Yak Shaving

A Term coined by the MIT Media Lab several years ago, Yak shaving is the last step in a series of "countermeasures" you need to perform in order to reach a specific end result.

This is the Irish version of Yak shaving, mainly focused at people in Dublin, Ireland.


"I want to wax the car today."

"Oops, my dog chewed the hose. I'll need to buy a new one at Woodies."

"But Woodies is on the other side of the M50, and getting there without my EZPass sucks because of the tolls."

"But, wait! I could borrow my neighbor's EZPass..."

"But I don't want to borrow Paddy's EZPass until I return the mooshi pillow my son borrowed"

"And we haven't returned it because some of the stuffing fell out and we need to get some yak hair to restuff it."

And the next thing you know, you're at Dublin zoo, shaving a yak, all so you can wax your car.

This yak shaving phenomenon tends to hit some people more than others, but what makes it particularly perverse is when groups of people get involved. One yak shaver is bad enough, but when you try to get a group of people together, you're just as likely to end up giving the yak a manicure.

Which is why solo entrepreneurs and small organizations are so much more likely to get stuff done. They have fewer yaks to shave.

So, what do you do?

Don't go to Woodies for the hose.

The minute you start walking down a path toward a yak shaving party, it's worth making a compromise. Doing it well now is much better than doing it perfectly lat ...