Shadowing Practice: How I Consistently Study with a Full Time Job: My Scheduling Formula - Learn English Speaking with Video

This was me in 2019.

But much more interestingly, this was my calendar in 2019.

At the time, I was working five part -time jobs and studying two and a half degrees at once.

And actually, it was quite a blissful time before I even knew that this productivity video sphere even existed.

So all of the tips and techniques

that I was using to manage my time just were coming through myself and through a lot actually of trial and error.

And now, a few years later, I feel much more read on the topic and very interestingly I found

that a lot of the tips and formulas

that I had developed to manage my own schedule were very similar to those

that the literature had found and that experts have found.

So today I thought it would be quite interesting to walk you through exactly how I plan

and schedule my calendar from the bottom up for a very very busy week and showing you all of the rules, the schedules, the formulas and the systems

that I create to kind of make the ideal week happen for me in a way.

These are both evidence -based tips and tips just based on my experience but hopefully they will be helpful to you.

Before we get started, little side note, the ideal calendar in my opinion is having no calendar at all

but if you are forced to have one through your life circumstances like me, hopefully some of the tips in this video might help.

But having said that, don't be too rigid with these structures.

I fully believe that the less structures there are the better.

But okay, let's get started.

So the first thing I will do

when building an effective calendar is be aware of my three -part split for the day.

This is based on the fact that throughout the day two things are guaranteed to be happening.

Number one is that my energy levels will fall throughout the day

and the second thing is that the power of temptation will increase throughout the day

and what I mean by the power of temptation is what

Dan Ariely described as the ability to continuously say no to things diminishes throughout the day as we are doing this.

The way that I like to visualize this is having this huge pot of ability to resist temptation

and every morning I start out with a fresh pot and what this means is I might go to make breakfast, I'm going to make something healthy even though I might want a donut

but I'll say no I'm not going to do this, I'm going to have a good healthy day.

But as I continuously do this throughout the day, the ability to resist things that I actually want to do becomes less

and less and less and this pot becomes smaller and smaller and smaller.

And what happens by the end of the night, for example, you might recognize this if you've been restricting food throughout the day, you'll have a midnight snack by completely raiding the fridge.

So I keep in mind that I'm going to have less energy throughout the day

and things are going to get more and more tempting throughout the day

so it's going to be much harder for me to resist

things as the day progresses keeping these two things in mind

every single day of my week from a macro standpoint gets divided into three main parts

so the first part of every single day is reserved for activities

that are high energy and high temptation these are the tasks

that require a lot of brain power or physical power

and also that i can be very easily tempted to do something else

so tempted to leave things that i'm not enjoying

that much these might be studying for an exam this might be doing a task for work which is not particularly fun.

This might be a huge project that I've just been procrastinating on for

so long because it's not the ideal way that I want to spend my time.

So all of the things

which I don't particularly love to do go into this first part of my day

because this is the part where I am the strictest and the part where I have the most energy.

The second part of the day is reserved activities

which are high energy because I'm still buzzing at this point and also activities that require a little less resistance to do.

So this might be going to the gym for example

because I actually enjoy doing this this might be hanging out with friends

because I really enjoy doing this or fun activities or fun projects

or the fun parts of studying that I would like to engage in

so these go into the second part of my day

and the last part of my day is where I have the lowest energy

and the highest ability to be tempted by other tasks

so this is where procrastination is very easy

so keeping this in mind I'm not going to leave like this huge work project

which I really don't want to do for the last thing at night

because it's almost guaranteed I'm just going to get in bed and think, well, I'll do it tomorrow.

So there's no point in scheduling anything major or not fun for this part of the day.

This is for my personal creative tasks.

This is for things that I would actually like to spend my time on that don't particularly require huge amounts of energy.

These will go into the last part of my day.

So in this way, I keep this rule in mind

and I have like this invisible three -part division of my calendar every time that I'm booking in tasks.

So if I have to do something or if I have to work for something in the week, the first question I will ask myself is how likely am I to not want to do this task

and how much energy will this take?

So depending on these three factors it will either go into any part of my day.

The second rule is the mission impossible rule

and this was a new one for me

because I'm definitely the sort of person who

if I put something on my to -do list I want to and I physically need to get it done.

I will not go to sleep until I've ticked everything off and this used to be my behavior in the past.

However I've realized that this is not only a bit problematic, I'm sure you can see why, but also it's not ideal even for the tasks

that i am doing this very interesting study in 1927 done

by z zegnark zignark basically said our brains tend to stay occupied with a task until this task is completed

and what this means is if you start something

but you haven't finished it there will be a part of your brain that's continuously focusing on

that task and you can use this to your advantage

if there is a huge project like for example a essay

that i want to write or if you want to write a book

or if you want to do something really really big that takes a lot of time

it's really good to put a time in your calendar just to remind yourself that this project exists.

So for example, even though I don't write my newsletter strictly every single week, I do have a reminder in my calendar every week for it.

Because what that does is throughout the week, as I look at my calendar and I see the reminder of, oh, I need to write a newsletter, it will open up this task in my brain.

And even though I'm not consciously thinking about it, randomly throughout the day as I'm working or as I'm in the shower, it might just pop into my mind again and I'll go, oh, what should I do for my newsletter?

And equally, if there's something huge that, for example, I want to start a course, I want to do something big that I don't have a strict deadline for, but it's a huge task,

I'm going to just put this random deadlines in my calendar just to remind myself

that the task exists and to open this in my mind.

Getting comfortable with not accomplishing tasks and using a calendar more as an inspiration

and a guide as to what I want to spend my life with tends to be really, really helpful.

And I found that going from not putting things in my calendar, if I'm afraid that I won't complete them because it will really bother me, to actually putting them in my calendar, knowing that this is a mission impossible,

that I'm not actually going to do this much more helpful

because I end up doing those things much more if I put them in my calendar anyways.

The mission impossible is also something that I keep in mind when I'm doing a task anyway.

In a study done by Fishnark it found that

if you are continuously doing things that you don't enjoy

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or forcing yourself to do work

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when you're finding it unenjoyable it can lead in the long term to procrastination or failure on this tasks.

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So I keep this in mind a lot once something is too painful or not fun or not enjoyable I just stop.

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I used to be very good

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and very proud of myself for overriding my stop stop stop in my mind now I'm like no

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if I'm not enjoying this we're done we're taking a break we're moving on I don't care

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that I've blotted out in my calendar

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if it's not good enough then I'm going to find time

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for it at a productive time later in the day

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or the week but not overriding the signals of your brain going

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that I must do this because I thought I needed to is I found in the long term much more healthier.

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Next rule is the PR rule and I call it this

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because both Parkinson and Roosevelt come to the same conclusion

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and it basically just states that work expands to fill the time that you allocate to it.

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So it's quite a well -known rule but I use it in a bit of a different way.

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So what this basically means is if I say

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that I'm going to write my essay in three weeks

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or I'm going to write my essay in five months or I'm going to write my essay in three days, very often the quality of the work is not going to be too different in these three different forms.

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So if you give yourself a very very strict

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and ridiculous deadline sometimes you will end up doing a lot more than you expected.

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So this is one way around it.

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If you have a huge task, sometimes

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if I have to do something like create a sales page

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I will give myself two hours to do it in my calendar

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and I'm going to put myself in the mindset of I'm forced to do this now in this time only

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and then I will get

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so much more done rather than booking out a 10 hour shift for one day

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and going like oh I'm just going to do this slowly

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and get lunch and then do this again which I mean is fine

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but I get a lot less done even in 10 hours

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than I get with a very intentional two hour stint

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and then just having fun for the rest of the time so this tends to work very well for me.

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Another thing that I do around the PR role is that I will not book work in my calendar.

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I will only book the finished product in my calendar.

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So what I mean, for example, is that if I have to film this video, there's a lot of steps that go into it.

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So I have to research, I have to think of title, I need to think of thumbnail, I need to think and edit the hook, I need to actually script the whole thing, I need to do the research on the studies, I need to put it together,

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I need to actually sit down and film it, I need to export it, edit it, add the extra layers of editing, which takes so long, and then export it, and then make it ready, and then put the descriptions and all that stuff

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if I had to book all of these different events in my calendar it's almost guaranteed

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that I'm just not going to do some of them so

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if I just have this slot in my calendar for edit this video I might come to

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that time and be like oh I can do this later it doesn't matter

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so I put none of this in my calendar the only thing I will put is let's say

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that the video is due to be published on Tuesday on

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Tuesday I'll put a day event of saying publish the video on calendar scheduling

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and what this does is that it gives me full freedom

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but also a lot of forced deadline to get this thing done by then.

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So I'm telling myself, I don't care when you do this.

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I don't care when you find the time, like just do it whenever, however fast or slowly you want to do it.

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I just know that it needs to be done by this time.

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And that puts me under a lot more kind of positive pressure to do it

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and gives me a lot more freedom rather than allocating all of these slots in the calendar, which just fill up and clog up the whole thing.

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And also because they're such small insignificant tasks, I can very easily go, oh, I can do this edit when I do the export, or I can do this thing when I do that thing later and end up doing nothing.

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So giving yourself full freedom with very strict finish only deadlines I think is a great way to get more things done.

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The next rule is a morning glory rule and I really really like this because this is from Jigson Mihaly.

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I'm so sorry I've tried this so many times before

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but basically what he did was that he stated that people

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that were very creative and very effective in their lives always started their day with something

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that they were looking forward to even something tiny.

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It can be like buying your favorite coffee every morning

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or it can be making yourself your favorite breakfast

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or calling a loved one

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or just having five minutes to yourself outside in the sun drinking your tea in the morning

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so it can be anything really really small but having something

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that doesn't necessarily need to go in your calendar

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but can go in your mind for what you want to

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do the next morning will make you enjoy your day a lot more

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and he says

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if you get into the habits of this your day will eventually be filled by things

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that you are only looking forward to

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so I take this rule very much to heart every morning I plan something

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that I will enjoy so that's usually a slow breakfast by myself for me but whatever it is, I know that there is going to be planning around this time, this sacred time in the morning.

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That might even be 15 minutes or five minutes, but there is this time, so anything that I will start to schedule in will be after this morning time for myself.

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Next is the fun factor, and this is my favourite part of the calendar.

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It's something that I've only started doing very recently.

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I think Ali mentions the fun factor, and I'm not sure what he means by it, but I thought it was very appropriate to describe this.

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There's this quote by Daniel Priestley that says that good nature is the result of ease and security, not a life of arduous struggle.

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So some struggle cannot be avoided but the struggles

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that we can avoid and the self -imposed kind of work

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that we need to do might actually be affecting us negatively in the long term

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so I've made it a rule to force myself to do activities

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that are fun either by myself or with other people every single week and I'm very very aware of this.

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I can be the sort of person who can forget to socialize

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or can forget to interact with people quite easily sometimes especially

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when I get very very kind of caught up in work

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or I might just paint for days in a row and completely forget to interact with even my flatmate.

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So I have to force myself to do this.

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So in my calendar I will book, for example, I'm going to go to a gallery by myself

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or I'm going to have dinner with friends

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or I'm going to go to the movie by myself

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or the movies with someone else or I'm going to have a nice time with someone.

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Those will be physically blocked into my calendar and as I have an overview of my calendar every week I will go, okay, there's a healthy balance here of social activity.

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It will usually have a different colour to the rest of the things

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that I am booking in

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but it tends to be my favorite part every time I

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look at my calendar it looks happy it looks excited

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and also it kind of means

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that it's not just work in there I don't tend to

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hate it it's not like this oh this terrible thing

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that dictates my life

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and just schedules all my work things it's kind of my life on a screen in a positive way

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because I can organize it and put in whatever I want

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so do not forget the fun factor even

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if it's just taking time every evening for yourself

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but I quite am a huge fan of spending time with other people

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so hosting a kind of board games night at your house or someone else's house a dinner, a dinner by yourself outside, anything can be done.

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So I would really recommend not forgetting the fun factor in your calendar scheduling.

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Lastly, we go into strategic over planning and Atul Gawande said that not only are we easily distracted by mundane thoughts,

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but we also routinely forget small but important things when we don't externalise them.

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So it's quite important to take all our things

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that we want to do and the things that we are planning to do and kind of write them down, either as a to -do list somewhere.

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I like just pulling up my calendar and finding a slot somewhere to think about something or to do something, a very easy way to organize my life.

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I no longer keep to -do lists actually, I just put everything in my calendar when I want it to be done

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or even if it's like four weeks down the line, get back in touch with this person, even if it doesn't happen, when it comes up four weeks later I can go oh

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like in a week would be a good time to meet this person.

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So it's quite good to have these slots in there

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and use your calendar to kind of accompany you in life rather than just these strictly booked things.

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And don't be afraid to overbook.

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It kind of relieves your brain of having to memorize so many things and keep so many things stored.

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And also, it just helps you kind of have things in place.

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And once they're there, it's actually that much more likely to do them.

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If you're also a fan of optimizing things for your brain or better understanding it at all, a brilliant documentary that I would recommend is The Curious Brain on CuriosityStream,

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which I'm very kindly sponsoring this video this is a very cool documentary series

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that kind of goes into different aspects of how our brain works how it organizes information

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and thought how it interacts in society

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and it's been really really informative even as someone who spends a lot of time reading

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and thinking about my mind there's been so much that i've learned

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and restructured through this documentary so i would really recommend it as a wonderful watch

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if you want to check out who esti stream you also get access to nebula

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which is a streaming platform where a lot of educational creators put our videos together

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so you get an ad -free experience of all of these videos

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and much more nebula specials which are very informative educational

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and interesting the yodi subscription for both of these together is literally the price of a takeaway

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and it will be linked in my description you will have a discount to get access to those

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if you want to join me on nebula but otherwise thank you

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so much if you made it

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so far i hope you have a wonderful rest of your day be kind to yourself

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and others and do everything you think thanks bye

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 236 sentences and 3602 words to shadow. The speech runs for 14:15. The speaker talks fast, about 253 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
calendar noun	/ˈkæl.ən.də/	Any system by which time is divided into days, weeks, months, and years.
edit verb	/ˈɛdɪt/	To change a text, or a document.
deadline noun	/ˈdɛdˌlaɪn/	A time limit in the form of a date on or before which something must be completed.
ideal adjective	/aɪˈdi(ə)l/	Pertaining to ideas, or to a given idea.
essay noun	/ˈɛs.eɪ/	A written composition of moderate length, exploring a particular issue or subject.
strict adjective	/stɹɪkt/	Strained; drawn close; tight.
slot noun	/slɑt/	A narrow depression, perforation, or aperture; especially, one for the reception of a piece fitting or sliding into it.
continuously adverb	/kənˈtɪnjuəsli/	Without pause.
temptation noun	/ˌtɛmpˈteɪʃən/	The act of tempting.
guarantee noun	/ˌɡæɹ.ənˈtiː/	Anything that assures a certain outcome.
helpful adjective	/ˈhɛlp.fl̩/	Furnishing help; giving aid; useful.
documentary noun	/ˌdɒk.jʊˈmɛn.tɹi/	A film, TV program, publication etc. which presents a social, political, scientific or historical subject in a factual or informative manner.
export noun	/ˈɛks.pɔɹt/	Something that is exported.
resist verb	/ɹɪˈzɪst/	To attempt to counter the actions or effects of.
interact verb	/ɪn.təˈɹækt/	To engage in communication and other shared activities (with someone).

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
look forward to verb		To anticipate, expect, or wait for, especially with a feeling of approval or pleasure; to be excited or eager to.
check out verb		To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
come through verb		To come into a room or other space through a door or passageway.
come up verb		To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly.
fill up verb		To make (something) completely full.
open up verb		To open.
pull up verb	/ˌpʊl ˈʌp/	To lift upwards or vertically.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	you've been restricting · I've just been procrastinating
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if I'm afraid that I won't complete
“Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true	used to be
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are forced · is based · is reserved

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 76 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: bother /ˈbɑðɚ/, thumbnail /ˈθʌm.neɪl/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: temptation /ˌtɛmpˈteɪʃən/, inspiration /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, conclusion /kənˈkluːʒən/, examination /ɪɡˌzæm.ɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, publish /ˈpʌblɪʃ/
Long words — get the stress right: continuously /kənˈtɪnjuəsli/, documentary /ˌdɒk.jʊˈmɛn.tɹi/, informative /ɪnˈfɔːmətɪv/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, ridiculous /ɹɪˈdɪk.jə.ləs/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like calendar, edit, deadline.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?