Hey, everyone.
Has this ever happened to you?
You are ready to practice your English, you know how important that is, and
you are excited to do it, you're excited to improve your English.
So you sit down to practice your English, you even know what you need to do.
But then at the end of your practice session, you feel like you can't remember
anything, you were so distracted.
You did a bunch of different things and you feel that it was not worthwhile.
And also, this is why you're not seeing the progress that you're
hoping to see in your practice.
If this is you, it means that you are not being very productive
when practicing your English.
If you're new to my channel, my name is Hadar.
I'm a non-native speaker of English.
And I'm obsessed with finding new ways and strategies to help you speak English
clearly, confidently, and with freedom.
And a big part of the work that I do is help you practice effectively.
To practice effectively means that you need to focus on what you're
practicing, how you're practicing.
But also in this video, I'm going to give you some productivity tips to help you
get the best out of your practice session.
Whether it's 10 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day, an hour a day, making sure that
you're doing the things that will keep you not distracted and super focused
on the things that you want to achieve.
Because I guarantee: if you do that - and this has nothing to do specifically
with English, well, maybe a little bit, but not just related to English - if
you do that, I guarantee that you'll start seeing bigger and better results
in your English speaking experience.
Are you ready?
Great.
Now, if you're not following me on Instagram just yet, I'm inviting you
to come say hi at @hadar.accentsway.
I share daily content there.
Or you can come and visit my website at hadarshemesh.com, where you can get a lot
of free resources to practice effectively.
All right?
Let's get started.
The first productivity tip for your English practice is to plan ahead
and schedule it in your calendar.
So at the beginning of each week, I recommend that you plan what
you wanna practice that week.
Whether it's focusing on grammar - and if you want to focus on grammar,
decide what grammar topics you want to cover and practice and implement.
If it's vocabulary, decide exactly what it is that you want to improve.
If it's practicing speaking, decide where and when you're gonna be meeting
with people to practice speaking.
So, instead of just starting your day and starting your practice, plan
at the beginning of the week or the end of the previous week, and plan
what it is that you wanna focus on.
Then schedule it.
Every day, decide when exactly you're going to do it and
what you're going to do.
That will save you a lot of decision making.
Usually, when we need to make a lot of decisions and, you know,
like when we practice English, we need to decide what we wanna learn
and what would help us improve.
Then, there is this thing called 'decision fatigue'.
When we have a lot of decisions to make, our brain gets really
tired and we feel exhausted.
So by the time we arrive to practicing the things that we said that we're
gonna practice, we feel so defeated because we had to make all these
different decisions before even starting.
You know, which video to learn, what topic to learn, where to look for it.
You know, what time in the day should I practice?
Even though these may sound like small decisions, these are still decisions
that your brain needs to make.
And the more decisions you have to make, the more exhausted you will feel
by the time you start your practice.
Try to eliminate as many decisions as possible before your practice session.
Now, also when it's scheduled, you schedule everything in your day around it.
And really try to make it non-negotiable.
So for example, if you decide to practice between 9:30 to 10:00 AM
every day, or three times a week, then make sure that you're not
scheduling other things: not doctor's appointments, not conversations with
friends, not, you know, work meetings.
Because this is your practice time and you need to take it seriously.
Okay?
So if you make it non-negotiable, it would be easier for you to commit to doing it.
Another thing that I want you to take into consideration is to
understand how it is that you like to learn and how you learn best.
For some people, it's best to learn first thing in the morning.
For others, it's best to do it right before lunch so you know that once
you're done with that, you get to go to your lunch break and, you know,
like that's some kind of a reward.
For other people, you wanna do it at the end of the day,
without all the distractions of the day to day life, right?
Like of work or family or whatever it is.
It's up to you to know when you learn best, when your brain works best.
So when you schedule your practice time, do it according to what feels the
easiest or where you perform the best.
Where it's easiest for you to retain information, and not so hard.
And you don't have to learn it again and again and again, or watch a lesson again
and again, and again, to understand it.
Sometimes at the end of the day, you might be too tired for it.
And then, you know, even though you practice, it might be worthless, right?
In comparison to doing it at 6:00 AM before the house wakes up,
and then you have time and you really, really get it clearly, and
then it's a lot more effective.
So, take that into consideration.
It's not all or nothing.
It's not 'practice no matter what'.
If you don't have time to do it at a time where you know it's easier for
you to retain information, so maybe it's best for you to not even do it,
but not to do it and feel frustrated, and as if it's not effective.
Another thing that is really, really important to be more productive
in your English practice is to focus on one topic at a time.
Don't try to learn 5-6 different things, not even 2 different
things when you are practicing in a given time slot during the day.
Right?
So if you wanna focus on vocabulary, great.
Practice your vocabulary, learn one word, two words, not too many, you know.
And I have additional resources on how to practice your grammar
and vocabulary effectively.
And I'm gonna link to that in the description.
But really, like it's really important to focus on one thing.
Even if it's just 15 minutes a day, even if it's just like 30 minutes.
But when you are more focused, you can go deeper than when you're trying
to learn a bunch of different things.
And here is one more important thing that I'm gonna say.
Whenever you learn something new, there will always be
something else that comes up.
Either you'll remember something that you've been wanting to learn for a while,
or you'll come across a word that you'd be like, "Oh, I don't know this word.
I need to learn it."
And you'd be really tempted to go and search it and, you know,
try to learn that in addition.
And this is a big mistake.
Because when you multitask and when you try to learn a bunch of things, your
brain is not working as effectively.
And it would be really hard for you to understand both things, or all
three things or four things or five things that you're trying to learn,
versus you just focusing on that one thing that you need to learn and that
you said that you're gonna learn.
So let's say you're starting to learn, and then you're reading something.
And then you see this word and you're like, "Ah, I've been meaning to find
out the meaning of this word", instead of going and looking for it online,
just have an empty piece of paper next to you and write down that word.
Right?
And let's say you continue practicing, and then you remember, "Oh, I really wanted
to learn more about auxiliary verbs."
Great, just write it down.
Don't go and try to find out more information about that as
you're trying to learn the thing that you said you're gonna learn.
Right?
Because this is a sure way to spread yourself too thin and, you know, trying
to learn too many things at a given time.
And once you have that list of all the things that came up for you in your
practice session, and let's say you collect all those things throughout the
week - cause you had already planned, you know, what you're gonna practice
in that given week - you can use that in your next planning session, right?
So at the end of the week, you'll look at that page.
You'll be like, "This is what I need to practice this week."
And then you'll plan accordingly, but you'll have topics that are
relevant, topics that came up for you and you know that you need them for
sure cause you're aware that you're lacking some information there.
This is how you choose what to work on.
By the way, I talk a lot about what exactly to practice and how
to identify the things that will really help you see great results.
I really love following the '80/20 rule' when choosing what to
practice, and I highly recommend that you watch my episodes about it.
And I'm gonna link to all of them in the description below.
Really, if you want to work more productively and effectively, you're
gonna want to watch those lessons.
The last thing I'm gonna talk about is to create for yourself
a distraction-free zone.
It's so hard to stay focused these days.
You start doing one thing and then you get an email notification, a
WhatsApp notification, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok - all of
those things that keep drawing your attention to anything but the thing
that you wanted to do and to focus on.
Right?
You might start your English practice and then your mom calls or your sister calls
or your daughter calls or your son calls.
And then of course, you can't continue doing what it is that you need to do.
it's really important to create for yourself a distraction-free environment.
Meaning, if your phone tends to distract you and to draw your attention, then make
sure that the phone is turned off and is in the other room, not even next to
you so you're not tempted to turn it on.
And give yourself, you know, like 20 minutes or 30 minutes
of just focus time, without any distractions, without your phone.
If you tend to work on your laptop and you're, you know, it's so easy
for you to open another browser and check your email really quickly, right?
Or, you know, have your WhatsApp in your browser.
Or maybe look for the definition of words or go research something on YouTube.
If that's what you're likely to do when practicing, then I recommend first
of all, working with one browser and being really disciplined in that sense.
But also there are apps that can block access to some sites.
You can put a block on Facebook or even Google for, let's say 20 or 30
minutes until you know that you are done with your practice and then
you can go and do your research, or just continue on with your day.
It is so important to manage distractions, really.
Because when you're able to stay focused - and I highly recommend not exceeding the
length of, let's say 25 minutes - and then you can take a break and come back, right?
So the brain can stay focused short periods of time and you
need to take breaks in between.
But when you take breaks, don't go on your phone immediately or don't go
and watch a YouTube video immediately.
Go walk around, stretch, dance, and then come back and do the rest of the work.
Or just do a 25-minute practice session once a day, and that's it.
All right.
So, when you follow these productivity tips, I think it would be really
easy for you to stay more focused.
And that would make your English practice a lot more effective.
Now I have a question for you.
What is your productivity tip or strategy that has helped you stay
focused when practicing your English or when doing any other kind of work?
For me, for sure, working in a distraction-free zone has
been extremely helpful and has improved my productivity by a lot.
So I really want you to try it out.
But also, planning out would be my second best advice for you for staying
productive and starting to see more and more results in your English.
All right.
So I can't wait to hear your recommendations.
And if you have any other questions, please feel free to
share them in the comments below.
Now, if you like this video, consider sharing it with your friends and family
members, with your students, whoever you think might benefit from this video.
I really appreciate you.
Thank you so much for being here.
And I can't wait to see you next week in the next video.
Bye.