I'm being haunted by a list. A couple of months ago, I finally accepted that lists simply make you go mad. You spend hours listing every task you have to do and no matter how many tasks you achieve, the list simply gets longer. Things came to a head when I realised I was in the grip of an illness that made me want to list everything - like 'turn on computer', scratch head', 'go the toilet', 'swallow coffee' - rather than actually do any work.

I even tried an electronic list. That was simply another way of procrastinating. "Ooooh, look. I can sort my list by date, category, alpha ...". Then the gadget rebelled and wiped its memory clean of anything listlike. And I thought "That's a good idea, I'll try that".

So I destroyed my list. And have since floundered, listlessly, lurching from toppling pile of paper in in-tray to toppling piles of paper on office floor. It's been liberating to a certain extent. But fraught with danger, like the time the VAT demand hid in a different toppling pile - and its red cousin came avisiting, and I was engulfed in a snowstorm of paper hunting down its relatives.

And today I can feel the old list lust creep up behind me. I need order. I need the comfort of a piece of paper to cross things off. I need a new marker pen to highlight urgent task.

Most of all, I need it to stop raining, so I can procrastinate in the garden instead of listing.