Thanks for information, Ana. I tend to dive into things and learn as I go along so never got around to going thoroughly through the getting started - remembering the Gransnet Smileys which I love to sprinkle around messages.
My big problem is that, after years of being stretched to my limits as far as time management and organisational skills were concerned, even having been retired for about two years now, I seem to have more to do than ever and slot in occasional requests for foreign translations from well known previous business contacts. I find this work very relaxing and enjoyable and don't do it for pin money but once I open a dictionary some sort of OCD clicks in and I start reading the damn dictionary - sad isn't it.
It's the same as Gransnet. It can become an addiction so I only ever look at it when a newsletter arrives and then I get hooked for two days. That's fine if you have the time but I don't and my beloved grumbles away when he thinks that I have been spending too much time on the laptop. It is none of his business, of course, but with him around full time I feel that I have to sneak off to my laptop and hope that he will not notice. I consider it his problem because, at the moment at least, he is at a loose end around now whereas, during the spring and summer he is off at the crack of dawn (almost) and spends hours on end at his allotment. I am lucky and can take myself off to my gym but, in an effort to manage my lifestyle better, I am looking to
re-allocating on a permanent basis so that instead of having three set days for the gym and a coffee with friends after wards, for example, I have decided that, come spring and summer, I shall go to the gym just twice a week and go the allotment on the freed up third day.
Hope that all makes sense. Once I start on something my brain goes into overdrive as in this case and I work away and hours can fly by in my misplaced determination to see the task or whatever through to the bitter end. Since be computer free (and newspaper free too) during a long hospital stay at the end of last year, gradually became used to my "loss" and now shut down around 8pm and don't have another peak until the next day. Previously, I would login about bedtime and land up going to bed in the wee small hours. Now I login whenever suits me in the day but only once or twice as a general rule.
If I have piles of computer work starting to get out of hand, I will state clearly to he whom it must be made clear 
what I am doing that day.
Usually, I write a short list of priorities before retiring to bed so that at least some housework etc gets done, and I factor in some reading time and some music time and it seems to be working.
Plugging into my i-pod on shuffle seems to focus me but it is amazing that that always seems to be the time when my husband feels the need to speak to me and he gets terribly annoyed - oh dear! My new schedule is evolving slowly and once I catch up with everything that seems to need doing all at once, I'll log on to Gransnet and contribute more to forums.
Ana - what is <<somping>> for goodness sake. Is that Gransnet speak also?
I have added to a few threads. The perfume/fragrance one I started went well for a day and seemed to fizzle out over the following day. Drat - shall have to have a peek at that forum.
Nellie Moser the problem is yours to sort out but perhaps you could decide upon planned, timely visits to the site so you are not up and down, so to speak. There is a huge problem keeping up with threads. I see loads of interesting ones by, the time I get around to them, people have moved on. Perhaps someone on that Gransnet team - hi, Geraldine - could have a look at instant automatic messaging when a member's username appears. I am told that it is easy enough and a three or four sites I use now do this.
This has not been checked through so apologies for errors or anything nonsensible. Reason = spent too long on the computer and having spent the morning at the gym, I have some urgent emailing to do like now!
my version of time management.
