Being in the Moment

I see it every day, busy people who have added so many activities to their plates that they are overwhelmed, exhausted and not paying attention to things that matter. A client who takes over her daughter’s Brownie troupe yet doesn’t have the time to learn the rules, another who has a passion for military games so he continues to buy them despite the fact that he already has over 1,000 games. The businesswoman who wants to tackle 10 personal projects at once and wonders why she has no time left for herself or another client who thinks that she has small NYC closets yet has never worn 20% of what she owns.

We all forget to simply be in the moment. To enjoy what we have, to do a job and do it well. We instead try to perform 6 things at once and none of them particularly well. We are addicted to our Blackberries or other “stuff” that takes away our concentration from important matters such as our children, our work and even our time to rejuvenate and appreciate what we have. Can we truly say we’re happy? Do we even know what we’re doing anymore?

Being in the moment means concentrating on one thing at a time and not multi-tasking. Multi-tasking leads to jobs done part-way or even worse, our inability to care about what we’re even doing because our minds cannot process two things at once properly. We end up taking in the least important information and often disappointing others as well.

Time management means understanding how you are spending your time and knowing whether or not you can devote time to a new project. Simply because you’ve always loved photography doesn’t mean you have the time to start it now. I knew a woman who signed up for a writing course and managed to go once. Did she even get anything out of it?

How about understanding what you have in your closet and why. Are some of your belongings the result of impulse shopping when you’re having a bad day? Does a closet full of stuff you don’t like, want or need make you happy? I don’t know anyone who impulse shops who can then look at their purchases after the fact and actually feel good about it. If the activity ends up making you miserable, why continue to do it?

We need basic things to make us happy; our families, our friends, having passion in our lives yet we always seem to be pursuing materials items. We think that blouse will make us happy or we’ll buy 10 books thinking we’ll get to read them. That blouse will probably make us happy until we get it home and it sits in the closet staring at us accusingly. Those books will then sit in a corner gathering dust and every time you look at them you feel like a failure for not having the time to read them. Why not be in the moment, enjoy what you have, take on projects only when you know you can devote your time properly and always remember that yes, you CAN do anything you wish to do but you CANNOT do them all at once. Not the way they’re meant to be done and not in a way that will ever result in you being proud of a job well done.



Alison Kero, organization and productivity expert and founder of Gotham Concierge, helps business professionals develop goal achievement strategies through organizational skills. She teaches you how to stay focused in your pursuit of a goal and keep obstacles from sabotaging your efforts. Alison also helps business professionals and owners how to create the systems they need to become more organized. She teaches an easy-to-implement approach for managing your workload so you get the recognition you deserve. She arms you with the tools you need to manage your time, organize your work, and meet deadlines.

Alison Kero created Gotham Concierge in June, 2004. Alison has 15 years experience as the personal assistant to a number of high level executives in a variety of companies, trade associations, and NGOS as well as 5 years experience as a professional organizer. She understands what it means to lead a busy life, and what it takes to make things run smoothly for a busy professional. Prior to creating Gotham Concierge, Alison worked at Citigroup in International Private Banking and also worked as a freelance editor. She was notably published in the 2nd Edition of the Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy as the bibliographical researcher. Alison also appeared in the fall of 2007 with world-famous fashionista David Evangelista on the CBS Morning Show and most recently in the summer of 2008 was interviewed by NY Business TV's host Mike Ryan. Her interview can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iup99BEEjKM.