Is there a word for excessive time wasted preparing for an activity? [closed]

Analysis paralysis is closely related.

From Wikipedia:

Analysis paralysis or paralysis by analysis is the state of over-analyzing (or over-thinking) a situation so that a decision or action is never taken, in effect paralyzing the outcome.

Also called perfectionist paralysis, in some situations.

Yak Shaving - The Jargon File, and at Wiktionary, which mentions the Ren and Stimpy show the term comes from.

Any seemingly pointless activity which is actually necessary to solve a problem which solves a problem which, several levels of recursion later, solves the real problem you're working on.

While the definition given there specifically talks about "actually necessary" and "solves the real problem", I've increasingly heard it in the context of seemingly necessary (but actually unnecessary) activities, and in the context of a problem you give up on.

It's a fairly common term among software developers. For example, at the daily standup:

I started looking at the {account frobnication} problem, but spent the whole day shaving yaks instead.

Boondoggle - Oxford English Dictionary

NOUN

An unnecessary, wasteful, or fraudulent project

"he characterized the defense program as an unworkable boondoggle"

VERB

Spend money or time on unnecessary, wasteful, or fraudulent projects:

"the only guarantees are higher taxes and bureaucratic boondoggling"

Your search for increased productivity was mere boondoggling :-)

Futile - Collins Dictionary

Having no effective result; unsuccessful

If you say that something was futile, you mean there was no point in doing it.

All for nothing.

Informally, you can also say, Something is all for nothing.

Describes work that you did, which didn't have an effect.