yak shaving
1. (idiomatic) Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing you to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows you to solve a larger problem.
● I was doing a bit of yak shaving this morning, and it looks like it might have paid off.
2. (idiomatic) A less useful activity done to consciously or unconsciously procrastinate about a larger but more useful task.
● I looked at a reference manual for my car just to answer one question, but I spent the whole afternoon with my nose buried in it, just yak shaving, and got no work done on the car itself.