Do you ever say, ah, I will do it later?
Well, that's called procrastination.
Hey everyone, I'm Oliver and welcome back to the Easy English
Podcast, The Best Place to learn English through new vocabulary,
phrases and practicing your listening skills.
As always, I'm going to talk in slow and clear English about a
very interesting topic today. Today we are going to talk about
a very common human habit that affects so many of us, and that
is procrastination. Procrastination.
This is the act of delaying or putting off a task or a duty,
even when it's important to do it.
So for example, like I will do this work task later, or I will
do the washing up later or some kind of household chore that you
don't want to do. Have you ever thought about
putting off homework, cleaning your room, or maybe sending an
important e-mail until the last minute?
You think I will, I'll do it tomorrow or I've still got time,
right? These are the types of thoughts
that we have. If you've experienced this, you
have definitely experienced procrastination.
It can make us feel stressed and even guilty.
But don't worry, we're going to talk today about it and why we
do it and more importantly, some ways to stop because I think
that we all suffer a little bit from procrastination.
Sometimes even I do with this podcast.
Sometimes I say, ah, I will record later.
I feel a bit tired today. I'll record tomorrow.
But of course, it's not always the best strategy.
So as always, we are going to dive in and look at our key
vocabulary for the episode. If you're new here, this is the
part where I read you 5 key pieces of vocabulary and I give
you the definitions and these are related to the topic.
So then I want you to actively listen for these during the
episode. So during this main episode of
the podcast. OK, so let's have a look at this
vocabulary. So the first word is 1, which we
all have heard already in this episode, and that is
procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate.
And this is, as I said, to delay doing something, especially
something important that you should do.
I often procrastinate when it comes to cleaning my apartment,
for example. That's a good phrase.
And the next is task. Task.
This is a word I will use quite a bit in this podcast.
A task is a piece of work or maybe an assignment or something
that you've been given to do. My main task today is to finish
this report. That could be an example
sentence that you might hear in your job.
And I have a task for you. So if you're new or you've been
listening for a while and you're not following or subscribed to
the podcast, make sure that you do so.
That's the task for today. The next word is overwhelm.
Overwhelm. And this means to feel like
there is too much to do or too many problems for you to handle.
So for example, when I have too many tasks, I sometimes feel a
little bit overwhelmed. Our four word today is
distraction, Distraction, distraction, distraction.
Something that takes your attention away from what you're
doing for. For me, my phone can be a big
distraction when I'm trying to study, so it can take my
attention away from when I'm studying.
Some language, words, some vocabulary, and finally,
motivation, motivation, motivation.
And this is the desire or a reason to do something or want
to do something. And sometimes it can be hard to
find the motivation to learn English.
I totally understand why many people can get that feeling from
time to time. OK, those are our five pieces of
key vocabulary for today's episode.
And I want you to listen out for those words in the episode.
So before we get into our main topic, I want to tell you that
today we are talking about procrastination.
But on the Patreon I have another episode that is focused
on the opposite and that is something called the Flow State.
Now this is a more complicated topic, so I decided to put a
more advanced episode on Patreon available for Patreon
supporters. So if you would like more bonus
advanced episodes every week, as well as the full transcripts and
vocabulary lists for episodes, then check out the Patreon.
The link is in the description below.
OK, So what exactly is procrastination?
It's not necessarily just being lazy, it's a psychological
habit. So a bad habit where you
consciously, you almost choose to delay doing a task.
So I don't think it's being lazy.
I think it's bad habit and bad routine.
And you do this even though you know that there can be negative
consequences for delaying a task.
So negative impacts or effects and that can even be simply
mental. So feeling bad that you haven't
done something yet, it's not a nice feeling.
We love to have that feeling of completing something, of
accomplishing our tasks and it can be so simple, simply
something for school or work or even personal things like going
to the gym or, I don't know, booking your car in to get a
repair. And some common examples of
procrastination that maybe you might have experienced could be
one of the following. So perhaps you've started a
project the night before it's due, so you've waited and waited
until the night before, maybe with homework or a task for
work, and you do it late at night at the last minute.
Perhaps as well you decide to clean your house or do something
else instead of the task that you don't want to do.
This is quite common, a very common method of
procrastination. Maybe you watch ATV show or use
TikTok, Instagram, YouTube instead of what you're meant to
be doing. These are very common ways to
procrastinate. And finally, checking social
media every 5 minutes instead of focusing on a task.
And at the beginning, when we decide to not do a task for a
while, we can feel a feeling of relief.
We might feel good, maybe a little bit more relaxed for a
very short time, but then this feeling quickly disappears and
it can become stress and maybe feelings of regret or guilt
later on. So why do we procrastinate?
What are the reasons for procrastination?
And there are many. There are many different
reasons, and it's often more about our feelings than about
laziness. Maybe our feelings about the
task or about what we have to do.
So the first, which is very common, particularly with large
projects or work for school, this can be, you know, the
feeling of the task being too big.
So you feel overwhelmed. It's overwhelming.
It feels too large or too difficult and we don't know
where to start. How do I start this?
Where do I begin? It's so much.
And instead of taking a tiny little piece or just picking
apart, we delay it, we push it back, right?
And the next is a fear of failure.
So the fear of actually doing something badly, right?
So not being able to do it well, which you can see that this is a
silly way to think about it because by not doing the task,
we will automatically feel we will not do it well and we will
give ourselves less time, right? But this fear can stop us from
even beginning. We then have a lack of
motivation. Of course, if you have a boring
task and we don't have much motivation to do it, like
household chores, for example, cleaning your your room or your
house, it's not fun, it's not exciting and therefore we don't
want to do it. We don't feel motivated to do
it. We might also have distractions.
So I mentioned that in today's world, there are so many
distractions on our phones and all around us, advertisements,
everything. There's so many distractions.
And finally, when we feel tired or low energy, it can be very
easy to procrastinate. We want to rest in sorry, pardon
me, we want to rest instead. So with each case of
procrastination, understanding why you do it is the first step.
You know, why do I not want to begin this right now?
And we can call this the procrastination loop.
So a cycle, right? So step one is the task that you
have to do. So what is it you have to do?
Step 2 is the delay right with procrastination.
So you feel some anxiety or or something that tells you that
you don't want to do the task, and then Step 3 is the reward.
You decide to do something else instead, maybe to relax or
distract yourself with a distraction, and you feel
temporary relief or pleasure. This feels better, for example,
right? And then we reach Step 4, which
is the stress or the guilt. So you realize that you're
behind, and maybe you feel stressed or guilty about
delaying the task. And it makes it hard to even
enjoy the distractions, to enjoy relaxing or delaying.
And Step 5 might come at the end.
So when you rush or deliver, maybe per quality for the task,
because you're doing it quickly, you're not giving it the time
and attention that you should have.
Or maybe you just don't do it at all.
And then into step 6, the cycle continues.
You remember how bad you felt, and the next time you might
procrastinate again because you have even more negative emotions
associated or connected to that task.
So it's quite a dangerous cycle and a very easy one to fall
into. But breaking these steps, this
cycle is the key. It is the solution.
And now we're going to look at a few ways that you can do just
that. A couple of tips to stop
procrastinating. But first, I just want to remind
you that my new book is now available.
The link is in the description below.
It's called Phrasal Verbs are Easy and it teaches you English
phrasal verbs, some of the most useful that I've picked and
selected in the book. So you're going to learn 50 of
them and each one is reinforced and taught using a short story
and some exercise questions. So if you want to help improve
your phrasal verb knowledge and learn them using context to help
you remember them, you can check out that book in the description
below. It's an ebook.
And of course, it helps support this podcast as well.
Okay, back to our episode. So the first thing that I want
you to do if you try to break this cycle of procrastination is
of course, to think about why you're procrastinating.
It's good to recognize it. You know, am I scared of not
completing this task? Do I feel unmotivated?
You know, what is the reason? If then, for example, it's a big
task then and you're scared of, you know, how do I start this
task? Maybe that's why I'm
procrastinating. You can try and break the task
into smaller pieces and start one of those first.
The second tip is something called the five minute rule and
you can almost trick yourself by using this.
You can tell yourself, I will just do this task for 5 minutes
and you start something, anything.
And often once you start the task for 5 minutes, you'll
discover that it's not so bad and you'll want to continue
doing it. You'll finish it and do much
more than 5 minutes that you expected at the beginning.
It's a really great trick and strategy.
The next is to use rewards. So don't give yourself those
distractions and pleasures until you finish your tasks.
It sounds simple, but you want to hold them for after.
So after I do this practice or after I do this work task, I
will get myself a coffee or I will eat this chocolate bar or
relax. And then when you get the reward
at the end, it reinforces that good behavior, that good
practice and work ethic. And finally, another why
question. You want to remind yourself why
this task is important. Why are you doing it?
You know, is it for your job and it's it's important?
Is it going to help you improve your English?
Is it just to keep your house tidy and clean?
It's important to remember why we're doing something.
And if you do these little steps or implement some of these
strategies, it will help stop your procrastination or limit
it. Of course, at times we're going
to all procrastinate a little bit.
Yeah, it happens. But with trying our best to
minimize it, we can really reduce it, start to be more
productive and enjoy the work that we're doing.
Most of the battle, most of the problems, the struggle is in our
mind. It's not real.
And once we begin to work, we find that it's actually fine.
So now on to my favorite part of the podcast, and that is our
listener spotlight. So I recently asked a while ago
what's 1 common daily habit that you've successfully changed or
started and I had some very interesting replies.
The first I had a reply or a comment and it was from Amelia I
believe from Italy and she said my main challenge was waking up
early. I used to hit snooze many times,
but I started putting my alarm clock on the other side of the
room, so now I have to get out of bed to turn it off.
So by changing this habit, it's allowed her to get up earlier
every morning. That's an amazing answer,
Amelia. So very, very, very good.
And that's a great strategy for waking up earlier.
And very well written comments so good job.
I have another commenter. They haven't put their name but
they are from Japan and they have said I wanted to read more.
My distraction day-to-day was always my phone.
So I started leaving my phone in another room for 30 minutes
before bed and I decide to read a book instead.
It has helped me to focus. That's a great strategy.
I also think I I like to hide my phone or put it away in the
evening time before bed. It's very important because it
will allow you to unwind, to relax before sleep.
So great comments. Thank you, Amelia, and thank you
our commenter and listener from Japan.
So my next question that you can answer in the comments on this
podcast episode, on the video, or you can e-mail me through the
the link or Instagram, whatever you want is do you
procrastinate? If so, what is an example of
something that you have procrastinated with before?
Simple question. You can comment your answer
below and I will select a couple of answers in a future episode.
So today we have talked all about procrastination and why we
delay tasks. The negative cycle that it
creates this loop. And some powerful strategies to
overcome it. You can apply this to your
English learning, to your work or whatever you want in your
life. So look out for those key
vocabulary pieces day-to-day night after this episode.
So procrastinate, task, overwhelm, distraction and of
course, motivation. Some great pieces of vocabulary.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you're following or
subscribed and that you've rated the podcast 5 stars.
It really helps. You can support the podcast on
Patreon for bonus content and or you can check out my book as
well in the description below. Thank you so much for listening
and I will see you in the next episode of the Easy English
Podcast. Goodbye.