Ep. 94 - Boundaries That Every Mom Building a Business Needs with Kristina Molinaro

How do you build a business without allowing work to take over every available moment?

Kristina Molinaro, co-founder of the furniture company 25 and Pine, joins Hannah to share the boundaries and planning systems that help her balance entrepreneurship with raising her young son. Kristina explains how she protects nap time as a dedicated work container, chooses different tasks for childcare days, and uses a running task list to stay focused.

She also shares how she uses AI to organize her workload, estimate how long projects will take, and turn an overwhelming list into a realistic plan.

💡 Key Takeaways

• Establish a firm, protected window for focused work.
• Assign specific responsibilities to different sections of the day.
• Match each task to the time and environment best suited for it.
• Keep a big-picture task list, then narrow it into weekly priorities.
• Use realistic time estimates to make large projects feel more manageable.
• Let planning tools carry some of the organizational mental load.

💬 Quotes

• “My work window is my nap time.”
• “Just keeping dedicated time to each section of the day just helps my brain organize it.”
• “I have two hours. I don’t have time around this.”
• “I’ll keep my list, and then I upload it, and I’m like, great, one less thing I have to think about.”

📚 Resources Mentioned

• 25 and Pine – Kristina Molinaro’s furniture company, co-founded with her husband, Nick. The company creates durable, multipurpose furniture designed for both children and adults.

• The Everyday Set – A multipurpose furniture set from 25 and Pine that can function as child-sized seating or be flipped and repurposed as a coffee table and side tables.

• Claude – An AI tool Kristina uses to organize weekly business tasks, separate work by time and setting, and estimate how long individual tasks may take.

• How I Built This – The podcast through which Hannah first learned about Kristina and 25 and Pine.

• ⁠Heron House Management⁠⁠ - Virtual house management for busy families: we handle your to-dos so you can focus on what matters most. Learn more at www.heronhousemanagement.com.

📅 New episodes every Tuesday.

🤍 Sponsored by Heron House Management. Learn more at www.heronhousemanagement.com.