warm-up work

Refers to comparatively short intervals of labor that you perform in one of two situations:
(1) Where you are dreading an impending "big job" that involves strenuous and/or disgusting labor, and so you perform a less-disagreeable task beforehand to sort of "break yourself in gently" so that the upcoming drudgery won't be such a traumatic shock to your mind and body.
(2) Where a necessary task is tiring, discouraging, boring, aggravating, etc., and so you would much rather play video games or surf the Web, instead of performing said menial torture. So what you do is to "compromise" --- you do indeed go ahead and push the "power" button on your computer or PlayStation, but then you go off and perform some of the disagreeable task while your entertainment-equipment is booting up; you would still have to wait those few minutes before beginning your fun with the equipment, anyway, and so it doesn't feel quite so "yucky" to hammer away at the exhausting ordeal for those same few minutes; it also makes you feel more productive during that period than just numbly twiddling your thumbs while waiting for your equipment to be ready to use.

As a physically/mentally-infirm bachelor living alone, I find that warm-up work is a real life-saver for many necessary tasks that I might otherwise find excessively discouraging or exhausting, such as hanging out clothes on the line or cleaning up around the yard. I also often Swiss-cheese the job --- working a little of the chore, then taking a break to play on the computer for a few, then going back to tackle the cranky task for a little longer, then checking out a few more humorous/cute Facebook posts, and so on.