messy too. If a person flits from one job to another—straightening this, clearing that—that’s distractibility. Often a job is begun, the phone rings or a child interrupts, and the task is left, or worse, forgotten. An absentminded person usually cannot do two things at one time. Distractibility is akin to absentmindedness. One of the stories I like best is of the professor who met a student as he crossed the campus. The two stopped to talk. When they finished conversing, the professor asked the student