14 Better Ways to Say 'I'm Busy' | What to Say Instead

Hey, it's Annemarie with Speak Confident English.

This is as always exactly where you want to be every week to get the

confidence you want for your life and work in English.

In today's Confident English lesson, we're going to do something I love to do,

which is helping you advance your vocabulary skills through powerful

adjectives,

interesting collocations and idioms that English speakers use to better

express themselves.

I want you to express yourself the way you want in English and to do it with

confidence. One of the best ways to do that is to expand your vocabulary.

And today our focus is on alternatives to saying I'm busy.

I want to share this lesson with you on the topic of feeling busy right now,

because we're getting to the end of the year.

That of course means finishing all of our goals and projects that we had

for this year. It also means the holiday season,

which is definitely fun and exciting,

but it can be overwhelmingly busy as well. Of course,

after the new year, at least here in the United States,

we get into tax season and setting new goals.

And that is a whole other kind of feeling busy.

In today's Confident English lesson,

you're going to learn 14 alternative ways to talk about feeling

busy in English.

Some of the vocabulary you learn today is perfect for those one time events

or unexpected events that happen on a single day,

that result in feeling very busy at that time, and maybe ending the day,

feeling a bit tired or exhausted. And in other cases,

you're also going to learn language that you can use for talking about being

busy over an extended period of time and how that feels

with these powerful adjectives, collocations, idioms, and phrasal verbs.

I'll also provide example sentences,

so you can see exactly how to use this language correctly,

and you'll have the opportunity to practice as well.

We're going to start this lesson today with powerful adjectives and collocations

you can use in place of saying I'm busy.

And the first example on our list is to be slammed.

We often use this with the words at work,

to be slammed at work or to be slammed at the office.

When you're slammed it means that you are extremely busy and overwhelmed often

unexpectedly. For example,

if you work at a restaurant or a grocery store, you know,

there are some days when unexpectedly,

everyone decides to go out to eat,

or everyone decides to go to the grocery store.

This is also true when there may be a weather storm or snow storm coming.

And again, everyone goes to the grocery store in advance.

When those things happen, you can say we were slammed at work tonight,

or we were slammed at work today.

Similar to being slammed at work is to be swamped at work.

And again, this simply means to be extremely busy and even overwhelmed.

These two words are great synonyms. And as a result,

you have more flexibility or more options.

When you're choosing to talk about how busy you are at work,

just as you would say, we were slammed at work today.

You could also say we were swamped at work today,

or maybe you have a large number of projects that you're working on,

and all of them have deadlines that are approaching very soon.

So you might say I'm really swamped at work right now,

a third fun option that also means an overwhelming amount of work is to be

snowed under. Of course, with this expression,

you can imagine being under a mountain of snow.

And that definitely would feel overwhelming.

I have several students who are tax accountants,

and I know from the months of January to April in the United States,

my students are snowed under with paperwork.

Before we move on to several idioms we can use,

let's talk about one more collocation. And this one is slightly different.

It may be when you aren't busy enough,

or you have so much time that you're trying to be busy.

You're trying to find something to keep yourself occupied.

In those situations,

we use the collocation to keep someone busy or to

keep oneself busy. For example,

you might say to a colleague, if you've got extra time, let me know.

I definitely have some tasks to keep you busy.

And now let's move on to a variety of idioms that we have to express how

busy we are and how we feel.

One of my favorites on the list today is burning the candle at both ends.

This idiom is used when we want to highlight that we are excessively

busy or working extremely hard,

and the result might be that we're overwhelmed,

feeling stressed or we've lost our peace of mind.

We also tend to use this idiom when we have an immediate deadline coming,

for example,

I'll be burning the candle at both ends this weekend to get the project done on

time.

Or our team is burning the candle at both ends in order to meet our deadline on

Friday. When we use that idiom,

it sends a clear picture of an individual or a team of people

working extremely hard for a longer than normal period of time.

While that first idiom is typically focused, when we have an immediate deadline,

another idiom that we use to talk about having a lot of work over a

lengthy period of time is to have a full plate or to

have a lot on your plate,

a third option to have your hands full.

When we use one of those idioms,

it indicates that you have so many different responsibilities right now.

And as a result,

you absolutely cannot take any more responsibility.

For example, if someone asks you to volunteer for an event,

but you know, you absolutely do not have the time to do so. You might say,

I would love to volunteer, but I can't. I've got too much on my plate right now,

or I have my hands full at work.

If a friend asks you to go out for coffee after work again, you could say,

I would love to,

but I've got a full plate this week and I can't get away similar to having your

hands full is to be up to one's eyeballs or neck

in something, for example, to be up to your eyeballs in paperwork.

As I mentioned earlier,

I have many students who are accountants and during tax season,

my students are definitely up to their eyeballs and paperwork.

What about you? Is there anything that you have on your plate right now?

And do you feel like you are up to your neck or your up to your eyeballs in that

thing? What is it?

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

When you have your plateful or you're up to your neck in something you

definitely might be at maximum capacity.

In other words, you just cannot take on anything else.

Just like the examples we used with to have your hands full,

or to have a full plate.

If someone asks you to do something and you know that you absolutely do not have

the time or the energy to do it,

you could say I'm at my maximum capacity right now. I just can't.

Another idiom and favorite on today's list that also means to

reach your maximum ability or energy level is to be at

full bandwidth. Typically, when we use that idiom,

we're talking about someone's emotional or mental energy or

ability to do something. If you've reached your full bandwidth,

you have no more emotional energy or mental energy to

give to something else.

If we've reached maximum capacity or we've reached full bandwidth,

it might be because you've bitten off more than you can

chew. The idiom here is to bite off more than you can chew.

And that means to take on more work or responsibility than you're

capable of doing.

And this often happens when we say yes to too many things.

Have you ever been in that situation at work where multiple people ask you to

take on a new responsibility and you say yes to all of them

in those situations, you may have bitten off more than you can chew.

And as a result,

you reach your maximum capacity or full bandwidth.

A great example sentence with this idiom is last week.

I agreed to take on extra responsibilities at work,

but I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew. All right,

we've got one more idiom to learn today for an alternative way to talk about how

busy you are. And we've got a phrasal verb as well.

Our last idiom is to have a lot of irons in the fire.

We use this idiom when we have multiple projects or multiple

unrelated tasks. And here's an example of how I would use this idiom.

We have three major projects with deadlines coming soon.

So I have a lot of irons in the fire at work right now.

And I'm having a difficult time focusing or concentrating on just one

thing. Before I move on to our final alternative to saying,

I'm busy. I want to pause here just for a moment.

Many of the idioms I highlighted indicate that someone may have said

yes to too many things.

I know that saying no to someone when they request something from you is really

challenging. So if you struggle with saying no,

especially in English, I have a lesson that might be helpful to you.

I have a past lesson on how to politely say no in English so that you can

avoid saying yes to too many things.

And now let's get to our final example on the list of phrasal verb to

be tied up with this.

We often use the words at the moment at the office or at

work. So these are great collocations to learn,

to be tied up at the moment, to be tied up at work,

to be tied up at the office. When we're tied up,

we are too busy at that particular moment. And as a result,

we're unable to do something else. For example,

if something unexpected happens at work,

you might call your spouse or partner and say, I'm so sorry.

I'm going to be late coming home. I'm tied up at work. Or again,

if a friend asks you to meet for drinks or coffee, you might say I'd love to,

but I'm tied up at work right now.

And now you have a variety of ways to express how busy you

are in your daily life and how it feels in this lesson.

You've learned powerful adjectives, collocations, idioms,

and phrasal verbs that you can use.

So now I want you to practice choose two or three of

your favorites from today's list and share those with example sentences of

your own in the comments below. When I teach my vocabulary lessons,

have you noticed that I always ask to select a small number and

then use them in your own example sentence with me,

the reason I do that is I want you to not only learn this new

vocabulary, I want you to remember it.

I want you to be able to use it when you're having conversations in English and

to use it effortlessly and naturally. So with that,

go ahead and choose your favorite idiom,

collocation or adjective from today's lesson and use it in your own

sentences. As always, you can share with me in the comments below.

And if you found this lesson useful to you, I would love to know.

You can tell me by giving this a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribing to the

Speak Confident English channel.

So you never miss one of my Confident English lessons.

You can leave a comment with your examples below,

and you can share this lesson with others on Facebook or by email with that.

Thank you so much for joining me, have a fantastic week.

And I look forward to seeing you next time for your Confident English lesson.