Yak Shaving

What you're doing when trying to clear a long dependency chain onto your PushDownGoalStack, and the items you (think you) must do first are harder than the later items.

You need to persist some data, so you need ObjectRelationalMapping, so you need a RelationalDatabase, so you need a server to run it on, so you need to install an appropriate OperatingSystem on that server, so you need to back up the data on it, so you need to run down to the store to buy media, so you need to put gas in the car, so you need to find your wallet, so if you're lucky you'll be able to save that format flag sometime next week.

All too often, whether you should have traversed that particular path is left unconsidered.

[1] http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-archive/gsb2000-02-11.html

[2] http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/03/05/yak_shaving.html

[3] http://alexandrasamuel.com/blog/?p=38

(Coming soon to a Wiki near you - YakShaversAnonymous!)