Approval process change not taking effect until next day

Whenever I make a change to an approval process definition or user list, the change isn't seen until the next day.

I first discovered this during development when I was creating and testing the new approval process. I was frustrated that it wasn't routing to a new step, but when I came in the next day without changing anything it was working. From that point on anytime I made a change to the approval process I had to refresh the server for the change to take effect. Clearing the cache alone did nothing, only a full reboot would work.

The approval process is now in production and I had to make a change to a user list. In this case I was making a Role based User list into a SQL Defn one. Yesterday the user list was only working as it previously did even after I changed it to a SQL Defn and saved. Today it is using the new sql definition.