pointless exercise
Spinning your wheels
A pointless exercise is an activity that accomplishes nothing useful—effort spent without meaningful result or purpose.
The phrase often carries frustration or criticism: Filling out these forms is a pointless exercise when no one reads them.
It implies wasted time, though sometimes the "pointlessness" is debatable: one person's pointless exercise is another's valuable practice.
- futileIncapable of producing results
- wasteUnwanted discarded material
- fruitlessProducing no useful outcome
- meaninglessLacking significance or purpose
- uselessWithout practical value
beating dead horse · busywork · treadmill · spinning wheels · spinning your wheels · wheel spinning · running in circles · going nowhere fast · dead end · wild goose chase · tilting at windmills · rearranging deck chairs · going through motions · hollow · empty · vain · tedious · senseless
- futilityfutile, futility, in vain, pointlessness, vain
point, pointless, pointlessly, points, pointed, pointedly, pointer, pointers, pointing