Shadowing Practice: The Art of Doing Less and Achieving More - Learn English Speaking with Video
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If you've been on social media long enough, then you've probably been brainwashed into thinking that a productive day looks something like this.
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Wake up at 5am, go on a 10km run, meditate for an hour, go to school, network, read for an hour, work out, do your homework,
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cook a healthy meal, and build a six-figure side hustle overnight.
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But we all know this is not sustainable.
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So why does it feel like some people are building extraordinary lives while ours feel overwhelming and meaningless?
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Like many of you, I felt this way for years.
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I got average grades and tried to stack as many good habits as possible, only to end up feeling overwhelmed and make zero progress towards my actual goals in life.
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That was until I read this book called Slow Productivity by Cal Newport, an MIT-trained computer scientist who fundamentally changed my life forever.
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No, seriously, if I had to trace back all of my academic and personal success over the last three years, it would come down to the lessons I learned in this book.
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So my goal with this video is to change the trajectory
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of your life forever by showing you how you can accomplish more by doing less.
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First things first, slow productivity does not mean you should be lazy.
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But many people think that being productive means cramming a bunch of things into one day, and that's also wrong.
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I believe that this way of thinking comes from the education system forcing us to juggle five to six classes at once, which means spending an hour or less a day learning a little bit about each subject.
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This hardwires our brain at an early age to believe that doing a lot equals accomplishing a lot.
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But you can start to see the problem, which is that you're not diving deep enough into any one subject.
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And we can further understand the importance of this by visualizing the compound effect, which states that productivity is not linear,
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but instead increases at an exponential rate as our brain enters the flow state.
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When you work on seven tasks throughout the day, your ability to lock in on any given task is limited and this stops the exponential growth from actually happening.
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Meanwhile, focusing on less allows you to increase your output of productive work.
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Jensen Huang at Nvidia, Patrick Collinson, the creator of Stripe, or even the legend of YouTube, MrBeast, all attribute their success to being hyper-focused on their craft,
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spending all day every day pursuing a singular goal.
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And it's this compounding effect that has allowed them to reach extraordinary heights in their respected industries.
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However, However, this hyper obsession on an individual task can drive you crazy and lead to problems like burnout and fatigue.
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So I'd like to show you how you can go all in on your goals without losing yourself in the process.
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And it all comes down to this framework that I like to call the three pillars of life.
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Well, actually when I was doing research for this video, I found out that this term already exists.
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Traditionally, the three pillars are health, wealth, and relationships.
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And focusing on these three pillars are meant to create a balanced and fulfilling life.
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So here's how I apply the concepts a little differently to prioritize meaningful progress and pursue my biggest ambitions.
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First, you should spend an hour, a day, or however long you need to reflect on your life
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and come up with the three most important goals or priorities in your life.
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Once you have your three goals identified, make them the pillars of your life.
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Ruthlessly cut out anything and everything outside of these three pillars in your day-to-day routine.
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Like seriously, say one of your pillars is to detach from your phone and you're standing there waiting inside the elevator awkwardly, you're going to want to pull out your phone, but don't do it.
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Don't pull out your phone.
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Stare at the ceiling, break the silence with the conversation, or allow yourself to zone out and reflect on your day.
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Do anything you have to do to stay true to your pillars.
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And when it comes to creating your pillars or goals, I always make sure that at least one of my pillars focuses on my physical or mental health.
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Meanwhile, the other two pillars focus on my personal development and bigger aspirations.
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Another piece of advice is to include quantifiable goals with each pillar.
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Examples of this include, I want to get always in my classes, or I want to get X amount of money in X amount of years.
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You want the goals to be tangible and quantifiable so you can measure the progress towards achieving them.
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What I found by eliminating everything outside of these three pillars was that I stopped wasting time aimlessly moving through life.
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I woke up every day with a purpose, knowing that if I was working towards any one of these three goals, I was making healthy progress that day.
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Over time, that daily focus on individual pillars started to build momentum.
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Each day stacked onto the last, and I stopped feeling overwhelmed by eliminating everything I thought I had to do.
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I would work so hard Monday through Friday that by the time the weekend rolled around, I never once felt guilty about spending the entire day with my friends.
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By dedicating my life to these three pillars, I began making more progress than I ever had before, in school, in my passion projects, and in my life outside of work.
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It felt like I had unlocked a superpower.
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For this final part of the video, I want to show you what an actual day in my life looks like as someone who does less and achieves more.
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I wake up around 7 to 8am without an alarm.
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I dedicate my morning to whatever pillar I want to focus on on that day, and today I have school all morning.
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Around 12, I get back home and I eat lunch, which I meal prepped over the weekend.
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From 12 to 7pm, I put my head down and get back to work focusing on one of my pillars.
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From 7 to 7.30 I eat dinner
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and then for the last two hours of the day I do one final push of work.
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Then I brush my teeth, shower, and watch YouTube until midnight when I finally go back to bed and repeat the day.
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One day I might dedicate the entire day to a school project like today, but other days I might be editing a YouTube video for 14 hours straight.
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I basically approach the day by focusing on a maximum of
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one to two tasks based on whatever feels most urgent at the time.
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Thank you so much for making it to the end of the video.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “The Art of Doing Less and Achieving More”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: pillar, goal, hour, progress. This video has 63 sentences and 1169 words to shadow. The speech runs for 5:21. The speaker talks fast, about 218 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
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| pillar noun | /ˈpɪlɚ/ | A large post, often used as supporting architecture. |
| overwhelm verb | /ˌoʊ.vɚˈwɛlm/ | To engulf, surge over and submerge. |
| dedicate verb | /ˈdɛdɪˌkeɪt/ | To set apart for a deity or for religious purposes; consecrate. |
| productivity noun | /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/ | The state of being productive, fertile, or efficient. |
| exponential adjective | /ˌɛk.spəˈnɛn.t͡ʃəl/ | Expressed in terms of an exponent (power of a base), the base often being 10 or e. |
| quantifiable adjective | /ˈkwɑn.təˌfaɪ.ə.bəl/ | Capable of being quantified. |
| stack noun | /stæk/ | A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch. |
| accomplish verb | /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ/ | To finish successfully. |
| eliminate verb | /ɪˈlɪm.ɪ.neɪt/ | To completely remove, get rid of, put an end to. |
| compound noun | /ˈkɑmpaʊnd/ | Anything made by combining several things. |
| aimlessly adverb | /ˈeɪmləsli/ | Without an aim, purpose or direction; in an aimless manner. |
| aspiration noun | /ˌæspəˈɹeɪʃən/ | The act of aspiring or ardently desiring; an ardent wish or desire, chiefly after what is elevated or spiritual (with common adjunct adpositions being to and… |
| awkwardly adverb | In an awkward manner; with discomfort or lack of coordination. | |
| brainwash noun | /ˈbɹeɪnwɒʃ/ | A distorting effect upon one's memory, belief, or ideas, as by propaganda. |
| burnout noun | /ˈbɜː(ɹ)naʊt/ | The experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest, especially in one's career. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come down to verb | To reach by moving down or reducing. | |
| pull out verb | To withdraw; especially of military forces; to retreat. | |
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
| come up with verb | To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it. | |
| cut out verb | To refrain from (doing something, using something etc.), to stop or cease (doing something). | |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. | |
| get back verb | Return to where one came from. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | once, which means · problem, which is · someone who does |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've been · has allowed |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | been brainwashed · are meant |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 8 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, you've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: accomplish /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ/, aspiration /ˌæspəˈɹeɪʃən/, brainwash /ˈbɹeɪnwɒʃ/, visualize /ˈvɪʒuəˌlaɪz/, obsession /əbˈsɛʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: productivity /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/, exponential /ˌɛk.spəˈnɛn.t͡ʃəl/, quantifiable /ˈkwɑn.təˌfaɪ.ə.bəl/, eliminate /ɪˈlɪm.ɪ.neɪt/, aspiration /ˌæspəˈɹeɪʃən/
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 pillar, overwhelm, dedicate.
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.