HAVE you indulged in any blue sky thinking lately? Have you closed the loop or thought outside the box? Are you getting annoyed already?

You are not alone. A survey has found that business jargon is driving people up the office wall.

Mobile business current account provider Anna (Absolutely No-Nonsense Admin) touched base with 2000 workers in order to discover which business jargon they think should be dropped going forward.

The findings show the most hated phrase is “touch base”, followed by “going forward” and “blue sky thinking”.

Having listened to those surveyed feeding back, Anna has now begun a campaign against such “cringe-worthy business speak”.

But where would managers be if they had to speak plain English? It’s obvious that much of the jargon that has emerged over the years has come about to provide a smokescreen for bosses who don’t quite know what they’re doing or to make them sound more important than they really are. If your manager happens to be “closing the loop”, they are merely making a decision. If it’s a bad one, going forward it can be fixed by a spot of brainstorming or blue sky thinking out of the box. It’s a win-win situation.

Perhaps all this jargon and verbosity is why business meetings last so long.

Another recent survey has found we are suffering the effects of a meetings epidemic, with the average worker now spending 213 hours a year – or 26 working days – stuck in a conference room.

The survey of more than 1000 UK workers, conducted by design company MOO, suggests that more than 20 million people attend at least one meeting a day. The average amount of time spent in meetings is 4.1 hours a week The study found that nearly one million people spend more than half their working week in meetings. However, the research also found that at least a third of that time is wasted, with an average of 20 minutes of every 60-minute meeting pointless.

The biggest time-waster? Waiting for colleagues to arrive.

Next on the list of delays was setting up technology. Difficulty finding the meeting room in the first place was another regular problem, as was choosing where to sit. Such high-powered office dynamics. You’ve got to wonder how the wheels of business ever move.

It gets better. You’ve found the meeting room, got the tech working, chosen a seat, waited for tardy colleagues … then you find yourself daydreaming about what the soup is in the canteen this lunchtime.

The survey found that one in 10 says they spend up to a third of meetings failing to concentrate and checking their phone. A quarter admit to having fallen asleep at least once.

Drilling down into the research data, Brendan Stephens, global creative director of MOO, offered this by way of joined-up thinking: he believes that Britain’s meetings culture is wasting time and money.

Well that’s a no-brainer.

Let’s run that idea up the flagpole and see if it flies, shall we?