boil the ocean

boil the ocean

To engage in futile tasks. Oh, Ted's still boiling the ocean trying to find and reassemble that document from the shredded bin.
See also: boil, ocean
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

boil the ocean

tv. to waste one’s time attempting to do the impossible. (see also plowing water.) You’re wasting my time. You might as well be boiling the ocean.
See also: boil, ocean
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • ocean
  • Davy
  • Davy Jones's locker
  • an ocean of (something)
  • an ocean of something
  • cry an ocean
  • from sea to shining sea
  • across the pond
  • big drink
  • on the high seas
References in periodicals archive
Some of his most successful videos include "How to Make LEGO Gummy Candy!", "What Happens When You Boil The Ocean?" and "How To Make Magic Mud - From a Potato!" Tributes to Thompson started pouring in from fans and fellow YouTubers after his death was announced, including Logan Paul, who said he was "heartbroken."
'Not to boil the ocean', in other words: small, agile, consecutive pilot projects alone are not enough to develop an AI strategy.
For starters, don't try to boil the ocean. In other words, don't try to roll out a gigantic data environment and hope members of the enterprise will start figuring out how to use it.
"Fleet managers sometimes want to boil the ocean and do everything at once," says Mark Stanton, vice president and general manager of industrial truck management systems for ID Systems.
Don't try to boil the ocean or eat the whole elephant or whatever other kind of metaphor you want to attach to the endeavor.
“Financial wellness is really, really broad, and it will be impossible to effectively boil the ocean.”
As soon as anyone brings up the notion of alien life forms, we all collectively turn into an eight-year-old boy on Christmas Eve, hopping from foot to foot because it might mean getting our hands on a cool new toy that can explode heads or boil the ocean. This aspiration is reinforced endlessly in popular culture -- in recent years, both District 9 and Spider-Man Homecoming have hinged on this very wish -- and it's starting to feel tired.
Don't try to "boil the ocean": Identify the top 20% of self-service activities that typically address 80% of customer issues/inquiries and make them part of your IVA.
Don't boil the ocean. Sometimes I get too deep into details, which leads me to getting nothing done.
"You cannot boil the ocean," comments Dana Cutter, director of marketing communications for Aetna Accountable Care.
"We need to boil the ocean, find the genetic populations, and get them on the trials."
boil the ocean: An attempt at something that is way too ambitious.
While conceding that a business need not "boil the ocean" and engage in enormously costly and full-scale investigations every time it learns of any wrongdoing, Yates nevertheless made clear that the expectation is that a business discovering wrongdoing cannot simply plead ignorance or adopt an ostrich-like position towards individual wrongdoing.
I tried to boil the ocean. But that can't be done, As a result, I poorly executed a lot of I projects early in my career.