Yak shaves. They’re great fun. Like most things, yak shaving is more fun when you have some rules to guide you away from the un-fun parts:
- always have a goal, know when you’re done
- timebox it
- work on a branch so you can switch to real work if you need to
- make smaller commits than usual so you can unwind if you should go awry
- don’t worry about writing tests if you don’t know what you’re doing
- if you aren’t sure where you are going, write a test harness and iterate on that
- have a pair or buddy to talk through what you’re trying to do and how to get there
- bail out if you are starting to burn out, face diminishing returns, or think of a better way to shave they yak
