You want to bake a cake, so you head to the kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You realise that you don\u2019t have some of the ingredients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You decide to go to the store pick it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So you decide to take the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While driving you realise that the drive was not smooth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So you decided to take the car to the repair shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the way you felt thirsty do stop for some cold bottled water<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While drinking the cold water your tooth started hurting. It was the sensitive tooth which needed treating<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So you pick up the phone to make an appointment with the dentist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you keep the phone down, you see that your friend has called you over<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So then you decide you need something to take for your friend as you cannot go empty handed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You get the story. Whatever happened to that cake?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In programming<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You set to deploy a website<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But before you do, you need access<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Get the passwords<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Need to know deployment techniques and use them<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Figure out the web farm<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Assess scaling capabilities<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Web framework<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whatever happened to fixing the original deployment? Sure, all of these other things are good on their own, but they are distractions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yak shaving\u201d (or \u201cshaving a yak\u201d) was coined by Carlin Vieri, an MIT Ph.D., in the \u201990s after watching an episode of \u201cThe Ren & Stimpy Show.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yak shaving refers to a task, that leads you to perform another related task and so on ( and some have no obvious relationship to the task you are working on), and so on \u2014 all distracting you from your primary meta task or goal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGoing down the Rabbit Hole\u201d is another terminology<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In short: Stay focused on the task at hand, and don\u2019t shave that yak!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More on the origin of the term \u201cyak shaving\u201d Carlin Vieri said:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n As for \u201cRen & Stimpy,\u201d I used to play hockey late on Tuesday nights. I would have dinner at midnight Tuesdays and watch TV, and I saw the \u201cYak Shaving Day\u201d episode. I thought it was so odd, that later when I was struggling to overnight a document (getting permission from an admin, setting up a DHL account, getting a PO, all that nonsense), I told my officemate I was yak shaving. Over the next few weeks\/months, I tried to get folks around the lab to use the term, and Jeremy Brown really liked it. He used it in his GSB post a couple of years after I left the lab<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yak shaving refers to a task, that leads you to perform another related task and so on, and so on \u2014 all distracting you from your primary meta task or goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[158],"tags":[222,221],"class_list":["post-1425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-rabbit-hole","tag-yak-shaving"],"yoast_head":"\n