I've been doing more manual work around the house - like gardening - and manual work takes forever.

If you take a strip of land and then have to actually shovel it, it's unbelievable how long it takes.

Contrasting that with digital work... digital work also takes forever - but in a completely different way.

With manual work - it's linear - I know exactly how much I've done, and how much is left to go.

Whereas with digital work - like development - it ends up being more about the unknown unknowns. If you run into something unusual, that's what ends up taking the time.