In software, when something is painful, the way to reduce the pain is to do it more frequently, not less.

Or

If it hurts, do it more frequently, and bring the pain forward

I am quoting the excellent Continuous Delivery (Humble & Farley). The authors describe this as a heuristic; Don Reinertsen might describe this as seeking to alter the economics of delivery by forcing transaction costs down. Either way, it is very good advice. To paraphrase another quote, to defer pain only makes it worse.