[00:00:06] Viktoriia Miracle: Hello. Hello and welcome back to happy time happy money podcast and today we have Elaine Turso. Known as Elaine the Brain has been creative, self-made problem solving entrepreneur since 2001. As the chief visionary partner for newly founded INsource It Marketing Agency. She enjoys supporting other intrepreneurs with their businesses, getting shit down for them, so that can focus on their zone of genius.

[00:00:41] Hi and welcome, Elaine.

[00:00:43] Elaine Turso: Thank you for having me.

[00:00:45] Viktoriia Miracle: So good to have you with us. So as always, I'd love to learn more about you, not the CliffNotes in bio, but more about you. How did you start it? What inspired you to do and what are you most passionate about?

[00:00:59] Elaine Turso: So I started, I've always been kind of a very creative kind of person. And in high school I started scrapbooking and which that was my very first business was I was a scrapbook designer, which then led me into photography. And I was a photographer for 10 years. And thankfully I retired from photography before the pandemic started, so yay for me. But what I really found my new, like, lease on life was all about helping other entrepreneurs get out of their own damn way and get shit done.

[00:01:36] So I love to help people like, just get it done, like instead of being procrastinating and making all the excuses of why it can't be done. I'm very much into like, let's look at what has to get done and what do you need help with? What do you need support with, what's not in your zone of genius and why are you trying to do things that are not in your zone of genius?

[00:02:02] I can't quite understand why people spend three hours in Canva when someone could do it in 30 minutes like that is not a good use of their time. So I love to help people figure out the do it ditch it delegated method and like, what can we take off of their plate so they can focus on what they are really good at.

[00:02:23] So I'm a, I'm a mom. My I'm actually an empty nester. My children are both adults, which is really weird, which has completely changed how I run my business because now I don't have to be a taxi to kids, right. And now I just have dog. That love to take my attention instead. But yeah, so I that's me, in a nutshell, I'm work from home and was not impacted by the pandemic.

[00:02:50] In fact, my business thrived because of it and I loved being able to help people figure out how they can shift their business in the pandemic and not have to close shop.

[00:03:01] Viktoriia Miracle: Awesome. Super cool. I would love to learn more about, so being productive. Yeah. Where to start?

[00:03:14] Elaine Turso: So the thing that, I'm a, list-maker, I'm a list-maker like if I, if I plan to get something done, I have to, it has to be written down on a list. Otherwise my brain does not comprehend that it's something that has to get done. So I make a list of everything that needs to get done. And then what I do is I go through it and I say, what am I going to do? What can I delegate to my assistant?

[00:03:38] I have an assistant now. It's very exciting. My first time having an assistant. And I was like, I need to do this so bad, but I had this like can anybody do it as good as me and like releasing control and stuff like that. And so I do this, do it, ditch it, delegate it method and that's what I do. So then I go, what is, what am I, I'm the only one that can record video of myself.

[00:04:05] Right. So I have to do it, but making a PDF. Do I really have to do that? Or is that something that my assistant can do because she's versatile? Like I am. And so being able to decipher, yes, I can do it, but is that really the best use of my time? And so by creating that system has kind of allowed me the opportunity to kind of like time block.

[00:04:31] I'm huge into time-blocking. If it's not on my calendar, it doesn't happen. It's not going to, it doesn't exist, but I have to give myself time. I block time in my calendar to do the income producing activities that I need to do in order to grow my business in order to do anything in our, in our life, in our business, whatever it is that we're doing.

[00:04:54] I just create time for those growth activities. So if it's education, I have to put into my calendar, I love to learn. So I put that in my calendar. So then it forces me to have a hard stop that I have an hour to get whatever it is I'm done before my next activity starts. And so I also give myself time to procrastinate.

[00:05:16] So I love TikTok is my vice. I love to browse TikTok and watch funny videos of dogs.

[00:05:26] Viktoriia Miracle: That's my procrastination, not the dogs though, but like, I get inspired by content and I'm like, you know what? I have 30 minutes now. I want to just guilty free, you know, shame free, scroll through and have fun.

[00:05:38] Elaine Turso: Yes, exactly. And so I give myself time for that. I give myself time to do that because otherwise, if I'm in a place where I'm like, I really want to do that, then I will start procrastinating and doing things I'm not supposed to do to avoid doing the thing I'm supposed to do. So if I just give myself time to do it, then my brain can go in with a fresh new perspective and a fresh new mindset instead of feeling burnt out now I'm re-energized because it did something fun. And I did something that made me laugh and it totally shifts my energy. So I hope that answers your question.

[00:06:14] Viktoriia Miracle: Oh yeah. That answers many questions. And I love that you said, you know, you a list girl.

[00:06:19] I mean, there is a different types of lists like us also, you know, 10 minutes from an expert, I always say, just don't do to do list, create get done list that. It's like must to get done, but yeah, think about it so you have to do it.

[00:06:32] Elaine Turso: Yeah. I call mine plan accomplishments. That's what I call them.

[00:06:36] Viktoriia Miracle: Plan accomplishments.

[00:06:38] I love it and it's all about perspective, right? And this the way you say the name, you name it, it's the way you were going to perceive it. And yeah, definitely helped my productivity when I shift from, to do, to get done list.

[00:06:51] Elaine Turso: Yeah.

[00:06:51] Viktoriia Miracle: And, you know, I also, I don't know if you use anything of that, but I use another thing which you call like five minute lists where it's like a little five minute things and between appointments.

[00:07:02] I think that will be helpful for people who works online and we have a lot of folks like that listening as just, well, you have like five, 10 minutes between appointments sometimes. And because we don't have that list because everything looks so huge to get done.

[00:07:17] Elaine Turso: Yeah.

[00:07:18] Viktoriia Miracle: We'll lose that minutes. But when you have this like week thing, I need to answer, I don't know, send a payment while you were creating inscription.

[00:07:26] You know, I was just, I did like, you know, one thing that took me three minutes. Yeah. Yeah. If you do this, this really helps.

[00:07:34] Elaine Turso: Yeah. Actually, I actually created a system for that. If you, I happy to share this. So I created this thing. I love to make planners. I love to make stuff. And so I made these planner pages that were basically like sticky notes, but they're really not sticky.

[00:07:49] And so what you do is you write in the task and how much time, estimated time you think it's going to take you. And so then when you're like, okay, I have 20 minutes before my next meeting. What, what's on my list that I can accomplish in that 20 minutes and then boom done. Right. So it's totally like what you were saying, but I, I, I use a, kind of a different method where I like to assign time.

[00:08:13] So then I can say, okay, I have an hour, I have five minutes or I have whatever and then go, oh, that's going to only take me five minutes. I'm going to do that task.

[00:08:21] Viktoriia Miracle: Absolutely beautiful system. And so the last question that I ask everyone in this podcast is to fill in the sentence, the blank in a sentence. And it sounds like this, if you really knew me, you will know that I am blank.

[00:08:39] If you really

[00:08:40] Elaine Turso: knew me, you would know that I am a little cuckoo bird. I love profanity and I, my, my clients all expect that from me. I attract people because of it, and it's really interesting. I offend people intentionally, but I just love like the sentence enhancers and the energy that comes from profanity.

[00:09:06] I just love it so much. And it's a way to My poor mother. I love it so much.

[00:09:12] Viktoriia Miracle: Awesome. Exactly. We want to do what we can do the most. I know you have an amazing free gift for our audience today. Can you share what it is?

[00:09:25] Elaine Turso: Yeah. So I created a starter kit and it's called the goal crusher starter kit, and it's to help people, get out of their own damn away and get shit done. And so I I'm giving them a PDF workbook plus a short masterclass that they can watch and kind of hear kinda my thought process around that.

[00:09:44] And then they can also schedule, it's an, it includes a 30 minute call with me. No sales, literally just helping.

[00:09:51] Viktoriia Miracle: Beautiful. So good. Thank you so much for sharing, and you can find everything in the episode link in the description and thank you so much for watching the listening. Don't forget to leave a review, send us messages, subscribe or rate, or like whatever you're watching this or listening.

[00:10:10] Thank you so much and I'll see you in the next one. Bye. Bye.