On the road again

So tomorrw at a far less reasonable time of the day than in the summer, I head off to the UK for 10 days. Some work for a faithful and much loved client, (and ex-employer), and a fair bit of time at the home ranch in Swansea.

These work trips have the feel of a relativity experiment sometimes. The difference in the experience of passing time between my small but perfectly formed family here, and me while I'm there is vast - light years you could say, (if you were prone to exaggeration). And the difference in my experience between when I'm here and when I'm there is also big, (as in space is big ... you may think it's a long way down the road ...). I enjoy the contrast myself, although the transition is a bit wierd.

Preparation today is not just bits of paper and files from PC to laptop, but also practical, (wood, fuel oil, cashflow, garden etc.). It is also remarkably psychological. The only analogy that springs to mind is shutting down one PC operating system and booting up another one.

This opens up interesting questions about my research idea where 'living in two worlds' is one of the themes. I wonder if the transition from virtual to real geography is similar. I read an interesting peice somehwere about how multitasking isn't that efficient because of the impact of changing attention from one task to another and back again, (however necessary it gets sometimes). These kind of changes disrupt the 'flow' of being thoroughly connected to your task or moment. So what do we know about these changes? How can we understand them better? What implications do they have for anyone wanting or needing to manage the processes as effectively as possible?