Undoing the damage

The 3 years I spent working in the big bad world of financial services changed my life. There are some small changes, like the fact that I'm way better at Access now, or that I never used to send acknowledgement emails that simply said "Thanks" and now I feel like I have to. Then there are the larger things, such as switching from being a borderline extrovert to a borderline introvert (at least in MBTI terms, and yes I totally think this is due to my job).

Another way in which the corporate world changed my life is that I am now an obsessive list-maker.

After 3 years of having to record nearly every action, I find it difficult to function without writing EVERYTHING down. Which is ridiculous because I don't need to. My memory is awesome. Let me explain.

I have a planner. An old school, paper planner where I write down meetings, appointments, my work schedule, and so on. Every time I make plans, I put it in the planner. But you know what? I hardly ever look at it, because it's all in my head. I know where and when my team meeting is tomorrow. I know where and when the random club meeting that I'm going to before my team meeting strictly so I can snag some free pizza is. I know the details of my dinner reservations, my blood donation appointment on Friday and my eyebrow waxing appointment on Saturday. I really don't need a planner, aside from the fact that NOT writing things down makes me anxious.

When I started business school and had a million assignments to keep track of, I kept a list next to my computer of what was due and when. It helped me immensely. I have kept this tradition up through graduate school, except now that I'm only in 3 classes and they pretty much have the same stuff due every week, it is completely ridiculous for me to keep repeating the following over and over again:

- Negotiations journal entry: Saturday
- Negotiations reading, case prep: Tuesday
- MP4 reading: Wednesday
- Corporate Governance reading, paper: Wednesday

That's it. But it gets worse.

Sometime probably just under a year ago, I was overwhelmed with the amount of TV shows whose new seasons were all starting at the same time. I wanted to keep track of them all so that when they all started up I wouldn't forget to watch one of them. So I started an Excel spreadsheet with the days of the week, which TV shows were on what days, and I had a row for each calendar week where I would check off whether or not I had watched the show.

PEOPLE, NO ONE SHOULD HAVE AN EXCEL DOC FOR THEIR TELEVISION SCHEDULE. Especially me, because while I felt the need to record my TV watching in the spreadsheet, I knew when all my shows were on and whether or not I had seen that week's episodes WITHOUT writing it down. Because I AM NOT RETARDED. My brain, it works. Thankfully.

The point of all of this is that I am making a concerted effort to be less reliant on writing things down. About a week ago I tore up my assignments list and deleted my TV spreadsheet. And so far I have not died, had a meltdown, or missed any due dates or shows.

There are some things I refuse to back down on, such as my packing list for my upcoming trip to New Orleans/NYC. I'll be gone for 9 days and there's a lot of random crap I need between the celebrating of Mardi Gras and the celebrating of Lacey's bridal shower and bachelorette party, and if I forget something, I will kick myself. So while I'm not quite ready to plan a trip without a packing list yet, I'm making progress.

One small step for mankind, one giant step for a recovering corporate tool. Just in time for me to rejoin the working world. Joy.