21 Common English Words & Phrases on Time Management [from Laura Vanderkam's TED Talk]

How often do you watch a TED Talk either to practice your English skills or

to learn more on a topic you're curious about. And while watching,

at some point you start to feel frustrated, annoyed,

stuck,

or even discouraged because the speaker used a word you had never heard before.

In English,

there are certainly multiple ways to boost your English vocabulary

and in this Confident English lesson today,

I want to share with you one of my favorites.

When I help students build their English vocabulary,

I love asking them to choose a TED Talk or a podcast on a topic

they're interested in. Then we start to explore in-depth.

We take note of any new vocabulary including idioms,

Fraser, verbs, collocations, and more.

We listen carefully to how the speaker uses those words using

context clues to better understand the meaning. From there,

we might confirm understanding using a dictionary to help us,

and then I encourage my students to create their own example sentences

using that new vocabulary in a sentence of their own that they might

use in their real life.

Doing this helps my students understand how they might use this vocabulary

and their everyday English conversations.

It also helps them remember this vocabulary more easily.

This process is precisely what I want to do with you today.

Together we'll explore 21 English words and phrases from Laura Vanderkam's,

TED Talk on time management. If you don't already know,

Laura Vanderkam is a time management expert with a podcast called

Before Breakfast. In that podcast,

she shares bite-sized productivity advice.

With each word and phrase in this lesson,

I'll share with you its meaning and how we might use it in an

example sentence.

If you visit this lesson at my Speak Confident English website,

and I recommend that you do,

you'll also find the specific sentence from the TED Talk

so that you see how the speaker used the word originally, in context.

You'll find a link to this lesson in the notes below the video.

By following this process today,

not only will you learn new vocabulary and remember it more easily,

you'll also gain strategies that will help you with effective time

management so you can accomplish what you want.

Now, before we get started, if you don't already know,

I'm Annemarie with Speak Confident English.

Everything I do is designed to help you get the confidence you want for your

life and work in English.

One way I do that is by sharing my weekly Confident English lessons that

include my top fluency and confidence-building strategies,

targeted grammar topics,

and lessons on advanced vocabulary just like in this one today.

So while you're here,

make sure you subscribe to my Speak Confident English Channel so you never miss

one of these lessons. To get started,

let me give you some background on this particular TED Talk,

and to help me do that, I have a question for you.

How often do you feel that there are not enough hours in the day,

week, or month for you to accomplish everything you want?

Like me,

you might wonder how some people seem to have enough time to get it all done

despite juggling a busy career, a family, and active social life.

In this particular TED Talk that we're going to explore together,

Laura Vanderkam shares how busy people manage their time and

how you can do it too.

In this process to demystify time management,

she shares her own experience and perception of time.

She dispels the illusion that there isn't enough time,

and most importantly,

she offers practical steps to help us build the lives we want

with the time we've got to make this lesson easier to navigate.

I've separated it into three parts. Part one,

savor the Irony. At the start of this TED Talk,

Laura gives us a look into her daily normal life,

and in doing so,

she describes her relatable and rocky relationship with time

management.

Here I want to share with you 12 words and phrases you'll hear in the first four

minutes of this TED Talk. Now,

before I share that first new vocabulary word I want to mention,

one important thing. After you watch this lesson,

I want you to do two things. One,

visit this lesson at the Speak Confident English website where you will see the

specific sentences Laura uses and how she uses these words in context.

After you visit this lesson, I want you to watch this TED Talk.

This will give you the opportunity to immediately hear all the words

that you've learned today and understand them easily.

You'll get to enjoy listening to this TED Talk in English without worrying

about feeling stuck, frustrated, or annoyed. Also,

at the end of this lesson today,

I'm going to share with you how you can apply what you learned today in your own

English practice so that you can choose other TED Talks and podcasts in

the future, understand,

learn and remember new vocabulary and enjoy those particular

episodes that you choose to listen to.

The first phrase on our list today is to be on time.

This means to arrive or do something at an appropriate time.

In other words,

it means to be punctual and here's an example sentence of how you

might use it. The plane wasn't on time,

so our layover was five hours long.

This particular phrase is extremely common,

so I'd like to stop just for a moment and encourage you to immediately create

your own example sentence using this phrase.

Can you think of a time when you were or weren't on time?

Take a moment to write down your sentence and then let's go on to the next word.

Word number two, tardiness.

Tardiness is a noun that means the quality of being late or

slow. For example, if you arrive at a meeting late, you might say,

I apologize for my tardiness. There was so much traffic this morning.

Word number three is irony.

Irony is a noun that means to use words to

express something opposite of the literal meaning.

It can also be a situation that produces the opposite result than

what was originally intended. Before I give you an example sentence,

I want to talk a little bit about the context in which the speaker

uses this word irony. As I mentioned,

Laura Vanderkam is a time management expert and in this TED Talk

she shares a story of being late to her own speech

on time management.

It's a perfect illustration of irony and here's an example sentence.

The irony of this chaotic situation is it will actually improve

and calm the situation.

The fourth word on our list is a frail verb To shave off,

to shave off means to cut a very thin piece

from an object or a surface.

It can also be used to mean to reduce and as simple example

sentences.

Katie looked for ways to shave off expenses from the event.

And now another phrasal verb to come up with.

To come up with something means to think of an idea or a plan.

For example, if you're problem-solving at work, you might say,

I need a little bit of time to come up with a solution.

Number six on our list today is an idiom to have something

backward. This means to understand something in the opposite way.

For example,

she had this situation backward and thought everyone had forgotten her birthday.

If we were to continue that sentence, we might discover that in the end,

her coworkers or friends through her a surprise party,

but during the day no one said anything,

so she made the assumption she had the opposite understanding that

everyone had forgotten. Another idiom is to keep track of something.

This means to monitor something including all the changes that are taking

place. For example,

I always keep track of my expenses to make sure I'm staying within

my budget. Number eight is aftermath.

An aftermath is a situation that is a direct result

of an accident, a crime,

or some other unfortunate situation. For example,

there are calls for a new election in the aftermath of the recent

scandal. The next one on our list is the frail verb to wind up.

Now this one can be tricky because of course the word wind looks

exactly like the noun wind if we're talking about the

weather, but when we're using a verb or Fraser verb,

this word is wind.

To wind up to wind up means to end up

doing something or to finally be somewhere. For example,

if she doesn't get here soon, she'll wind up missing the appointment.

An alternative way to say this is if she doesn't get here soon,

she'll miss the appointment in the end. Alright,

we have three more words and phrases to review before we get to part two

of this TED Talk. Number 10 is the verb to accommodate.

To accommodate means to have enough space for something or someone.

For example,

we cannot accommodate more than a hundred people in this theater.

In other words, we don't have enough space for more than a hundred people.

Number 11,

the adjective elastic For this one,

I want you to think about a rubber band and the way that it stretches when you

pull on it. When something is elastic,

it means it's adaptable to the demands of a particular situation

or need, and here's an example sentence.

Several months ago in the Confident Women community,

we discussed the idea that friendships are elastic.

In other words, friendships adapt over time,

and now number 12, for the first part of this particular TED Talk is the idiom.

To have it all this means to have or to get

everything someone wants. For example,

if you use social media quite a bit,

it's easy to assume that someone else has it all,

money, success, love, and so on.

When you watch this TED Talk and you reach the four minute mark,

you'll arrive at part two. It's not a priority.

In the second part of her talk,

Laura redefines what we really mean when we say that we don't have

time for something or someone to reframe our thoughts on this.

Laura uses the following words and phrases. Number one,

the idiom to catch up with someone.

This means to learn or discuss the most recent news with someone.

For example,

I can't wait to catch up with my friends and family when I go home for vacation.

Number two is the noun priority.

This is a noun that means something is highly important and it

takes precedence over others. For example,

at the moment, my priority is to spend more time with my family.

What that means is the most important thing in my life right now

is to spend more time with my family.

Number three for this section is the frail verb to figure out

this means to solve or to completely understand someone

or something. For example, if a coworker brings some cookies to work,

you might say, these cookies are delicious.

I need to figure out how you made them. Now,

when I shared the definition,

I highlighted that this can mean to understand something or someone.

If you meet someone new and you have a strange interaction,

you might tell someone else about it and say, I can't figure her out.

In other words, I don't really understand her.

And now number four,

for part two of this talk is the idiom to look back over.

This means to think about a past event,

to review or reflect on something, and here's an example.

I love to document my learning When I'm working to improve

a new skill,

that might mean that I document learning a new language by

regularly recording myself or keeping a journal where I write down all the new

vocabulary I've been learning. If I'm working on my painting skills,

it means keeping some of my old paintings that I don't really like,

but that allow me to look back over time to see the

progress I've made. So an example sentence might be,

when you're learning a new skill,

it's important to document and look back over what you've learned

to determine your progress, and now part three,

when you watch this TED Talk and you reach the seven minute mark,

you'll arrive at part three. Break it down.

This is where Laura shares practical tips to help us effectively

manage our time and actively build our ideal lives.

In sharing these tips, Laura uses the following words and phrases.

Number one, the Fraser verb to break down something.

This means to deconstruct or to divide something

into smaller parts. For example,

if someone gives you a task at work that is unclear,

you might ask for clarification by saying,

would you mind breaking down how you want me to write this report?

The second one in this section is also a phrasal verb to think through

something.

This means to consider all the outcomes or aspects of something.

For example, while aiming to solve a problem at work, you might say,

let's take a few days to think through our options. Number three,

low opportunity cost.

This is a noun that means the minimal number of resources

or the minimal amount of energy required to take

advantage of an opportunity.

Let me give you an example sentence and then we'll talk about it a bit more.

Recreational reading has a low opportunity cost for

improved wellbeing.

Sometimes we assume that to improve our wellbeing,

we need to invest an enormous amount of time, effort, and energy,

or we need to change our schedule completely.

But the truth is something as simple as recreational

reading for five or 10 minutes a day can lead to

tremendous outcomes.

Something that does not require a lot of time or

a lot of your resources has great impact.

We have just two more words to go and then I have some practice questions for

you, plus how you can continue using the process you've learned today

to build your English vocabulary. In the final part of this TED Talk,

you'll hear the verb To minimize this means to lessen or

reduce. For example,

perhaps we should minimize the time we spend on social media,

and lastly, the idiom to putter around.

This means to spend time doing small jobs or things that

aren't really important in a slow relaxed way.

For example, if someone asks you about your weekend, you might respond,

I didn't really do much this weekend. I just putter around in the garden.

Now that you have these 21 English words and phrases from Laura Vanderkam's

TED Talk on time management, I want you to do a few things. Number one, again,

visit this lesson at the Speak Confident English website.

There you'll find the specific sentences Lori uses with

the words you've learned today so that you can see them in context.

Then I want you to watch this TED Talk.

Listen for the words that you've learned today.

It will reinforce your learning and you'll be able to enjoy the TED Talk,

understanding every part.

This process that you've learned today can be used time and time again

just like I mentioned at the start.

You can select a TED Talk or a podcast on something you're interested in.

Then review it with a focus on finding new words and phrases.

Write all of them down and include the specific sentence that was

used.

Use that sentence to determine the meaning based on context

if you can. Once you've done that,

confirm your understanding with a dictionary and don't forget to create

your own example sentence. Now,

this is something that you can do over a period of time.

You don't have to do it all in one practice session.

You might spend 10 or 15 minutes listening to a segment

of a podcast taking note of new words,

and then continue that process a couple of days later.

Once you finish that step,

then you can go on to the next steps and you can split this up or break

down this process over time.

Doing all of this will help you boost your English vocabulary and

help you understand TED Talks podcasts and more.

To finish, I want you to do one final thing.

I want you to choose two or three new words or phrases from this particular

lesson and create an example sentence.

You can share your examples with me in the comments below.

If you found this lesson helpful to you,

I would love to know and you can tell me in one very simple way.

Give this lesson a thumbs up here on YouTube.

Share your example sentences with me and subscribe to the Speak Confident

English Channel so you never miss one of my Confident English lessons.

Thank you so much for joining me, and I look forward to seeing you next time.