“My philosophy is that you have to manage your household like a business, then everything runs more smoothly,” says this high energy and incredibly together mother of four boys (!) aged 10, 8, 7 and 4. Before becoming a full-time mom, Mary Caroline honed her organizational skills as a retail manager for Disney and The Limited, and then innately applied some fairly basic business practices, like goal-setting and scheduling, to the life domestic. “People kept asking me how I did it, which made me realize maybe I had some insights to offer other moms,” says Mary Caroline, who compiled her tricks of the trade in Managing Life with Kids and offers helpful home-management tidbits on her blog, todaysultimatemom.com. “The concept behind Ultimate Mom is to get organized, get efficient,” she says. “Find routines and systems that free you up to do more and be more, and ultimately have more time for yourself and your kids.”