Shadowing Practice: I Read 107 Productivity Books. Here's What Actually Works. - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hey friends, welcome back to the channel.
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So over the last 15 years of being absolutely obsessed with productivity,
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I have read dozens and dozens and dozens of productivity books and loads more on Kindle, but this is quite a lot of stuff.
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And so in this video, I wanna break all of these down into a nine step framework.
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These are the nine steps that I've personally distilled from all of these different books and all the research I've done.
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And if you just follow these nine steps, these are the main things that are gonna absolutely move the needle for your own productivity.
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All right, step one is to set your goals.
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This basically involves thinking about where you actually want to go and what is the destination that you're aiming for,
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because having a destination in mind helps you go on your journey and helps give you some sort of direction.
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Now, that doesn't mean that when we set a goal, we should be completely wedded and attached to the outcome that we're striving for,
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but it does mean that if you really want to be productive,
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and to me, productivity is about using our time intentionally and effectively to work towards the things that matter to us,
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we need to actually define what are in fact the things that matter to us.
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Now, there's various books that talk about dozens and dozens of different ways of doing this.
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The way that I sort of synthesize all of these is into just three simple steps.
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Think about the long -term, think about the medium -term and think about the short -term.
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So the long -term time horizon is basically like stuff like, what do you want written on your gravestone?
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The medium -term we're thinking sort of three to five years out,
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like where do I possibly maybe potentially want to be three or five years down the line?
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Now, the crucial thing for all this stuff is
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that you don't need to have perfect crystal clarity on this
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and your goals and your time horizons
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and stuff are absolutely gonna change over time
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but it's really helpful to know right now where do I think I want to be
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so that I can start moving in that direction
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because as they say it's much easier to steer a ship that's moving than to steer a ship that's stationary
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and then the short -term time horizon
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which is basically what are my goals for the year
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and in fact all three of these methods are the final chapter of my own book feel good productivity
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which you can check out down below it's available for pre -order with a bunch of bonuses
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but that'll be linked down below but essentially the way
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that I think about this short -term time horizon is the
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12 -month celebration in each of the different areas of my life, in work, in health and relationships,
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what do I want to be celebrating 12 months from now?
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Let's say I'm having dinner with a friend and we're celebrating the progress we've made.
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Maybe on the health front, it's like, oh, I'm celebrating that I've been to the gym consistently three times a week for the last 12 months.
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Maybe on the work front, I'm celebrating hitting a revenue milestone with my business.
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Maybe on the relationships front, I'm celebrating getting engaged or getting a girlfriend or whatever the thing might be.
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And so if we're condensing all of these different productivity books into the simple nine -step framework, the question that you want to ask yourself is,
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am I clear on my goals?
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What am I actually working towards?
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And if you're not clear on that, or you don't have an idea that it's worth sitting down
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and doing some journaling for just 20 minutes to think about it.
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And if you're clear on that, then you can move on to the next step.
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And the next step, once you have set your goals is to break them down.
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Now, it's all well and good having goals, but really setting the goal does not actually help you make progress towards it.
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It's better than nothing.
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But obviously, there are a load of steps involved once you've set the goal to actually making it happen.
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And therefore, this step is really all about breaking our goals down into what are the tangible actions
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that we can take to make progress towards those goals.
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Now again, depending on how many of these productivity books you read, there are dozens of ways of trying to figure this out.
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I like to keep things simple and boil it down to the basics,
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which is basically the question of what inputs do I need to do on a weekly basis
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that are going to get me to this particular goal.
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For example, for health, if the goal is to build muscle, or you can turn that into a smart goal if you really want to,
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then the weekly input would be weight training three times a week with progressive overload.
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If the goal is I want to write my first book, then the weekly input would be I want to spend 10 hours a week writing.
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I don't really believe in like making a task list
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and like breaking the goal down into like the 18 ,000 different things it takes to make the goal
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because that becomes way too complicated.
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And a lot of kind of balancing reading about productivity advice with actually doing the thing is finding
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that sweet spot where you're taking the advice on board because the advice is generally good,
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but it's not so overboard that it starts to become overwhelming.
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So just to simplify all of this down, what are the things that we need to do every week to make progress towards this goal?
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And then once we're clear on that, we move on to step number three, which is one of the most important ones,
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which is to create time blocks.
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And essentially here, the idea is that we need to make the time for these different things that we've decided,
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these weekly inputs, we need to make the time for those things in our calendar.
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Now, my favorite method for this is called the ideal week technique.
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Basically, that involves just creating a new Google calendar, calling it your ideal week, and creating calendar events for what time you want to wake up,
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what time you want to go to sleep, what time you're having lunch, what time you're at work,
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what time you're hanging out with the friends and family and date night and all that stuff.
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And you start off creating the blocks of time for the things that you have to do.
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And then you can move on to creating blocks of time for the things that you want to do.
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There's some nuance there, like have to do can often be reframed to want to do in your own mind.
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We can often choose to feel as if we have more autonomy in situations than we actually do.
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But fundamentally, the ideal week technique
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and using a calendar tells you how much time you have available to actually give to these things that you care about.
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So for example, if my goal is to build more muscle and get six pack abs or whatever the thing is,
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and I know that I need to do weight training three times a week for let's say an hour,
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that means I need to find three one hour blocks of time in my calendar,
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and then maybe with some buffer on either side for getting to the gym and getting back home.
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Now, if I physically don't have those blocks of time in my calendar, because let's say I'm working two jobs and have a family,
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then it's going to be really tricky then I should reconsider what my goal actually is
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and whether it's actually realistic for me to be able to hit the gym three times a week.
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Now, the way I think of these blocks of time is that these are containers.
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They're simply containers.
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And the first step to actually making time for this stuff is to create the containers.
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When I was working on my book, Feel Good Productivity, link down below, I had containers for about three hours basically every morning of the week.
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From nine till 12, Monday through Friday, except Wednesdays, which was like team meetings day,
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I would focus the first three hours a day on book writing.
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Now, how many words I got done was like a further down the line thing,
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but it's like the first step was to create those containers and then you can fill those containers with the time, effort, energy, blood, sweat, tears,
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whatever it takes to fill those containers.
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But the point is you have to create the containers in the first place
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and that is where this technique of time blocking really shines.
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Let's now move on to step four, which is to plan your day.
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And often the single best productivity tactic here
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that a bunch of different books talk about is the idea of setting your intentions as the first thing
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you do in the morning.
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So before starting your workday, you think to yourself, what do I actually want to accomplish today?
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This book, Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, is very good.
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This talks about their daily highlight, where you just ask yourself, what is today's highlight going to be?
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Similarly, the book
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The One Thing by Gary Callow talks about what is the one thing I want to get done today.
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Harvard Business Review says, what is your MIT, your most important task?
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Brian Tracy's book, Eat That Frog, talks about what is the frog, that like tricky thing that you've been procrastinating on.
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What's that one thing that you want to get done first thing in the morning?
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The point is, a lot of these different productivity books
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and experts converge on this one single piece wisdom
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which is every single day ask yourself what is the actual most important thing you want to get done
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that day and then make time for that thing in your calendar
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and then if you actually do the thing even
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if you do nothing else then the day has been a win
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and if you just can do that every day for 365 days you'll make
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so much progress
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that it'll be insane my personal favorite way of framing
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this exact question is asking myself the question of what is today's adventure going to be
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and this is great
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because you get the benefit of trying to figure out what's the most important task
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but secondly you also get the benefit of it just feeling a bit more enjoyable
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and again this is the philosophy of feel good productivity
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which is that if you can make your work feel good then you become more productive by default
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and you have more energy and more creativity and less stress
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and then life is just better all right
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then we move on to step number five we have planned our day
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we have got the blocks in the calendar for doing the thing at
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that point all that's left to do is to just get started
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and this is going to depend on what the context is
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so let's say you're a student studying for a chemistry exam
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and you've got in your calendar 10 a .m to 11 a .m study for chemistry exam.
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And let's say the clock hits 10am.
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Now, that at that point, you have a choice.
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Do you follow your intention?
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Do you do the thing that previous you said that you wanted to do in this time block 10 to 11am?
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Or do you not follow your intention?
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And do you procrastinate and do you faff around?
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And do you do whatever the hell you possibly can make a cup of coffee, go for a poo, whatever the thing might be?
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Do you do whatever you can to avoid doing the thing that your
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that your higher self has already decided that you were going to do at 10 o 'clock?
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This is something honestly
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that I still struggle with even though I'm considered to be a productivity expert
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I've literally written a book on the thing I've read hundreds of research papers
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and dozens and dozens
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and dozens of books on the thing I still do struggle with procrastination
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I had a filming block on my calendar from 9 till 1 p .m.
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it is now 12 30 and for the last three
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and a half hours I've been procrastinating in various ways from filming
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this video I went for a walk I made a coffee
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I made another coffee I went to the toilet
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I hung out with the team a little bit
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I chatted to my housemate I did everything I possibly could to avoid doing the thing
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which which is like sitting down and actually filming this video.
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Similarly, let's say it hits 5 p .m and I'm like, all right, 5 p .m to 6 .30 is my gym slot.
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And it hits 5 p .m.
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And I'm like, oh, I know I should go to the gym.
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And I know my previous self told me that I'm gonna go to the gym right now, but there's some sort of resistance,
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some kind of emotional blocker that's making me feel, oh, I don't really wanna go to the gym.
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And this is where things like motivation and discipline come in.
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A very disciplined person would say, you know what?
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It's 5 p .m and I'm gonna go to the gym regardless of how I feel about it, let's just go.
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I admire those sorts of people who have that much discipline.
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A very motivated person, although motivation waxes and wanes, would say, I feel really motivated to go to the gym right now.
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The way I think of it is I prefer something
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that I call the unblock method that I talk about in the book, which is basically about identifying what are the emotional hurdles
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that are holding me back from doing this thing
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that I have said that I wanted to do and trying to understand those emotions, trying to name the emotion,
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trying to reduce it, trying to overcome it and trying to act in the face of that emotion.
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But ultimately when all is said and done, generally we just need to get started with doing the task
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because generally getting started is way harder than actually keeping on going.
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All right, so that was step number five let's move on to step number six
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which is to stay focused
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so at this point we're sitting down to study for the chemistry exam
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or go to the gym or film the video whatever the thing might be
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and at this point the key thing
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that you need to do for your productivity to really level up your productivity is honestly
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it's really simple it's to just stay focused on doing the thing
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that you said you were going to do
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and not getting distracted not trying to multitask not trying to task switch just doing the thing
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there's some evidence i saw recently
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that like apparently the average worker wastes 28 of their day in terms of efficiency
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because they're trying to task switch or because they're getting distracted.
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Over the course of 10 years, that's a whole like three years.
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Over the course of a 40 year career, that is a whole decade that we've wasted because we're getting distracted.
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That's just an insane amount of time to waste.
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And so you can level up your productivity by quite a lot by just getting good at focusing on the thing.
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This might involve turning your phone off or chucking it across the room or having it face down, out of sight, out of mind.
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It might involve turning on a focus mode on your computer so you don't see notifications.
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It might involve putting headphones in if you're in a coffee shop
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or if you're in a coworking space or something so that people don't necessarily interrupt you.
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Deep Work by Cal Newport is basically an entire book talking about how to focus.
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And so if you struggle with focus and you know personally that this is the step that you struggle with, then seek out some books,
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seek out some resources on how to stay better focused because
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if you can stay more focused again you're massively boosting your productivity.
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Now we come to step number seven
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which is more of a kind of guiding philosophy throughout this whole system
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which is find a way to make it feel good.
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I'm going to do another little plug for my book feel good productivity here
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because that's literally what the book is about
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that the secret to productivity is not discipline it's joy and
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when we can find a way to make our work feel good
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when we can find a way for our work to generate positive emotions then we become more energized
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and the fact that we're more energized means we're more productive we're more creative we're less stressed
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but it also means we have way more energy to give to the truly important things that matter to us.
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And so the trick here really is to ask yourself that question, what can I do to make my work feel good?
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For me, that involves putting all the Lord of the Rings music in the background while I'm working.
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It involves maybe going to a coffee shop and treating it like more of an adventure.
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It involves reducing the seriousness with which I approach the work so that I feel like the stakes are lower.
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And generally when the stakes are lower, it allows us to approach our work with more of a feeling of play.
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Can I find a way to bring people into the thing?
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Can I do coworking sessions with my friends or with my team?
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Can I do
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Zoom coworking sessions?
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There's this thing called London Writer's Salon
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that does daily co -working four times a day writer's hours
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where you get on a Zoom call with like a couple of hundred other people
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and they share like a little bit of motivation around like five minutes at the start, five minutes at the end.
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Everyone just works for the other 50 minutes.
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It just makes it way more fun.
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It makes the work feel more good than just sitting on my desk, grinding away, doing it by myself.
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So at whatever stage you are of the productivity journey, ask yourself that question, that guiding philosophy,
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how can I change my approach to this work such that it actually feels good?
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Right.
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Step number eight is to then recharge your energy.
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So you've done all this stuff, but now the main thing that you want to do is to take appropriate breaks
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so that you don't don't burn yourself out.
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Now this involves conserving your energy during the workday and also recharging your energy at the end of the workday.
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And so what might that look like?
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It might look like taking a walking meeting rather than sitting down at your desk to take a meeting.
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If you can, it might involve going for lunch, but instead of sitting down somewhere for lunch in front of your desk,
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doing the work, getting a sandwich or something, and then going for a little walk.
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It might involve taking a break every hour for five minutes, 10, 15 minutes, and going to get a cup of coffee,
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going to the toilet, chatting to some people, doing some stretches, doing whatever it takes to recharge your energy.
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Productivity is to an extent about time management.
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Like you have to create these containers of time.
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And if you don't, then you know, obviously time is a finite resource, but even though time is a finite resource,
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energy is a renewable resource and we can renew our energy throughout the workday
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and at the end of the workday by doing things that are appropriately recharging.
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Now, one easy way of doing this is to just make a list.
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And on one side of the list, ask yourself, what are the things that genuinely recharge your energy when you do them?
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And then on the other side of the list, ask yourself, what are the things you find yourself doing when you are drained of energy?
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So for example, for me, what are the things that recharge my energy?
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Well, going for a walk recharges my energy.
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Going to the gym often recharges my energy.
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Reading a book, playing the guitar.
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These are the things that recharge my energy.
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But when I'm actually drained, what are the things I end up doing?
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Scrolling TikTok, scrolling Instagram, scrolling
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Twitter, watching random YouTube videos those are the things I find myself doing, but it's weird because those things don't actually recharge my energy.
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And so this whole idea of recharging involves sort of nudging our behavior towards the things
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that we know give us energy rather than the things
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that we feel like we can only do when we don't have any energy.
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And this energy thing is kind of weird because generally for an activity to be recharging, it does require some input of energy.
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Like if you're completely drained, then going for a walk would be the last thing that you want to do.
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But counterintuitively going for a walk is actually going to generate
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way more energy than just plonking out on the sofa and scrolling through TikTok.
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Now, there's another really great way of recharging your energy and that involves learning new things.
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And learning new things for me, I find to be an incredible way of generating more energy,
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which gives me more energy to give to the other important things in life.
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But also learning new things and expanding my knowledge and my understanding is generally a core value of mine,
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which is why I'm thrilled to say that this video is very kindly sponsored by Brilliant.
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And Brilliant is the best way to learn maths, data science and computer science interactively.
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I've been using
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Brilliant for learning since 2019.
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They've got incredible interactive courses on all these different topics, and it's really built for busy people.
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If you're doing a lot of things in your life, but you do want to make time for this learning stuff,
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then even in just 15 minutes a day, you can make meaningful progress in advancing the skills of these subjects that you care about.
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For me personally, my favorite courses on Brilliant are the ones in the computer science category, because 10 years ago now,
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damn, long time ago, when I was applying to medical school, I was actually torn between medicine and computer science,
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and I ended going with medicine but i always had a part of me
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that was like ah i kind of wish i'd learned computer science as well just
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because it's really cool and because i enjoy tech and coding
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and computers and so brilliant has given me a great introduction to computer science
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and the fundamentals of programming and algorithms and an introduction to python
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and the way they teach these topics is so engaging
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and interactive that it genuinely makes it fun it makes it feel good
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and it makes it way more energizing to do a course on brilliant than it does to do the alternative
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which would be to scroll something on social media.
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Now, if you're interested in programming in particular, like I am, then they've got a brand new thinking in code course,
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And one of the skills
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that I most attribute to any of the success I've had in life is learning how to code
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when I was quite young, because learning how to code changes the way that you look at the world.
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It helps you see the problems in the world
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and helps you realize what are the things that you can build solutions for.
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And all of the businesses
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I've built over the last like 15 years of my life trying to make money on the internet
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and building businesses have fundamentally been downstream of learning to code, including this YouTube channel.
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Now, if you're interested in trying everything that
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So thank you so much
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Brilliant for sponsoring this video.
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But the final step in this nine step framework is to reflect.
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And this might involve doing something like a daily reflection, which is like, how did my day go?
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Like, did I do my daily highlight?
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Did I do the thing that mattered to me?
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To what extent did I follow my intentions?
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It might involve doing something like a weekly review, which is super helpful and reflecting on things like what were the top wins from last week?
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What were the biggest challenges?
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What were my biggest learning points?
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What are the top three things I want to get done next week?
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Have I blocked out time in the calendar for doing those things?
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And actually doing that even just takes 20 minutes, half an hour every single week.
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It's just absolutely game changing and does move the needle for making sure
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that the things that we're going to do next week are actually aligned with the direction that we want to go.
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And then this reflection piece might involve doing something like a quarterly review every three months, taking a look at the goals sheet and being like,
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hey, are these goals still the goals that I want?
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I actually want to actively work towards because we're all pretty good at setting like annual goals, but then we don't look at those annual goals.
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We don't revisit them.
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Whereas revisiting them every quarter is remarkably helpful.
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And I always find that when I do that, I realize, oh, you know, that goal that I set six months ago in January,
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honestly, that's no longer relevant.
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And so it doesn't really make sense for me to continue to work towards that thing, even though it's no longer relevant to my life.
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Like people think that productivity is like this grindy type thing, but actually a lot thinkers,
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philosophers, psychologists have found over the years that meaning and fulfillment comes from the pursuit of goals that feel meaningful to us.
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And so if we can find a way to figure out what are the things that bring us meaning,
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and for the record, they don't have to be work things, they can be spending time with your family, all that kind of stuff.
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But like defining what are the things that bring us meaning, and then just intentionally doing those things,
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that is what gives us a healthy, balanced, holistic life.
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And then there are a few optional extras you can do on top of that.
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You can learn to do stuff faster.
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This is sort of the philosophy of efficiency.
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You You can learn keyboard shortcuts.
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You can learn to type faster, all of this.
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You can use funkier apps that like make it 1 % more efficient for you to do something.
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Secondly, you can learn to add systems for leverage.
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You can use AI tools and other tools to boost your own productivity by using a system to leverage your own inputs.
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You could potentially even add people to the mix.
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If you have enough money, you can delegate things to people.
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If you're a business owner, you absolutely should delegate things to people.
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Fourthly, you can capture open loops.
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This is David Allen's book, Getting Things Done.
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It's all about capturing open loops in our mind into a task management system of some sort
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and then clarifying those tasks and organizing them and then doing them
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and you can do stuff like building a second brain
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which is the book by my friend tiago forte
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which is all about building a personal knowledge management system for digital note taking
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so that you can maximize your creative output like these are all really good things for productivity
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but i feel like these are all add -ons to the main thing
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and the main thing is basically figure out where you want to go make time for those things sit down
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and actually do the thing do it consistently for a long time
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and then reflect appropriately on like how you're getting there
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and whether you want to change direction along the way now
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if you enjoyed this video then i would I'd love it if you could pre -order my book, please.
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There'll be loads of bonuses, link down below.
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And if you wanna learn more about how to manage your time and my favorite method for time management,
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I call it the Trident Technique or the Trident Method, that'll be linked in the video right over here.
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So thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.
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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 “I Read 107 Productivity Books. Here's What Actually Works”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: goal, productivity, energy, step. This video has 352 sentences and 4919 words to shadow. The speech runs for 18:31. 86% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| productivity noun | /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/ | The state of being productive, fertile, or efficient. |
| involve verb | /ɪnˈvɑlv/ | To have (something) as a component or a related part; to comprise, to include. |
| calendar noun | /ˈkæl.ən.də/ | Any system by which time is divided into days, weeks, months, and years. |
| container noun | /kənˈteɪ.nəɹ/ | An item in which objects, materials or data can be stored or transported. |
| input noun | /ˈɪnpʊt/ | The act or process of putting in; infusion. |
| scroll noun | /skɹoʊl/ | A roll of paper or parchment; a writing formed into a roll. |
| technique noun | /tɛkˈniːk/ | The practical aspects of a given art, occupation etc.; formal requirements. |
| discipline noun | /ˈdɪsəplɪn/ | A controlled behaviour; self-control. |
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
| ideal adjective | /aɪˈdi(ə)l/ | Pertaining to ideas, or to a given idea. |
| desk noun | /dɛsk/ | A table, frame, or case, in past centuries usually with a sloping top but now usually with a flat top, for the use of writers and readers. It often has a… |
| helpful adjective | /ˈhɛlp.fl̩/ | Furnishing help; giving aid; useful. |
| reflect verb | /ɹɪˈflɛkt/ | To bend back (light, etc.) from a surface. |
| resource noun | /ɹɪˈzɔːs/ | Something that one uses to achieve an objective, e.g. raw materials or personnel. |
| chemistry noun | /ˈkɛm.ɪ.stɹi/ | The branch of natural science that deals with the composition and constitution of substances and the changes that they undergo as a consequence of alterations… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| sit down verb | To assume a sitting position from a standing position. | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| get back verb | Return to where one came from. | |
| get off verb | To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it. | |
| start off verb | To begin. | |
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What am I actually working towards?
- Do you follow your intention?
- A very disciplined person would say, you know what?
- Did I do the thing that mattered to me?
- To what extent did I follow my intentions?
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 procrastinating · I've been procrastinating · I've been using |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have read · I've personally distilled · we've made |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be linked · is called · be reframed |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | three, which is · Wednesdays, which was · four, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 99 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, algorithm /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/, thrill /θɹɪl/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, examination /ɪɡˌzæm.ɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/, capture /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/
- Long words — get the stress right: productivity /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/, examination /ɪɡˌzæm.ɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like productivity, involve, calendar.
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.