There are two-three books that are essentially telling the story of what happened during one day, to all the different major characters around the world.

The reason is that the "one day" is the cleansing of Saidin, which (aside from the Last Battle) is pretty much the biggest damn thing to happen in the world since the Breaking of the world 3000 years ago.

It's just that Jordan took SOOOO long to describe each person's day as they eventually approach the point where there is this huge amount of the One Power being channeled.