Peeling potatoes is actually calming to me. But, shredding several pounds of potatoes to make a reasonable amount of tater tots or hash browns is horrible, even though it's a great upper-body workout. Watch out for shredded fingers when you start to get tired!
For garlic, peeling is by far the worst part. I do chop garlic cloves by hand, rather than use a garlic press, depending on how much I need. For large quantities of garlic, I'll often buy pre-peeled, vacuum-sealed garlic.
The cost is surprisingly very close to that of the bulbs at Kroger, and maybe even cheaper if you use it before they get mushy:
$1.00 = 2 bulbs of garlic = about 1.5 ounces of unpeeled garlic, or maybe 1 ounce of garlic.
$2.49 = 6 ounces of peeled garlic