An English Lesson About Being Busy

So sometimes in life you have a busy week

and you don't get a lot done, or maybe you just don't

feel like doing stuff and you don't get a lot done.

In this English lesson,

I'll teach you some phrases you can use

to talk about those types of situations.

This past week, I had a really busy week

and I also didn't feel like doing some things.

So I'm a little bit behind right now, and I thought, well,

that would make a good English lesson topic, wouldn't it?

So once again, in this English lesson,

I'll talk about phrases you can use

to talk about a busy week or to talk about a week

where you just didn't feel like doing things.

(bright music)

The first phrase I'm going to talk

about is the phrase stick to the plan.

Normally for me, I have a plan for the week.

For making these English lessons for YouTube,

I shoot the video on a certain day

and I send the files to Jenna on a certain day

and I try to stick to the plan.

When I'm really busy

or when I don't feel like doing anything,

I remind myself that I have a plan for a reason

so I try to stick to the plan.

Do you know what stick means,

like when one thing sticks to another,

it won't come off of it?

That's why we use the verb stick.

You want to stick to the plan

so you can get done what you need to get done.

When I'm really busy, I try to remind myself

that every little bit counts.

In English when you say that every little bit counts,

it means that even if you do a small amount of a job,

you are making progress.

You can use this phrase in your English learning.

If you have a day where you don't have

a lot of time to study English, you can think, hey,

every little bit counts.

Maybe I can just listen

to an English podcast while I'm driving my car to work.

Maybe I can find a time today where I can study a little bit

of English, because every little bit counts.

If you want to make progress doing something,

even a little tiny amount of work is really helpful.

Every little bit counts.

Another great English phrase for these kinds of situations

is the phrase one step at a time.

When you think about something

and you take it one step at a time,

it means you don't think about the 10 things you need to do.

You think about each individual step and in particular,

you think about the first step.

Sometimes it can be overwhelming

to think about all of the things you need to do,

but if you think about it

and you take one step at a time,

you only need to think about the first thing you need to do

and then once that's done, you can work on the next thing.

Sometimes it's good to look at something

and take one step at a time.

Sometimes we say that you just need

to take baby steps.

In English, when we say you need to take baby steps,

it means you need to take a step,

but you can just take a small one like you're a baby.

Sometimes when you look at the thing you need to do,

it can also be overwhelming, just that first step.

So within that first step, maybe you can take baby steps.

Here's a good example.

If I was going to try and learn a new language,

I would just take baby steps at first.

I wouldn't try to have a conversation

with a native speaker of that language in the first week.

Instead, I would take baby steps.

I would learn some vocabulary.

I would do some other little things.

I would do some tiny baby steps

before I did some bigger ones.

So sometimes it's good just to take a few baby steps

before you take a big adult size step

on the thing you're doing.

Sometimes I like to think about the English phrase

one day at a time when I'm really busy

or when I don't feel like doing something.

This is similar to just taking baby steps

or one step at a time, but one day at a time simply means

think about your day,

think about what you can actually get done

in that day and get that done.

Don't worry about that you have many things to do tomorrow

or on the weekend.

Just try to think, okay, one day at a time,

what do I need to get done today?

Let me get that done

and then I'll be happy one day at a time.

In English, sometimes when we describe

making progress on something,

we use the phrases bit by bit or little by little.

When you say that you're getting something done bit by bit,

it means you're getting little pieces of it done

and you're slowly making progress.

When you say you're getting something done

little by little, it means the same thing.

You're getting little pieces done.

Sometimes it's good to just work on something

and just get it done bit by bit or little by little.

It's nice to make small progress, and if you stick

with it throughout the day, I'm using the verb stick again,

if you stick with it, then little by little,

you get a lot done

and bit by bit you get a lot done, but sometimes,

it's good just to go little by little or bit by bit.

Sometimes when you procrastinate or when you leave things

to the last minute, you end up needing to double down.

There's a few English terms in there.

When you procrastinate or leave something to the last minute

means you do something else

instead of the work you're supposed to be doing.

When you double down,

it means you have to spend twice as much time

or you need to work twice as hard,

you have to work faster and more efficiently,

and for a longer period, you need to double down

because you didn't do the work when you should have done it.

So this does happen to me sometimes.

Earlier this week I procrastinated a bit

and now it's Friday and I have to double down.

I have to work extra long

and I gotta work extra hard in order to get stuff done

that I need to get done today.

Sometimes it can be a good idea

to just take a step back.

Instead of working on what you need to work on,

it's good to just take a step back

and look at the job that you have to do.

I do this every once in a while because I feel like

when you take a step back,

when you stop working and look at the work,

you can reflect on what's working

and reflect on what isn't working and maybe make a new plan.

So sometimes when you're busy

or when you don't feel like doing something,

it's good to just take a step back, think for a little bit,

make a new plan, and then get back at it.

Well, hey, thank you so much

for watching this English lesson

where I hope you learned some English phrases

that you can use when you're having a busy week

or when you're having a week where you don't feel like doing

the things you're supposed to be doing.

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