I don't feel I had the same take away from the 2 definitions as the author.
> Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing one to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows one to solve a larger problem.
and
> A less useful activity done consciously or subconsciously to procrastinate about a larger but more useful task.
The author seemed to take this to mean yak shaving are the annoying parts of the project that still need to get done, like fixing a bug. Those are useful activities that are central to the project in my book. A large project is a collection of these smaller actions.
When I read these two definitions, I read them as being a completely separate activity from the project. Those times you've been beating your head against the wall for 2 hours trying to solve a problem and nothing works... so you go for a walk, play some ping pong, or work on some easy tasks related to some pet project that you enjoy. When coming back to the problem you were stuck on, the problem is almost instantly seen and fixed. I've had this happen countless times, to the point where I need do it as an intentional action. This was also part of the plot of nearly every House episode, and often the reason given for why Einstein worked at the patent office.
I think my framing fits both definitions provided for yak shaving, and don't see the definitions as all that different when looked at in this context.
I don't feel I had the same take away from the 2 definitions as the author.
> Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing one to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows one to solve a larger problem.
and
> A less useful activity done consciously or subconsciously to procrastinate about a larger but more useful task.
The author seemed to take this to mean yak shaving are the annoying parts of the project that still need to get done, like fixing a bug. Those are useful activities that are central to the project in my book. A large project is a collection of these smaller actions.
When I read these two definitions, I read them as being a completely separate activity from the project. Those times you've been beating your head against the wall for 2 hours trying to solve a problem and nothing works... so you go for a walk, play some ping pong, or work on some easy tasks related to some pet project that you enjoy. When coming back to the problem you were stuck on, the problem is almost instantly seen and fixed. I've had this happen countless times, to the point where I need do it as an intentional action. This was also part of the plot of nearly every House episode, and often the reason given for why Einstein worked at the patent office.
I think my framing fits both definitions provided for yak shaving, and don't see the definitions as all that different when looked at in this context.