids, they wouldn’t even care. I see all these aesthetically beautiful homeschool rooms, and my kids would be like, let’s just get this done.
Must-Have Home Office Items
Mish Rivera: So that segues in — do you have a must-have home office item that you love?
Kelly Schuknecht: Okay, so “must-have” is probably a little too much for this, but every morning I have my little Yankee Candle on my desk, and I light it every morning when I start working, and then I blow it out at the end of the day when I’m done. That’s my little thing — it just makes my space feel cozy. It’s like my thing that I turn on and off when I’m working. I could live without it, but I just love it. I’ll tell you another thing I love — and this is more of an actual could-not-live-without — my reMarkable tablet. Every notebook that I use all day long is in here. If I’m talking to a client, I can take notes in there. I’m doing the minimalist challenge this month — I have my calendar in there for that, I have my meal-plan calendar in that. Everything is in that. And I carry it around with me all day. So that’s definitely my must-have for working from home.
Mish Rivera: Okay, is that like GoodNotes, or is it its own thing dedicated to note-taking?
Kelly Schuknecht: It’s its own thing. It’s a digital notebook — it’s just like a little notebook, and then you can create different notebooks in it. I use GoodNotes on my iPad, so I know what you’re talking about, but this is its own tablet, and it’s really no frills. I used to try to use GoodNotes on my iPad and write stuff in it, but I hated writing on an iPad, and this is more like writing on paper, where it’s just black and white. You can highlight things, but it’s still just black and white. I love it. I almost want to have a different one for upstairs, so when I’m at my desk I have this one and don’t have to carry it around, and another one upstairs. Seems a little crazy, but I love it. I use it all day long.
Mish Rivera: No, that’s brilliant. I’ve pretty much transitioned — in fact, I’m on my tablet right now — into using my tablet for everything. And as you just witnessed, I tried to bring up my notes for Riverside and I couldn’t, so now they’re on my phone. The frustration with using your tablet for everything is that you are using it, so you cannot also be using your notes on it. So I’m going to look into that, because I am also a notorious note-taker. My note app is full. I have notebooks everywhere, and I love that you just consolidated it in one place. I will totally put a link to that, and if you have an affiliate link, we’ll throw that in there.
Kelly Schuknecht: I don’t, but if they have one, go for it, sign up. It’s totally worth checking out. It’s a great tool, and you can even send PDFs to it. So, like you were mentioning — having your notes, an outline for your show — you can send that to your reMarkable tablet, duplicate it for each show, and handwrite any notes you want to add in for the specific person. So, definitely worth checking out.
Parting Advice for Women Starting Out
Mish Rivera: So, last question. What would you say is your parting advice for women looking to get started on this work-from-home journey? You kind of already gave some, but what would be your elevator pitch — what to watch out for — for somebody who’s like, I want to dive in?
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah, I think we covered a lot of that — making sure that you are fully committed to the work, in addition to the being-home part. I also just think — I’m very passionate about women in the workplace. I mentioned earlier that when I had kids, I felt a lot of pressure that I had to stay home. And I think working from home, for many women, is the way that they’re able to do both: to work and to have a family. Not to steal the words of Sheryl Sandberg, but if you’re going to work from home, I encourage you to still lean into your career, and don’t let that go by without really intentionally focusing on it. I’ve had a very accidental successful career, because I always was dedicated to my work, but I also cared about my kids and wanted to be home with them. I see too many women drop out of the workplace, or put their work way on the back burner and focus solely on their family and their kids. And I think a lot of women come later in life to realize that that was a big mistake — that they didn’t put their trust in their own abilities, that they relied on maybe their spouse, that they just didn’t focus on their career.
Kelly Schuknecht: So I’m not good at the elevator-pitch thing, I’m going on and on, but it’s something I’m really passionate about. It’s why I started my podcast, and I’m going to plug that really quick. I have the Beyond the Bestseller podcast, where I feature women who have written a professional book — nonfiction books — for other women that are inspiring. That’s why I started that podcast, because I want to be supportive of women who are working and choosing to work. We can choose both our work and our families. So that’s my advice.
Mish Rivera: Love it. That’s amazing. That’s the whole purpose of this podcast. So, last thing — where can our listeners find and follow you, other than your blog?
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah, we’ll link to that blog post — I’ll find that and share it with you so you can include it in the notes. Also, my podcast: if you’re interested in books related to personal development or professional development, that’s a lot of what I have on — women who have written books like that, and you get to know the author and the behind-the-scenes on why they wrote the book. So, Beyond the Bestseller, check that out. And then also LinkedIn — connect with me there. I do not have an easy-to-spell last name, so I’ll share that link with you in the show notes as well.
Mish Rivera: I’m gonna attempt it, you ready? Schuknecht. Did I get it? Awesome, very cool. Well, Kelly, it was so good talking to you. Thank you so much for all your input — it’s just inspiring. That’s exactly what I’m trying to show women: what is possible. So thank you, I appreciate you so much.
Kelly Schuknecht: Yeah, thanks for having me on.
Key Takeaways
- Working from home is not the same as being home and not working. Real productivity requires protected, dedicated time — a sitter, gym childcare, or working in chunks around naps and bedtime.
- Block scheduling is Kelly’s backbone: every hour color-coded, with deliberate cushions between meetings and travel built in, plus blocking off no-school days so the calendar reflects reality.
- Learning to delegate — and to prioritize rather than tackle everything herself — was the single biggest shift that made a heavy workload sustainable.
- A consistent nine-to-five rhythm works better for Kelly than a “free spirit” schedule; admin tasks spill into evenings and weekends when needed, but normal business hours anchor the day.
- Todoist configured around the Getting Things Done methodology (David Allen) gets every task out of her head and into a trusted system, freeing mental space.
- A dedicated physical workspace — and physically leaving it at day’s end — is what separates “work mode” from “home mode.” A reMarkable tablet consolidates every notebook into one place.
- Lean into your career anyway: working from home lets women do both, but Kelly urges women not to put their work on the back burner or stop trusting their own abilities.
