Transitions are always a bit chaotic, no matter how much you plan for them. Leaving one job for another is a good example: three things change at once: your environment, your context, and the speed at which you execute.
Picture yourself going down a slide. That’s fast. Then, at the bottom, you have to climb a ladder. And before you climb, you check that it’s set and steady. The speed of movement changes. The context changes. What you need to think about changes. You may feel you’re running at 100%, yet you don’t move as fast as you feel you should.
Last days at a job are always a rush: a list of things to finish, and a scramble to anticipate what you can do now to make the handover easier.
Then comes the gap. No levers left to pull. Idle. But the brain hasn’t disconnected yet. There’s a lag between thinking and action.
The first day at the new place is the reverse. There are levers, but you have to figure out how to use them. You’re going up the ladder, making sure it holds.
The same pattern shows up in other transitions too. For example switching off from work to go on holiday, moving from one country to another, closing one discussion to open the next. Each has its own slide and its own ladder. Transitions are defined by these lags, and learning to deal with them is the key to getting through one well.