"staggering task" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It is used to refer to a task that is challenging, hard, or nearly impossible. For example: "The members of the committee were faced with a staggering task of reconstructing the fallen bridge."
The new government faces a staggering task.
"But solving all the biological problems is a staggering task, too, and it is a task that has been largely assigned, by politics and happenstance, to a handful of underfinanced, understaffed and scientifically overwhelmed boutique biotech companies".
The truly staggering task of dealing with the tremendous amount of plant material in the annual leaf fall belongs to some of the small insects of the soil and the forest floor.
Mr. Chernow also took on the staggering task of sifting the writings of a man who "must have produced the maximum number of words that a human being can scratch out in 49 years".
Healtheon's challenges go well beyond the staggering task of integrating all of these different technologies.
Because of the scope of the problem, fixing it was also a staggering task.
Obviously, the conversion of the South into a democracy in the sense that the mass of people vote and have a hand in their governance poses one of the most staggering tasks for statesmanship in the western world.
Faced with staggering losses and unclear prospects, he focuses on the task at hand.
An army of workers numbering more than 11,000 faces the staggering cleanup task at the Hanford complex in the high desert of southeastern Washington, a project made more daunting with an accelerated timetable that slashed cleanup projections to 35 years from 70.
It was a staggering project.
Readers who sign on will acquire a staggering list of tasks to perform, some of which may be just as tiring and tear-producing as chopping onions.
