Boil The Ocean

Filed Under » ,
Dictionary Says

Definition of 'Boil The Ocean'

To undertake an impossible task or project or to make a task or project unnecessarily difficult. Boiling the ocean generally means to go overboard.
Investopedia Says

Investopedia explains 'Boil The Ocean'

For example, a manager might be accused of trying to boil the ocean if he directed his employees to prepare a presentation for a business client based in Houston, Texas, and he insisted that the employees prepare versions of the presentation in Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese and Italian, just in case someone at the presentation spoke a different language when most likely they would all speak English.

Another example of trying to boil the ocean might be a six-month-old startup company trying to get venture capital funding and go public by the end of the year. Such a goal might seem ambitious to the company's founder, but in reality, setting such an unrealistic goal is likely to lead to frustration and disappointment for everyone involved.

Articles Of Interest

  1. Top 4 Most Competitive Financial Careers

    If your goals include a big paycheck and working for a Wall Street firm, then you need to learn how to meet employers' expectations.
  2. Losing To Win

    Adopting realistic expectations is essential to staying in the trading game.
  3. Manage Your Clients' Expectations

    You can't control how they react to the market, but you can help them understand the reality of the situation.
  4. What Is Your Risk Tolerance?

    Forget the cliches and uncover how much volatility you can really stand.
  5. Top 9 Solutions To An Unexpected Tax Bill

    Finding out you owe when you expected a refund is a nasty shock. Find out how to cope.
  6. What To Expect When Applying For Life Insurance

    Before jumping into a policy, check out these tips on how to score the best plan for you.
  7. Plan To Retire Rich

    Don't just hope for the best - develop a course of action to achieve your goals.
  8. Weighted Average Cost Of Capital (WACC)

    Weighted average cost of capital may be hard to calculate, but it's a solid way to measure investment quality
  9. What is a monopoly?

    Monopoly is a fun family game, but in real life, a monopoly can be dangerous to a country's economy. A monopoly occurs when an industry or sector has only one producer of goods or retailer for ...
  10. Capital Expenditures (CAPEX)

    Learn more about what it costs to produce goods.
comments powered by Disqus
Marketplace
Hot Definitions
  1. Racketeering

    Racketeering refers to criminal activity that is performed to benefit an organization such as a crime syndicate. Examples of racketeering activity include...
  2. Lawful Money

    Any form of currency issued by the United States Treasury and not the Federal Reserve System, including gold and silver coins, Treasury notes, and Treasury bonds. Lawful money stands in contrast to fiat money, to which the government assigns value although it has no intrinsic value of its own and is not backed by reserves.
  3. Fast Market Rule

    A rule in the United Kingdom that permits market makers to trade outside quoted ranges, when an exchange determines that market movements are so sharp that quotes cannot be kept current.
  4. Absorption Rate

    The rate at which available homes are sold in a specific real estate market during a given time period.
  5. Yellow Sheets

    A United States bulletin that provides updated bid and ask prices as well as other information on over-the-counter (OTC) corporate bonds...
  6. Bailment

    The contractual transfer of possession of assets or property for a specific objective.
Trading Center