Hey, hey. Welcome back, English practicer. I wake  up every morning and make an English lesson for you. Yeah. Hey, I haven't sung that song in  a long time. That was fun. All right. Today, we're going to break the procrastination cycle.  This is kind of a listening exercise. I want you to listen, learn, and shadow me if you  can. Try to say it with me. Repeat little chunks of speech that you hear that you want  to remember and practice. All right, let's jump into it. Today we're tackling something everyone  deals with. Everyone deals with it. What is it?

Procrastination. That nagging habit of constantly  putting off important tasks. Putting off. If you if you put something off put off, you postpone  it. So you're constantly postponing putting off important tasks. That's procrastination, right?  Let's start with the word nagging. It means something that keeps bothering or irritating you.  It keeps bothering irritating me. It's nagging me.

Like that little voice in your head [snorts] that  won't leave you alone. Leave me alone, please. My nagging little voice in my head. So why do we let  procrastination get the best of us? Get the best of us. If you say it got the best of me, that's  another way you can say it got the best of me.

That means it overwhelmed me. I was defeated by  it. I got it got the better of me. I lost control.

It got the best of me. It got the best of us. So,  procrastination can get the best of us sometimes, right? Why does that happen? Let's find out. What  exactly is procrastination? It's when we delay important tasks by doing easier, less important  things instead. Oh, I do that a lot. We all do it. Cleaning, scrolling on our phones, or binge  watching shows instead of handling something crucial. Here's another word for you. Here's  another word for you. Deferral. Deferral. Deferral means postponing something. Procrastination  is a kind of deferral. But it's almost always irrational. Not rational, irrational. We know we  shouldn't delay the task, but we do it anyway.

It's surprisingly easy to trick ourselves  into feeling productive. I was productive.

Have you ever cleaned your whole room or  organized all your files just to avoid doing something more important?  That's procrastination at work.

It feels like you're doing something useful, but deep down you know you're  just avoiding the real task.

Why does procrastination happen? It's  not always about laziness. One reason is immediate gratification. Gratification right now.  immediate, which means seeking quick pleasure.

Our brain craves instant rewards, like  watching a fun video or grabbing a snack, even though that important task is still  waiting. It's still waiting for you. But you got to go see that fun video. You got  to grab that delicious snack. You crave it.

Here's another term. Cognitive overload. Whoa,  big word. Cognitive overload. Cognitive overload is that feeling of being so overwhelmed by a  big task that you avoid starting it at all.

You avoid starting that big task  because it's just overwhelming.

It's too much to think about. Cognitive  is your thinking about it. Overload, it's just too much. Too much to  think about. Cognitive overload.

Breaking that task into smaller steps can make  it much easier to handle. Here's a tip. Divide a large project into tiny manageable parts. Small  parts that you can manage. Manageable parts. When you complete a small piece, you feel accomplished.  And that motivation can help you keep going.

Have you ever made a to-do list and felt a  little rush of satisfaction just from crossing something off? Crossing something off your to-do  list. I did it. That's the power of small wins.

Here's one more phrase to remember.  Procrastination paralysis.

paralysis. Procrastination paralysis. This is uh when you're so overwhelmed by procrastination  that you freeze. So freeze is our key word here for paralysis. If you're paralyzed, you can't  move. You're frozen. So you freeze. Paralysis.

Let me start from the top again. Procrastination  paralysis is when you're so overwhelmed by procrastination that you freeze and can't  even begin. You don't even begin because you're frozen by procrastination paralysis.  It's that moment when delaying leads to total inaction. Inaction is no action. Taking no  action is inaction. [snorts] All right. What's the cost of procrastination? It's not just about  putting things off. It also increases your stress.

You're building up what's called emotional  debt. Emotional debt. The mental load of all the unfinished tasks you carry around. All that mental  load that all the thinking about that's your emotional debt. It's just building up more and  more debt. Emotional debt. The longer you delay, the heavier that debt becomes. Got to pay off  your debt. Procrastination doesn't just waste your time, it steals your peace of mind. It's  like carrying a backpack full of rocks. Nobody wants to do that. Every time you delay a task,  another rock gets added to your backpack and it's getting so heavy and you're trying to climb up  the mountain and it's getting heavier and heavier.

I used to struggle with procrastination, too.  I'd let tasks pile up until they felt like an impossible mountain. But once I started using time  blocking, I saw a big improvement. Time blocking.

I began breaking tasks into smaller parts and  dedicating just 10 or 15 minutes to each one.

It might sound simple, but those small chunks add up quickly. And before you know  it, you've made real progress.

So, how do we stop procrastinating? One  helpful technique is again time blocking.

This means setting a specific amount of  time for a task, like telling yourself, I'll just work on this for 10 minutes.

It makes getting started  easier. And once you begin, it's much easier to keep going. And don't forget  to reward yourself. Once you finish a task, give yourself a small treat. This taps into your  brain's craving for immediate gratification, but in a positive way. Yeah. Give yourself a  small treat. This taps into If it taps into it, it accesses it. It It taps into your brain's  craving for immediate gratification. Our brain craves immediate gratification. So let's give  our brain immediate gratification by doing the task that we need to do. That's a positive way  to deal with it. Rewards don't have to be big or expensive. They can be as simple as taking  a short break, having a snack, or watching an episode of your favorite show. These rewards  kind of sound like uh procrastination to me.

I don't know about you. [laughter] Sounds like  another form of procrastination. I'm rewarding myself right now. And but you're really  procrastinating. H I don't know. I don't know about this advice. Just make sure the reward  doesn't turn into another excuse to procrastinate.

That's the point I wanted to make. And that's it.  That's it for today. Hey, thank you for practicing with me again. What do you think of this style  of lesson? Is it good for you? I hope so. Good workout. Stay persistent. Stay consistent. And  if you do so, you are bound to succeed. Keep moving forward one step at a time and I shall see  you in the next English speaking practice video.