Mab of Dream

It must be a Virgo thing... or worse, a Mab thing. I've fallen in love with the task list function on Outlook at work.

It's needful there - I've been working so hard that I've come away mentally exhausted, as if I've just sat an exam. Time goes so quickly, because it's heads down, concentrating, working my way through the list. I get a little stab of satisfaction, when I can change the status to 'in progess' or, even better, 'completed'. A line goes through the task and the font turns green. Happiness is a Mab with a task list function.

Then I came home and had a shock. Last month I'd forgotten to pay my 'phone bill, so I got hit with two months worth in one go. Ok, but I'd also forgot to check as my friends had an Orange phone before I had long telephone conversations with them. Cabochon hasn't and a 45 min conversation with him has worked out ridiculously expensive; twice as expensive as the hour and half I was on the phone with Cerr this month. *cringe* Also, I'd forgotten to pay my Visa, for two months in a row. I get charged £25 a time for that, so a £12 payment finally came to £62, when I remembered to pay it.

I decided that I need a task list at home as well. Colette, from the Grove, found me some links and I downloaded one. What's shocked me is just how much I mentally remember to do. Listing them has resulted in 65 tasks as of Friday night, until now. I put my head down at half 5 on Friday and by half 1 am, of solid working through them, I'd got 19 of them ticked off. I also had yesterday daytime, until around 7pm, and daytime since 3pm (it's now 11pm), and I've ticked off another 25.

And I'm enjoying it. Warped, possibly... organized, definitely. It's given me a whole new respect for my memory skills and also for my time management, but it's also made me see what everyone else sees when they are going on about me taking too much on.

This list isn't a 'taking too much on' moment, because it's mainly run of the mill stuff, but I thought you might be interested to see what takes me so long:

Read through 2nd initiation again for Beltane
Go up Wednesfield and give Liam his pressies
Write something for FotH
Do amendments on project and fill in registry form
Fill in solicitor's form and get it signed and sent
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Build Live How You Listen website
Clean fish out
See if I can hurry up bank statement re Glastonbury
Html my review of Heselton's book
Review Philip Heselton's 'Cauldron'
Empty inbox
Do Cherokee's reading
Write to Roxanne re Temenach
Ask Laura about Pat Green's essay
Write something for reader's e-mails for WWW
Write to Patricia re her Green genealogy
Write to Sharon re her Hickman genealogy
Reply to 'Priestess' questions from Cailet and Corey
Html 4 reviews from Mike Gleason
Get up-to-date with WG
Try and participate in KO
Write Bella re Beltane
E-mail Jamie about Tuesday
Read and comment on Ogma 1
Read and comment on Ogma 2
Read and comment on Ogma 3
Read and comment on Ogma 4
Read and comment on Ogma 5
Read and comment on Ogma 6
Read and comment on Ogma 7
Read and comment on Ogma 8
E-mail Kate re dictionary

Those in bold have already been done, and there are 19 missing as they didn't get transferred to my task list once it was downloaded, as I'd already done them. Some are two minute jobs, and some are two hour jobs.

I do feel like I've accomplished Hell of a lot, whereas normally I'm sitting here thinking, 'Bloody Hell, what took me so long and where have all those hours gone?', because the list is normally mental and therefore I don't get to see the things I've ticked off.

yours
Mab
xxxxx