yak shaving
/jæk ˈʃeɪvɪŋ/
CommonGetting pulled into a chain of prerequisite tasks so far from the original goal you forget what you started doing.
Each individual step feels necessary and logical. The problem is the chain. It's not procrastination. You're genuinely working, just on increasingly remote sub-problems.
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | started trying to fix a CSS bug, ended up rewriting the whole build system. yak shaving at its finest. | A small fix turned into a massive unplanned refactor. | x, 2024 |
| 02 | just wanted to add one feature but spent the whole day in dependency hell. pure yak shaving. | The feature itself was never touched because prerequisite work consumed the day. | reddit, 2023 |
| 03 | me: gonna deploy this fix. also me three hours later: setting up a new CI pipeline from scratch. the yak needed shaving i guess. | A simple deployment turned into a major infrastructure task. | x, 2023 |
| 04 | asked my teammate what they were working on. the answer took four nested 'so that I can' sentences to explain. full yak shave. | The current task is so far removed from the original goal it's hard to explain. | reddit, 2024 |
Use it when
- You started one task and are now doing something completely unrelated as a 'prerequisite'.
- The chain of subtasks has become longer than the original task.
- You can't explain what you're working on without a long chain of 'but first I need to...'.
- Hours have passed and the original task hasn't been touched.
Do not use it when
- You are intentionally doing prep work that's part of the plan.
- You mean debating trivial things in a group setting.Use “bikeshedding” instead.
Variations and related forms
Yak shaving vs bikeshedding
yak shaving
Yak shaving is getting pulled into a chain of prerequisite tasks that spiral away from the goal.
bikeshedding
Bikeshedding is a group spending too much time on trivial decisions while ignoring important ones.
Origin and context
Coined by Carlin Vieri at MIT in the 1990s and popularized by Seth Godin in a 2005 blog post. The original reference was to a Ren and Stimpy episode. The phrase spread through programmer culture to describe the spiral of prerequisite tasks.
- First seen
- 1990s
- Confidence
- medium
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/yak-shaving