I learned a new term, Shaving the Yak today.
This has come to me as a such a surprise that I'd like to share it.

What does "Yak Shaving" mean❓

It's basically when you end up doing things totally unrelated to what you were trying to accomplish initially.

Here is a great illustration.

Hal was to replace a light bulb 💡 but a series of events led him to fix his car 🚗 😆.

🙋 My Experience

As a new comer to ASP.NET Core, I've been trying to create a simple website displaying Calendar.
➡️ Then I thought that I can use a SPA template to generate the calendar dynamically.
➡️ I wanted to use ES6 syntax so looked at Webpack 4 configuration options.
➡️ Thought it was too complicated so looked for an alternative.
➡️ Found RollUp, which was better for library.
➡️ RollUp tutorials were out of date.
➡️ Create a GitHub issue reporting tutorial was out of date.
➡️ Ended up creating an NPM package for generating calendar dates.

I wanted to learn ASP.NET Core but ended up publishing an NPM package.
I wasn't able to accomplish what I set out to do initially.

What can you do about it❓

Create a plan and stick to it and refer to the plan constantly.
Just knowing about this concept will help you stay alert of what you are currently doing.

Now the question is, have you guys been shaving the yak lately?
If so, would you share your experience?

📚 Resources

• Yak Shaving - the term coined by Carlin Vieri.
• Don't Shave That Yak! by Seth Godin
• Hal replacing a light bulb - Malcolm in the Middle, S03E06