Getting Ahead

Sometimes, I get a little bit ahead of myself.  


I'm a planner.  Lists are my friends.  I'm one of the 8 people left in the civilized world who still use an actual, paper, writing things down in pen, view by-the-week planner.  And I love it.  I tried using a calendar on my computer for awhile (ahem, 2 days).  Didn't work.  There is something therapeutic about actually writing things down.  Writing things down helps me remember what I am supposed to be doing and when I am supposed to be doing it.  Not so if I am typing it in.  Just doesn't work for me.  Plus, I have really nice handwriting.  I mean, I have to show it off somewhere.


Anyway.  Planning.  Supposed to be a great thing, right?  I thought so, too.  Truth is, sometimes with all of this being organized and planning, I actually screw myself over.


Example:
Once upon a time, when I was a junior in college (shhh...I won't admit that was over 3 years ago already...), I was working very hard on a studio project.  (Ok, when wasn't I working hard in college on a studio project?)  This particular project had a lot of components to it.  It was due in less than a week, so I made a list of everything that needed to be completed.  It was quite a list, so I decided to tackle some of the things that I didn't want to do first.  You know, get them out of the way.  I started working on a part of the project that wasn't huge, but still time-consuming.  It took me the better part of 4 or 5 hours to complete.  As I was working on it (I don't remember exactly what it was, by the way.  Possibly a lighting plan), several people saw me working on it and said variations of "Aw crap!  I haven't even started thinking about that yet!" so I was feeling quite proud of my effort and forethought.   As I was finishing up our professors called our attention and said that they had some revisions to the project plan.  They said they understood how hard we were working and that it seemed like all of the components they had planned to be due for this project were taking longer than they had expected.  They then said that because we were working so hard that we no longer had to do one of the components on the list.  The part that I had just spent the past several hours working on.  I looked at my drawing, looked at my list, sighed, and thought "Well at least I get to cross it off my list anyway..."


Variations of the above happened a few times in college.  I decide to do something to get ahead.  Professors change their mind.  I discover I wasted precious hours that could have been spent on something that would be actually due.  You'd think I would have learned my lesson.


Fast forward to now.


Hubby and I were supposed to be moving this weekend.  For long and complicated reasons that I don't feel like getting into, we are now moving the last weekend of August instead.  About a month ago, being the planning and productive wife that I am, I went to the US Post Office website and filled out the form to forward our mail to our new address.  Assuming that this weekend was set in stone as our moving weekend, I selected Monday, August 1st as the day to begin forwarding our mail.


I don't think we're going to get any mail for a month now at our current apartment.  Seriously, just junk catalogs and credit card applications.  And I'm pretty sure that the poor sucker that is subletting our new apartment for the next few weeks will be getting all of our mail.


All because about a month ago I thought "Well, if I do this now then I don't have to worry about it the week we are trying to pack and move everything.  Hooray!"


* sigh *


We'll see what comes Monday...and shhhhhh!  Don't tell Tyson!