Space bar is spacing too far

[MGalvin]

Within a new text box. I'm attempting to have a number and hypen layout for callouts on a mast head.

1:  COMPONENT

    -  Materials...

        a.  Procedure...

After I type COMPONENT; Return down to next line;  Use Paragraph tab and enter for First-line left indent: 4.

When I go to press Space bar twice, for room and begin to spell Materials.  It tabs over way too far and I'm unable to return to single space movement.  It always tabs over after a hyphen.  I've tried a myriad of combinations to remove this extra spacing, to no avail.  I'm clearly not understanding how this is working within Illustrator.  I recently had to reinstall Illustrator from a crash, once installed, CADtools was goofy and my Workspaces was deleted and all my keyboard shortcuts were gone.  

Prior to reinstallation, I belive I had it working they way I explained.  There is probably some figuring out layout style with all the options Illustrator has.  I'm looking for to remove all spacing defaults.  And go back to one space bar press = a single space.  Not tabbing over too far each time.

I realize this is a weird request and probably not explaining it correctly.

Please let me know where I've gone wrong.

[Monika Gause]

Illustrator automatically maskes this a list. Is this not what you want? Then you can turn off the automatic list feature in Preferences > Type

[MGalvin]

This was exactly it!  Thank you so much.  What a simple remedy for a headache.

Cheers!

[Monika Gause]

It is indeed irritating. I'm glad that this solved your issue.

If you want to make a list, you can also make it later on using the paragraph panel.