I don't think yak shaving is an appropriate term to describe this. Yak shaving is when you wanted to do something but end up doing something else. Here, the au

I don't think yak shaving is an appropriate term to describe this. Yak shaving is when you wanted to do something but end up doing something else. Here, the author wants to do this thing, so they do it. They're not shaving yaks, they're doing the thing they set out to do.