“Непаханое поле” – a [big] amount of undone work.
For example, a person does some finalizing, “polishing” bits of a work (or just lazying about) not realizing that actually the scope is bigger and he should be doing the intensive, more real thing instead.
Imagine someone removing snow from some ground who keeps cleaning up little bits of remaining snow, not knowing that he has missed a chunk of ground with “untilled” snow.
There is a well known expression: Rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Focussing on small irrelevant details when something much larger is going on all around.
It does carry a connotation of impending disaster if the larger event is not addressed, that may not be what you are after.
majoring on the minors
Others spend so much time and energy on nonessential things that they lose the fundamental items of value. Such keep the peelings and throw away the banana or potato or apple; or, to use another figure of speech, they keep the shells and throw the pearls back.
In brief, such persons are majoring on minors. Everyone majors in something. Some interest or project or activity becomes one’s primary concern. It is his major even though it may be minor. (emphasis is mine.)
Confident people do not waste time majoring on the minors or try to win company popularity contests.
Perhaps “can’t see the forest for the trees.” Which means you’re not seeing the bigger picture.
You may use: when up to one’s neck in alligators, it’s easy to forget that the mission is to drain the swamp
business adage The full expression is some variation of: “When you are up to your neck in alligators, it’s easy to forget that the goal was to drain the swamp.” It is easy to be so overcome or preoccupied by various tangential worries, problems, or tasks that one loses sight of the ultimate goal or objective.
[Farlex Dictionary of Idioms via The Free Dictionary]
Usage:
Look at that guy cleaning up negligible amount of snow when there is truck load of snow to be cleared up on the other side. I guess, when up to one’s neck in alligators, it’s easy to forget that the mission is to drain the swamp!
Though not really a idiom, but the following extract (especially the final line in this snippet) from A Little Learning by Alexander Pope seems to apply well.
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky ;
The eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last ;
But those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way ;
The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,
Hill peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise !
So perhaps you could say:
He thought he’d made progress removing snow until he realized, in the words of Alexander Pope, Hill peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise !
Not sure if it’s really an idiom:
have a lot/enough on your plate
Usage:
“Don’t you have enough on your plate?”
Which in my opinion equivalent to russian:
“У тебя же работы непаханое поле?”
In a context that you have much work to do, so don’t try to pick even more – you should deal with what you’re doing now first.
Related
Is there an idiom like the Russian's "Untilled field"? – english.stackexchange.com #JHedzWorlD
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