Shadowing Practice: How to Stop Procrastinating (Forever) - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Hey friends, welcome back to the channel and to Book Club,
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the ongoing series where we distill and discuss highlights and summaries from some of my favourite books.
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And today we're going to be talking about procrastination.
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So I'm going to be sharing five of my top insights from this book, Solving the Procrastination Puzzle, by Professor Tim Pitchell,
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who is a world -leading professor of psychology at Carleton University.
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I think he's retired now actually, but he spent basically his entire life studying the field of procrastination.
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But this is a very small,
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very accessible book that basically summarises his four decades worth of insight in the field of procrastination into to a very short, very readable book.
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So let's start by talking about that procrastination is actually a way bigger problem than we give it credit for.
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Like there are a lot of people that identify as being procrastinators.
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Oh, lol, I'm such a procrastinator.
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Lol, look at me, I like to leave things to the last minute.
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And we think that it's not a big deal.
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We think that, oh, who cares?
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I'm just the sort of person who likes working to deadlines or like, I enjoy working under pressure.
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But in this book, Tim Pitchell cites a bunch of evidence
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that suggests that actually procrastination bleeds into all other areas of our life as well.
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It's not just that you suck at delivering a essay or homework assignment on time for the deadline.
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It's that if you don't solve this procrastination problem, you are literally wasting your entire life away.
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So firstly, there's some pretty strong evidence that people who procrastinate, procrastinators, tend to have worse health than people that don't.
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And this is for two main reasons.
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The first one is that procrastination causes stress.
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And this comes from Professor Fushia Surwa, who I also did an interview with on my podcast Deep Dive.
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You can find that on all podcast platforms.
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But essentially, procrastination tends to cause large amounts of stress.
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We've all felt that stress just before a deadline.
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We've all felt the stress of like, oh, I'm putting this thing off and I feel more stressed the more I put this thing off.
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Stress is generally very bad for us.
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It's bad for our physiology.
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It's bad for our bodies.
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It's bad for our immune system.
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And secondly, people who procrastinate tend to also procrastinate from health promoting behaviors.
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The sort of person who procrastinates from handing in an essay
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on time at university is also probably the sort of person who procrastinates from exercise
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or from healthy eating or from going to the doctor when there's a problem.
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And then reason number two, why procrastination is actually a way bigger problem than we think it is, is the idea of regret.
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So when someone close to us dies, for example, there tend to be two sorts of regrets that we experience.
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There are regrets of omission and regrets of commission.
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Now, regrets of commission are doing the wrong thing and regrets of omission are not doing the thing at all.
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Now, it turns out that when someone close to us dies, the regrets that we tend to experience more of are the regrets of omission,
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the things that we didn't get a chance to do.
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And apparently the regrets of omission
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that relate to our own procrastination are the most troubling in the grieving process
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when it comes to grieving for a loved one.
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If we have procrastinated from doing something
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that we know we would have wanted to do or they would have wanted us to do,
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and we did not do the thing because of procrastination, that feels really, really bad when we lose someone close to us.
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And thirdly, procrastination is a big deal because procrastination literally sabotages our happiness.
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And we've got a bunch of psychologists and philosophers who basically agree
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that happiness and fulfillment is often found in the pursuit of self -directed goals.
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And so when you procrastinate from in particular self -directed goals, then you're literally sabotaging your own happiness.
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So I find those points pretty interesting because it made me realize
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that actually procrastination is a bigger deal than I was thinking it was.
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And now whenever I find myself procrastinating, I remind myself, hang on,
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I do not wanna be a procrastinator here because actually this is not just affecting this situation at hand,
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like filing my tax return or whatever the thing might be.
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This is actually gonna bleed into the other areas of my life as well.
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Oh, and by the way, if you're vibing with this video so far,
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you might like to check out the interview that I've actually done with Tim Pitchell on my podcast, Deep Dive.
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You can find that on its YouTube channel and in all mainstream podcast platforms as well.
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All right, insight number two from the book, and which is sort of the main thesis of the book
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and the main thesis of Tim Pitchell's and Professor Fushia Sorwa's work is that procrastination is fundamentally an emotional issue.
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Because usually the reason why we procrastinate from things is because there's some sort of emotional blocker that's gotten in our way.
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There's some sort of internal resistance to the idea of doing the task.
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And underneath that resistance, there's always some kind of negative emotion.
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In my experience, that negative emotion almost always tends to be fear of some sort.
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But you might say fear and doubt, but I would say doubt is sort of a subset of fear because when you have doubt,
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you have fear that you're not good enough to do the thing.
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And so the way that I think about this is that when I'm procrastinating from something, what is my underlying fear?
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Like, is it a fear of what other people will think of me?
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Is it a fear of not being good enough?
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Is it a fear of failure?
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Is it a fear of success?
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Is it a fear of boredom?
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And so there's some sort of negative emotion which causes me to feel bad about starting the task.
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And therefore I give into feeling good.
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And when we give into feeling good, that is what fuels the cycle of procrastination.
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And so with that in mind, if we understand that generally 95 % of the time there is an emotional blocker to our procrastination,
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it means we can start taking steps to overcome that.
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And the first step is to name the fear.
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Personally, the thing I find most helpful here is just journaling.
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If I'm procrastinating for something for a very long time, I will either just think in my mind,
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like what's the fear here and try and name it to be like, what am I actually scared of?
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Or I will just open up day one, the journaling app that I use and just start journaling about it or use a pen and paper,
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depending on whatever I've got to hand.
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And usually I'll find that, ah, okay, I'm feeling the sense of aversion, this emotional aversion to doing this task.
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And the reason I'm doing that is because I'm worried about da da da.
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Now, getting over our fears and like overcoming fears and acting in the face of fear is a lifelong endeavor.
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But generally what I find and what the research suggests as well is that when you name that fear,
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when you bring it out into the light, it reduces the power that it has over us.
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If, incidentally, you're interested in learning more about this, then actually chapters four, five, and six of my upcoming book,
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Feel Good Productivity, are all about how to beat procrastination.
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And chapter five in particular deals with fear.
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It's all about the principles and strategies that we can use to overcome fear
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and the emotional blockers that cause us to procrastinate.
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And so if you're interested in checking the book out, you can go to feelgoodproductivity .com.
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And if you pre -order it before the book is released, you get a free $300 worth of bonuses.
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So yeah, feelgoodproductivity .com, also linked down below.
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All right, insight number three is that motivation is not a prerequisite for action.
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So motivation is this idea that we need to feel like doing something before we do the thing.
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And you often hear people say, oh, I don't feel motivated enough to do X.
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But what Tim Pitchell says in the book, and which I totally agree with,
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and I have been preaching to whoever will listen for a very long time,
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is that you do not need to feel motivated in order to act.
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Back when I had a job, I didn't feel like going to work quite a lot of the time.
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It'd get to a Monday morning and I'd be like, oh, I don't, you know, I really don't feel like going to work.
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But just because I don't feel like going to work doesn't mean I'm not going to work.
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Motivation is not a prerequisite for action.
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This, incidentally, is something that
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Jeff Hayden elaborates on in this very good book,
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The Motivation Myth, which I have a book club episode about linked up there or over there somewhere.
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And if you can really internalise this idea that you do not, in fact, need to be motivated in order to act,
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that one firmware update in your mind will completely and utterly change your life.
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Because there are so many instances in all of our lives where we allow that feeling, like I don't feel like it,
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stopping us from doing something that's genuinely going to help us build a life that we love.
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And one of the strategies I find particularly helpful for this is to really lean into identity.
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And that's something that Tim Pitchett agrees with, the procrastination stuff as well.
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When you have the identity of someone who is a procrastinator, when you have the identity of someone who doesn't get stuff done,
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it's way easier to allow this feeling of like, oh, I don't feel like doing it from stopping us from actually doing the thing.
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Whereas if you adopt the identity of a professional, you know, when I was working as a doctor,
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I am a doctor, therefore I go to work and do doctor stuff.
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It's like, it's not a choice.
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I don't have to feel like it to do the thing.
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I am a healthy person, therefore I go to the gym.
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I am a good husband therefore I spend time with my wife
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and kids you know it's like the identity leads to the behavior and
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so a good question to ask ourselves is to what extent
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are we allowing an identity label to prevent us from doing the thing
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and to cause us to procrastinate like when I was first writing my book
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when I was first writing this about three years ago I really struggled with imposter syndrome
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because I did not have the identity of being a writer similarly
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when I started my youtube channel
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I did not actually embrace the identity of being a youtuber whereas
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now I fully embraced well somewhat embraced the identity of being a writer
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and also fully embrace the identity of being a youtuber
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and therefore i do writing and i film videos whether
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or not i feel like it because i'm approaching it like a professional
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so again the question i would ask you is that
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if you're struggling with procrastination in a given area what would change
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if you decided to approach it like a professional would rather than like an amateur would an amateur acts
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when they feel like it a professional acts regardless of how
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they feel all right insight number four from the book is
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that if we want to reduce our risks of procrastination we want to try
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and strengthen the goal intention and this speaks to the idea
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that if we have a strong reason for why we are doing a particular thing, and in particular, if it is a self -directed goal,
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if the goal is actually something that we personally intrinsically want and value, rather than something that's been foisted upon us by the demands of society,
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then that is a strong goal intention.
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And that makes it less likely that we're going to procrastinate from the thing.
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Whereas if the goal intention is weak, or if we feel some level of controlled motivation for that particular goal,
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like if it's a goal that we're doing because we want a particular reward, or because we want to avoid a particular punishment,
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or because we're gonna feel shame
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if we don't achieve the goal
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you know all of those other negative reasons for doing a thing it becomes way easier to procrastinate on
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that kind of stuff and so for goals that are self -directed try
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and ask yourself how can i strengthen the intention behind the goal
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when my brother for example was studying for his exams to get into university
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he was struggling to motivate himself to do the thing
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because it's like oh you know maths exams are boring etc etc
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but what he did was
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that he changed his computer desktop wallpaper to a photograph of oxford university
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and he saw that every time he went on the computer
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and that strengthened his goal intention
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because he was like i do not enjoy this maths work right now
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but that is the goal
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that i want it's a goal i intrinsically want for myself
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i'm looking at the photograph on my desktop wallpaper therefore i'm less likely to procrastinate on
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that particular thing in my case the way
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i strengthen my goal intentions to go to the gym is i enjoy watching superhero movies
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because they're usually pretty ripped
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and after i watch like a marvel film it'll give me
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some inspiration to go to the gym a little bit more
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but also i had a phase a few years ago where
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i unfollowed a bunch of the pretty girls on my instagram
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and instead followed a bunch of dudes with like ripped six pack abs
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so now when i scroll through my instagram feed it's either friends
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or it's dudes with six pack abs or it's desk setups
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and those are like the three kind of categories of content
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that i consume on instagram and seeing dudes with six pack abs gonna sound weird
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but it strengthens my goal intention to take the gym a
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little bit more seriously your mileage may vary try whatever works for you
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but if you can try and strengthen a goal intention behind the thing
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that you're trying to do generally reduces the effects of procrastination
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and then insight number five is that a surprisingly effective tool for beating procrastination is what's called implementation intentions.
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Again, I write about these in this book as well, link down below if you want to check it out.
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And basically an implementation intention is if...
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x happens then i will do y
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so for example as a way for me to drink more water i have an implementation intention of
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when i make myself a cup of coffee i will drink water
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while the coffee is brewing similarly i also have another implementation intention attached to making a cup of coffee which is
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while the coffee is brewing
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then i will do some mobility exercises with like the kitchen towel that's in the kitchen
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because my mobility for my shoulders is really bad
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and it's a way of helping me stay more mobile
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and attach the habit or the action that i want to something else that I'm doing.
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In Atomic Habits, James Clear has another word for it.
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He calls this habit stacking.
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Like if you stack different habits on top of each other, implementation intentions, it's all the same general idea.
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If X happens, then I will do Y.
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Now, when it comes to procrastination, you can apply these implementation intentions to whatever you're struggling with.
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And generally it will make it easier to start doing the thing.
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So for example, one thing I procrastinate from a lot is to clean my room
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and tidy my room because it's just annoying and I don't like doing it.
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And so the implementation intention I have is that just before going to bed,
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A, I will listen to some kind of podcast on my AirPods and B, I will just spend five minutes tidying my room a little bit.
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Now, I still procrastinate from tidying my room quite a lot, but 50 % of the time,
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the fact that I have the implementation intention in my mind means
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that I actually spend five minutes tidying my room and then it just looks a little bit nicer.
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The other big way of using implementation intentions is time -based implementation intentions, which is just a fancy way of saying,
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put the thing on the calendar.
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So for example, these days, every morning, the implementation intention I have is, I often find myself procrastinating from filming videos,
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but my implementation intention is every morning the first thing
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that i'm going to do after breakfast is to make myself
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a cup of coffee to play a song on the guitar to warm myself up
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and then to film a video
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it's like i do those three things coffee guitar film a video in fact just before filming
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this one i was singing in the blood by john mayer
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absolute banger of a tune similarly an implementation intention is that
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if it gets to 5 p .m i will stop work
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and i will go to the gym whatever the thing might be it's basically time blocking
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but there's so much evidence behind it from professor golwitzer
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and like literally hundreds of studies that have shown that
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when you set an implementation intention and you're specific about what is the if that's going to lead to the response,
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then that makes it way less likely that you're going to procrastinate from it.
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And again, if you're interested in reading more, you can find out more in my book where I talk about more about this
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and specifically how to apply it to your life as well.
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Now, if you're interested in more details about how to specifically apply implementation intentions to manage your time
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and to be more productive,
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then you might like to check out my completely free productivity classes over on Skillshare who are very kindly sponsoring this video.
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If you've been living under a rock, then you might not have heard of Skillshare.
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They're a fantastic online platform with classes on all sorts of topics from interior design
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and cooking to productivity and lifestyle design and coding and AI and careers and almost anything you can think of,
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there is a fantastic class on Skillshare for the thing.
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I've personally been teaching on Skillshare since 2019, so I've got about a dozen classes on Skillshare,
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all of which you can access completely for free with the Skillshare free trial.
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So if you happen to be one of the first thousand people to hit the link in the video description,
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then that will let you sign up to a completely free trial of Skillshare.
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And during that trial, you can check out any of my classes,
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I have three that are specifically about productivity and two that are specifically about how to study more effectively for exams.
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So if you're a student and you haven't seen those, you might like to check those out.
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I can basically guarantee that if you watch those classes and implement what you've learned,
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you will pretty much double your productivity and probably increase your effectiveness as a student as well.
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There's also a really good Skillshare original that they recently published called Make AI Work For You, Break Creative Block by Smitesh Mistry.
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And that's all about how to use AI to overcome creative block and gain inspiration.
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And AI is something that I've been using quite a lot in my life to help overcome writer's block as well.
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So if you're interested in checking any of those out, then click on the link in the video description and
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that will let you sign up to a completely free trial of Skillshare.
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And thank you so much Skillshare for sponsoring this video.
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And if you're interested in more specifically how I personally use implementation intentions to manage my time and be more productive,
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then check out this video over here.
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It's all about the Trident Method, which is a three -part method that I personally use for staying organized,
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for managing my time and for being more productive.
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So thank you so much for watching and I'll see you hopefully in the next video.
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Bye -bye.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “How to Stop Procrastinating”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: procrastination, intention, fear, goal, implementation. This video has 253 sentences and 3494 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:38. The speaker talks fast, about 256 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| intention noun | /ɪnˈtɛnʃn̩/ | A course of action that a person intends to follow. |
| implementation noun | /ˌɪmplɪmənˈteɪʃən/ | The process of moving an idea from concept to reality. In business, engineering and other fields, implementation refers to the building process rather than the… |
| regret verb | /ɹɪˈɡɹɛt/ | To feel sorry about (a thing that has or has not happened), afterthink: to wish that a thing had not happened, that something else had happened instead. |
| intentions noun | /ɪnˈtɛnʃənz/ | Desire to court, marry, date, woo or sleep with someone. |
| insight noun | /ˈɪnsaɪ̯t/ | A sight or view of the interior of anything; a deep inspection or view; introspection; frequently used with into. |
| strengthen verb | /ˈstɹɛŋ(k)θən/ | To make strong or stronger; to add strength to; to increase the strength of; to fortify. |
| overcome verb | /ˌəʊ.vəˈkʌm/ | To surmount (a physical or abstract obstacle); to prevail over, to get the better of. |
| motivation noun | /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/ | Willingness of action especially in behavior. |
| podcast noun | /ˈpɑdˌkæst/ | A program, especially an audio program, produced on a regular basis, delivered over the Internet in a compressed digital format and designed for playback on… |
| productivity noun | /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/ | The state of being productive, fertile, or efficient. |
| habit noun | /ˈhæb.ɪt/ | An action performed on a regular basis. |
| embrace verb | /ɛmˈbɹes/ | To clasp (someone or each other) in the arms with affection; to take in the arms; to hug. |
| motivate verb | /ˈmoʊ.tɪ.veɪt/ | To provide someone with an incentive to do something; to encourage; to actuate. |
| tidy adjective | /ˈtaɪ.di/ | Arranged neatly and in order. |
| happiness noun | /ˈhæpinɪs/ | The emotion of being happy; joy; elation. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
| get over verb | To overcome. |
| open up verb | To open. |
| turn out verb | To end up; to result. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- We think that, oh, who cares?
- It's bad for our physiology.
- It's bad for our bodies.
- It's bad for our immune system.
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 | have been preaching · you've been living · I've been using |
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If X happens, then I will do |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | person who likes · people who procrastinate · person who procrastinates |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have procrastinated · I've actually done · that's been foisted |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 71 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: strengthen /ˈstɹɛŋ(k)θən/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, thesis /ˈθisɪs/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, thirdly /ˈθɚdli/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: intention /ɪnˈtɛnʃn̩/, implementation /ˌɪmplɪmənˈteɪʃən/, intentions /ɪnˈtɛnʃənz/, motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: implementation /ˌɪmplɪmənˈteɪʃən/, motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/, productivity /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/, similarly /ˈsɪm.ə.lə.li/, inspiration /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/
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 intention, implementation, regret.
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.