Over the last few weeks, I have been packing up everything I own to move to a new town. The process of moving is always stressful (though it can be exciting as well!), and a bit part of the stress is the way all the little tasks of moving show up as constant distractions. There are boxes everywhere reminding you that you meant to pack that book you finished last night, the morning mail arrival makes you realize you need to start forwarding the mail, and then there's the actual process of moving, which never comes at a convenient time.

For the last few weeks, I've had my time divided up into smaller and smaller slices every day, and even though I'm still working roughly the same hours, it feels like I haven't made anywhere near as much progress is usual. The first few times this happened to me (I have moved many times in the last few years), I was frustrated. I was still working as much as I had planned, squeezing in 15 minutes here and 20 there on projects. So if I was putting in the same time, why was I not getting the same results?