With the grief of the minister's children in mind, and the woman's death, I could not bring myself to make the gesture of leaving those last unnecessary tasks unfinished.

But then we would have to find separate words for every action or event denoted by different lexical verbs: a mammoth and unnecessary task.

She busied herself with unnecessary tasks downstairs, baked a few dozen cookies, and then undressed and got herself ready for bed.

She seemed to abet the embroidering of unnecessary tasks which were better bought than performed.

"You all can play that game if you wish, but I do not believe that Thread is going to fall next spring, so why should I bother my people with unnecessary tasks."

Help people to prioritise work, cutting out unnecessary tasks and providing time-management training if necessary.

Melissa concentrated for a moment on the unnecessary task of stirring her unsweetened black coffee.

I performed a series of unnecessary little tasks to postpone answering Jump's summons.

He's also given the entirely unnecessary task of facing the audience as he urinates on Emma's schoolwork.

Insurance actuaries across Europe are now performing an unexpected - and totally unnecessary - task on top of their normal job of calculating premiums.