go around/round in circles
if you go round in circles when you are discussing something or trying to achieve something, you do not make any progress because you keep going back to the same subjects or the same problems. I need some more data to work on, otherwise I'm just going round in circles. We can't go round in circles all day - someone will have to make a decision.
go around/round in circles
also run around/round in circles to use a lot of time and effort trying to do something, without making any progress We spent the whole day running around in circles looking for a document which everyone thought was lost but which wasn't.