Yak Shaving
The process of performing a series of tasks (often nested inside completing other tasks, like side quests) to accomplish a goal, each of which seems necessary in context but becomes less and less linked to the original goal.
Origin
Around 1993, MIT AI Lab researcher Carlin Vieri coined the term after watching "Yak Shaving Day," a bizarre 1991 segment from The Ren & Stimpy Show depicting a fictional holiday involving a shaven yak. Vieri applied the phrase when he found himself in an absurd chain of subtasks while trying to overnight a document. The term spread through hacker culture at MIT before Seth Godin popularized it for a wider audience through his blog in the mid-2000s.
Everyday Use
Household chores are perfect examples of Yak Shaving activities — and far from being a distraction, they can be seen as side quests within side quests that we have to work ourselves out of us as putter through our list. Yes, there's a limit when we are 10 nested layers deep into a task when we are somehow organizing our pen collection because we are trying to get the dishes done, but what's the harm?