the.com/sidetrack
The scenic route your focus takes on its way to never arriving.
means To divert someone (or yourself) from the main task or topic onto something less important.
from Literal before it was figurative: a 'side track' was a railway siding, a branch line off the main track where freight cars got shunted out of the way. By the late 1800s, Americans started using 'sidetrack' as a verb for derailing trains onto these spurs — and it didn't take long for the word to jump from railyards to conversations and to-do lists, describing anything, or anyone, shunted off the main line of attention.
- origin
- Literally railroad lingo for a siding track off the main line
- verb shift
- Became 'to divert attention' by the late 1800s
- irony
- Often starts with 'quick, one more thing first'
- modern form
- Now mostly triggered by a phone, not a train