Do you find yourself not staying focused on the important
issues to keep my business moving forward.

Does your schedule constantly gets away from you?

Is it a challenge to finish your task within your planned timeline?

Does It feel like no matter what you do, you find it difficult to stay focus one thing at time to get it finished?

Watch this video and find out who is "stealing" your focus mojo

2nd Annual Twitterville Business After Hours Cinco De Mayo Celebration

Last year’s Cinco De Mayo was a hit and many business connections were made… so I decided to do it again.

Get Ready to party, socialize and network in a relaxing fun virtual atmosphere. Make new friends and business connections

The networking format is very loosely structured to allow for virtual eating and mingling. We will serve Twitteritas, salsa and twips. Introduce yourself and mingle among the other attendees To join us: 1 - follow me - http://twitter.com/annrusnak 2 - Go to Tweetchat.com at 2:PM Eastern Time 3 - Enter the “room” #TBAH 4 - Introduce yourself by posting an update to #TBAH with your 134 character elevator speech 5 - List your twitter ID below in the comment section

Add #TBAH to your Tweets to join the networking event and conversation.

You can follow #TBAH on any Twitter client that streams keywords.

Enjoy and Make new friends and business connections

Looking forward to meeting and networking with you.

Ann Rusnak

Warning: Blatant Spamming and Sales Pitching will not be tolerated and you will be blocked from this event.

4 Ways to Gain Control Over Your To Do List!

I’m often ask "What’s the best way to whittle down an impossibly long to-do list?" Today I’ll share why a to do list really doesn’t work and give you some ways to get a handle on your task

The daily "To Do" list traditional time management often suggests doesn’t work.

Very rarely do you ever finish that list. You look busy but accomplish very little. You feel guilty because you couldn’t cross everything off and the list keeps getting longer.

1. Is Your To Do List Really A Brain Dump?

Take a good look at that long list of things to do. Is it a random list of unrelated activities If your one of these people that operates by the seat of their pants, probably every time you think of something, you put it on your list.

I suggest you start a "Brain Dump" list. This purges your brain of all those random "I gotta do it" and keeps clutter off your to do list.

2. Underestimate The Time It Take To Complete A Task

The "To Do" list doesn’t take into account the time required for each activity. There is no flexibility or room for interruptions.

A correctly compiled "To Do List" shows actual activity steps for the task(s) you blocked out time for on that day. Be specific about each item you add to your to-do list.  Make sure you note the due date, person responsible, and maybe even where you will tackle each item.

I use a daily achievement record. Everything written down for the day corresponds with a specific time block on my calendar. At the end of the day, it really is a record of what I achieved.

If you can’t complete your whole list (including low-priority items) it means you over planned your day. It’s okay to put fewer tasks on your list.

3. Your Task Are Too Big

It’s very easy to put "write newsletter" on your list. It looks like only one item but in reality its several. Writing a newsletter consist of many smaller steps: create the template or modify it. Pick a topic and write article, edit article, put article into newsletter, add or update events, etc.

Break or chunk down your larger task into small pieces and put those on your list.

4. Get Somebody To Do It

You might want to explore Remember The Milk to handle your task. I found I can arrange my task with time blocks and connect tasks to my VA. Your VA will need to use Remember the Milk and add you as a contact. Nothing like getting your to do completed by having somebody else do it.

Thriving Business Owners tell Their Secrets to Success in 2009

With all the doom-and-gloom swirling around the news media and across the Internet, you’d think prosperity is coming to an end.

Quite the opposite is true… some small business owners consistency see growth in their businesses since January 1.

Wouldn’t you like to learn their secrets so you can stimulate your business and remain untouched by the downturn?

What if you could get this information for FREE?

Guess what… you can!..keep reading…

These business owner… many of them my mentors and coaches are coming together for a live event to share the reasons for their success with you.

I credit my business success to my incredible team of mentors and coaches. Following their advice and strategies I’ve seen a 163% increase in business over the past year. And continue to see results and growth following their advice.

You can benefit from their strategies too… at no cost… when you reserve your FREE pass to the

Success Stimulus Series Teleseminar

You can join me and 9 of my mentor team: Rosey Dow, Ray Edwards, Denise Michaels, Mari Smith, Jim Turner, Bob Jenkins, Morgana Rae, Zna Trainer and Linda Zimmer on

March 17 – 19 2009

1 - 5:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time

Each teleseminar is only 30 minutes in length. Making it easy to fit them into your busy schedule… You can listen to each of these 30 minute Teleseminars either by phone or online.

Each speaker will reveal their proven secrets in short concise "nuggets" you can use immediately to boost your business bottom line.

I could easily charge $297 or more… But with the current business climate, I’m giving you FREE access to this live presentation. Listening to these speakers will not only boost your business but boost your mental outlook too.

Join Us for FREE and discover…

• Ways get new clients to call you begging for your services
• How to build a Tribe of loyal fans who willing promote you
• A simple formula to easily develop new products fast
• Low to no cost ways to drive traffic to you sites
• Your top activities that allow to accomplish so much more in less time
• Energy boosting method you can do in as little as fifteen minutes
• How to attract money to you
• Plus much much more….

Whether you’re a stay-at-home mom who wants to work part time or a full-on entrepreneur who is ready to rock, you won’t want to miss this teleseminar. We’ll be sharing important UPDATED information about how to thrive — even in a recession!

For More Details and Reserve Your Free Pass

Strategy 10 - Taking Back Control of the Clock

"Terri I hope I got you to start thinking about time in a completely different way. Leave behind the traditional time management mentality of not enough time. Flip to an abundant time mindset.

Let’s let at some of the things you discovered….

• Multiplicity of Stuff occurs in every successful business. The To Do list will not conquer it. When you find yourself in Multiplicity of Stuff syndrome you need to flip everything you learned from traditional time management on its head.

• Hard work and long hours eventually leads to low returns. You start to see diminished results for your efforts. Success no longer is about time and effort but strictly a function of results.

• Traditional time management myths feed the hard work and long hours puritan work ethic. It promotes keeping you busy and constantly taking action. Leaving little or no time devoted to thought and creativity.

• Time off is essential for achieving success and optimal productivity. Taking time off rejuvenates and relaxes you and restores your energy levels. You can look at problems through a renewed perspective. A true R & R day consist of 24 hours with absolutely NO business activities.

• You are basically under the control of the clock. You can’t manage time but you can manage… better yet… control of the clock.

• You gain control over the clock by applying natural occurring laws of nature. Applying the 80/20 rule you can truly work less while earning and enjoying more. 80% of what you’ll achieve results from the 20% of what you do.

Right now your business owns you, and it won’t let go. The longer you stay in Multiplicity of Stuff Syndrome … the tighter your business grips you… strangling the fun, energy and life out of you.

Thinking Outside the Clock Success System makes it easier to change a life time of clock conditioning. Giving time and support to adapt this new way of thinking about time. You run your business around your lifestyle. You build it around your needs and wants, and your business will bring you not only money but freedom to enjoy your ideal day… every day.

Well Terri… that pretty much explains the advantages of Thinking Outside the Clock… what are you thoughts."

"I understand why all the time management stuff wasn’t working. I really do need to think about time differently… think about like a business owner. So Ann. what do I need to do next?"

"The 15 Minutes 15 Step System is an excellent starting point. You devote 15 minutes a day to getting rid of time management mentality while building a foundation to apply the 80/20 Rule. You’re going to love masterminding with others who kicked their addiction to time management.

"Great Ann… I can’t wait."

Control Your Day and Your Life Will Take Care of Itself

Strategy 9 - Time Management Mentality Exploits Puritan Work Ethic

Traditional time management can push it’s doctrine of busyness with the clock controlling our lives. A doctrine of corporate world devoted to endlessly extending and intensifying work. People learned to embrace the Busyness Badge of Honor even elevating it to a status symbol.

Thinking Outside the Clock™ puts nature back into the equation and works with three universal laws. Putting the brakes on busyness and overwhelm while giving you total control over the clock.

Terri said "I like the idea of total control especially since I feel so out of control right now."

The First Universal Law – Law of Imbalance

One of my mastermind mentors, Margaret, introduced me to Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto. Not personally, he died about 74 years ago. She introduced me to his success formula of working less to achieve more

The Success Formula She Shared: The Law of Imbalance A.K.A. The 80/20 Rule

Pareto observed that twenty percent of the Italian people owned eighty percent of their country’s accumulated wealth. More importantly, he noticed this same pattern of imbalance remained consistent in all areas of life. He discovered that 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort.

The 80/20 Rule … One of the Most Powerful of all Concepts of Time Management

The 80/20 Rule can elevate personal efficiency and happiness and multiply a business’s profitability and effectiveness.

Simply put…

20% of your activities will account for 80% of your results.

20% of your customers will account for 80% of your sales.

20% of your products or services will account for 80% of your profits.

20% of your tasks will account for 80% of the value of what you do, and so on.

Scientifically proven the law of imbalance occurs over and over again all areas of life.

Traditional time management fights against this law.

You will have much more by doing much less when you focus and apply 80/20 thinking in your life and business…Imagine… left over time especially in today’s busy hectic paced world.

The Second Universal Law – Success is Messy

I already talked about Multiplicity of Stuff happening in every successful business. You can’t stop it if you want to achieve the financial vision of your business to support your desired lifestyle.

"Terri you acknowledge it. Once you do acknowledge it you can eliminate the futile "To Do"list. You gradually get out from under "Multiplicity of Stuff"… while reducing your need to deal with it at the same time."

The Third Universal Law – Life Happens

No matter how well you prepare. No matter how well you plan and schedule. Life will throw you curve balls. You can’t do anything about it.

However, you can set up a structure that can help you deal with life’s unexpected curve balls. A structure that will you get back on track faster and quicker.

While traditional time management puts a big emphasis on planning, Terri you will do something a little different. I call it forecasting.

"Terri do you ever watch the weather report on TV?"

"Yes Ann I do"

"Due to the many variables that affect weather, they often forecast what to expect based on the given situation. They usually only predict so many days out building in flexibility to quickly make a change in their report.

You’ll do the same to give you greater flexibility in making adjustments."

In addition to the Three Universal Laws, you work in tandem with your own natural rhythms. You structure your activities around your natural energy levels. You reserve your most important high priority, high payoff activities for your high energy zones.

Control Your Day and Your Life Will Take Care of Itself

Strategy 8 - Time Management Mentality Exploits Puritan Work Ethic

Our education system ignores the entrepreneur revolution happening right now. It still conditions and trains you to become good little employees.

Unfortunately that mindset doesn’t work for an entrepreneur once their business starts showing success.

The industrial age changed our world.A couple of time technology breakthroughs occurred to allow the industrial age to take off.

The first time breakthrough happened with the invention of the pendulum clock. It gave us the ability to synchronized time. It enables us to measure time in real intervals. It allowed for ships to now safely navigation across the sea.

The second time breakthrough happened with the invention of the locomotive. It reduces our travel time over vast areas. We needed a way to coordinate the 50 regional time zones. Standard time and the time zones solved that problem. The reduce travel times shrank the world from local to national to eventually globally and time zones expanded around the world.

Now clocks were no longer set by the noonday sun but a synchronized system of time zones . This enabled people to function in a coordinated way. Improving communications and sharing information.

Thanks to Edison and his perfection of the light bulb, we can extend not only the day, but also more importantly, the workday.  A 24/7 globally synchronized world. The rhythms of nature no longer dictate our lives.

The clock took over every area of our lives. During the industrial age, factories embraced the clock-based work ethic. The clock determines the patterns of home and work and the world revolves around "business" time.

We don’t wake up to a rising sun but the loud clanging of an alarm clock. We travel to and from our jobs and school, eat our meals, and go to bed according to the clock. You find clocks everywhere now. Clocks radically transformed the way we now experience time.

The Clock allowed the invention of Time Management. It gave business a tool to measure the productivity and efficiency of their employees. It meant business could turn time into money. Managers looked at how they could "save time" through measuring and controlling how long a worker took to complete any task.

The more an employee could output in a time frame… the more money a company could make. Time Management Mentality exploits the "Puritan Work Ethic" to guilt employees into working harder and longer hours.

Workers soon found themselves performing under the pressure of the clock. Employees attempt to get more and more stuff done to hold onto their jobs. This pressure of the clock remains today to get more out of every day. Schedule each hour in the day to take advantage of the every minute. Squeezing more and more activities into a jam packed day. You can see Time management has nothing to do with managing your time… It’s about clock control. You can control the clock.

Let’s get back to Terri…

Terri, you see why the time management structure is "perfect" for employees and why this million dollar industry keeps the entrepreneur trapped in the "Multiplicity of Stuff"?

Now let’s replace that (traditional time management) employee mentality with "Thinking Outside the Clock ™ mindset.

Control Your Day and Your Life Will Take Care of Itself

Strategy 7 - Symptom #5 – An Unbalanced Life

Terri: " I’m going to guess after hearing the first four of the symptoms of the Multiplicity of Stuff Syndrome, that life balance is pretty hard to achieve with all the stuff going on, is that one of the symptoms too?"

Ann: "Oh Terri, that’s a big one… and yes I do get that one. How do I devote the time to my online business and still have a family and a full life.

If you do all this stuff in your business, It drains your energy. You try to keep things balanced but business life takes over. . And a lot of time I hear clients say that they can’t take on other clients because of the work and then they give up that income, that could be the difference of whether they can send their child to a private school or take that extra vacation. Or have some extra money to go out to dinner or taking a couple extra days on vacation.

They give a lot up because the idea of taking on any more overwhelms them. Especially with their life so out of balance. Out of balance life leaves little time for family and friends and practically no time for yourself… ‘me’ time.

You start depriving yourself, You talk about the cost… not only the cost of lost income… there is a bigger cost... what is happening to your family… to the relationships you have because those are time investments.. and usually they get set aside because we are wrapped up in time management mentality that the important things in our lives are the things seem to get neglected.

You sacrifice toward your ideal day… you put the important things that count with the idea that one day when everything evens out then I’ll go back and invest the time then… then I’ll take care of myself… then I’ll spend time with my family, then I’ll have some more vacation… so from what you are saying that by that time it does roll around, there might not be much of you to do it with.

That was the approach I took… I can relax and do this stuff afterwards and what happened was my "vacation" ended up being in the hospital and in bed for several months plus years to fully recover. Regardless, it really, set me back years and I mean years of where I could be now had I just stopped… and get out of that time management mentality"

Terri: WOW, that’s amazing and if you had known this before you would have saved yourself so much effort and agony. A lot of people I know, myself included, wrap themselves up in this mentality, and don’t even know it.

Ann, How do I find balance with Multiplicity of Stuff Syndrome happening?"

"Terri, you will find the answer so totally of the wall. You actually increase your income by taking time off… not putting in more hours.

Taking time off allows you to put balance in your life."

"Ann. that doesn’t make sense."

"Terri, When my mentor told me time off increase income, I didn’t believe her either. Let me tell what happens when you take time off… your productivity increases, your able to see solutions faster and energized… that time off is a total disconnect from my business… you can focus better and concentrate better.

Your business thrives on your creativity and imagination to turn your ideas into an income source. The ability to turn ideas into income becomes hindered when you keep work harder and longer with no time off.

How about this…

Take time off to do the things you enjoy. Make it a requirement … not a luxury… be lazy if you choose… Rest and relax without guilt!

Terri, Close your eyes for a few minutes take your mind off everything you feel you need to do and imagine your ideal day off. What would you do with your free time?"

She took a few minutes and writes out what she would do with her time off. She puts it on a note card and tapes it to her office wall.

"Wow, Ann I already feel energized just thinking about my day off."

Right Click to Download your Strategy 7 Action Step. (PDF format)
Print it and write out thoughts for the two questions.

Control Your Day and Your Life Will Take Care of Itself

Strategy 6 - Symptom #4 – Unable to Stay Focused

Terri: "The first three symptoms to Multiplicity of Stuff Syndrome are, too much to do, interruptions and distractions and difficulty prioritizing. What is the fourth one?"

Ann: Terri, I often get this question how I can stay focused with multiple interests and so much to do? "Unable to Stay Focused is the 4th symptom.

I was working with a client one day and we were on the phone and I hear her working in background… and I said… um… time out here… are you doing something? You’re paying me money to help you and you decide not to give the call 100% of your attention… that’s fine with me… it’s your money … but I really want you to get a the most from our session.

She responded that she was writing something, checking email, and a few other things while talking to me on the phone.

This is classic time management mentality of multitasking. I challenged her to stay focused and do one thing at a time. Get it done and then go on to the next She took me up on the challenge and discovered it actually took her half the time to get the stuff finished. That’s half the time it took when she was tried doing all four at once.

That’s how you actually start getting more things accomplished because you become a little more focused.

When you multitasking you don’t prioritizing what’s important. Multi-tasking doesn’t work especially with high brain activities.

Now there some things you can do like listen to an audio while you are exercising but you are not really using brain activity as far as I’m concerned. Just put yourself 100% on the activity and then you can move on."

Terri: "It occurs to me that while I’m listening to you to talk… we also get a lot of external rewards for being multitasking. It’s like a badge of honor to be able to do 6 things at once… but what’s the cost of trying to live that way? I mean what are we actually asking of ourselves… what are we loosing when we try to live this way?"

Ann: "You’re really loosing a lot and I think for everybody it’s kind of an individual thing.. for me it’s I lost my health. While I’m recovering I couldn’t enjoy being with my daughter. And that was one of my reasons why I started my business in the first place so now I could have the choices to go and watch her plays and doing things. So the cost becomes very high.

You are right about multitasking. It was this badge of honor I earned… look at all these things I’m accomplishing.
Multi-tasking enables you to get sucked back into ‘too much to do’ symptom."

How can you stay focused when you’re multitasking and allowing everything else to come in?

It’s impossible. Become focused on what ever you are doing right now. .

Terri, another client of mine, Gary, came to the realization that his business life and my personal life was in a state of chaos. He tried to do way too many things at one time and none of them were getting done. He was going nowhere pretty rapidly.

During our time strategy session, he got pointed in the right direction and focused on what needed to be done. He had an incomplete my book project sitting on his computer.

Within a few months he not only finished his book, but also completed three different projects, each of which I had been working on for over 6 months. He saw his income increased considerably.)

Jim Rohn once made a comment that when you work you work and when you play you play. So what ever you are doing give that the focus. I’m not talking about an all day focus… it can be a 10 – 15 minute focus just on that one thing will make a big difference.

Set your timer for 15 minutes and turn off your email, phone and anything else that can distract you. Stay 100% focused on that task. When the timer goes off… stop. Now you can decide if you want to work another 15 minutes or move onto another project/task.

You’d be surprised on what will happen when you make that gradual shift."

Right Click to Download your Strategy 6 Action Step. (PDF format)
Print it and write out thoughts for the two questions.

Control Your Day and Your Life Will Take Care of Itself