Training a Butterfly!

I've been trying to write this post all weekend - editing, wiping & starting again & then in 3 seperate blogs there are posts which link in & explain perfectly what I've been trying to say! Grrrrr lol

My butterfly is my brain - you've all seen a butterfly flit between flowers in a seemingly random fashion, well that's how my brain works! I log in each morning with full intentions to do something specific & then by midday, I've done loads of stuff but not what I intended at the start! So I need a routine, a 'method' if you will & I need to stop jumping around every time I see a new 'shiny' to distract me.

Aliciana's guest post at JMTC relates to knowing your Niche Markets - something I've overlooked since I started trying to make gold. I had some beginners luck before I found all these wonderful gold blogs by applying instincts and common sense - 2 things I think I've lost sight of as I now 'work' at making gold.

Then later in the day, Alto posted his Common Sense post - another few chords started ringing in my ears and now this morning (UK time that is!), Stede has posted a full scale, in depth look at Jewelcrafting. This is one of my newer professions and one that I have dived into wholeheartedly, ignoring some of my more familiar profs & ignoring common sense a little.

So besides linking to these 3 great posts, now what can I talk about today? Well I thought maybe a little public analysis of what I have & what I should do with it might be useful to other butterfly brains out there! For the moment, I'm going to ignore my LW & Inscription & focus on the holy trinity of gold making at the moment - Alchemy, JC & Enchanting, all of which I have finally managed to max to 525.

I've been buying Obsidium Ore whenever I see it below 50g a stack - this last few days it's been as low as 29-35g a stack so I currently have a mailbox full of it to deal with! I have been using the now-famous spreadsheet which Zoxy explains really well in his post but my PC is pretty old & slow & I find tabbing in & out of game to be evermore frustrating so I've kinda gone with my gut feelings & my trusty calculator. It doesn't help that prices on my server are so stupidly low that the only real way of making any gold at the moment is enchanting materials from disenchanting jewellery - monotonous & time consumimg.

I'm going to try to stick to a routine for a few days & see how it goes. This is my provisional routine which I will adapt as necessary.

• Log in to banker(s),
• collect post
• squee with glee/cry over lack of gold
• relist any returned items
• list any new stuff sent from alts
• run auctioneer fast scan (time for a coffee & smoke anyways!)
• run snatch search, buy if needed
• check prices of all raw Cataclysm gems & herbs (for possible transmutes)
• fill in spreadsheet
• log in to JC alt, do JC daily
• if JC daily is jasper/nightstone or zephyrite, list gems on AH in 1's & 3's & hopefully at higher price than yesterday
• check enchanting mats stock, decide whether to prospect/craft/disench more stuff
• use spreadsheet to decide if metagem transmute is sensible, send mats to alchemist
• Log in to Alchemist alt, do daily transmute volatile life > air, send to enchanter alt
• Do metagem transmutes if viable
• Log in to Enchanter alt, check price of Enchant Weapon - Hurricane (currently the only scroll worth selling on my server) & make a couple if price is good.
• Last but not least - WALK AWAY NOW & go do some actual playing!

So what do you think? Have I missed anything or is there still too much in there? I'm thinking I will do this probably twice a day, morning & early evening. I have to break the habit of popping to my banker every hour or so to see if anything's sold & I also have to stop buying Obsidium Ore even if it is down at 25g a stack - at least until I work thru the last ton of the stuff in my mailbox!

photos © Arty Allsorts 2008, used with permission