Do you sometimes put off working on your English skills? It’s normal to avoid difficult tasks, but don’t procrastinate any longer! Come join Andrew and Suzanne for this Simplified Speech episode about the troubles everyone faces when trying to get work done.

Fun fact

Procrastination affects some groups of people more than others. While most people avoid doing important tasks occasionally, people who procrastinate habitually make up about 20% of the population. However, among college students, that number is as high as 85% to 90 %!

Expressions included in the learning materials

* Straight up

* To go down a rabbit hole

* Procrastination

* A go-getter

* An idle mind is the devil’s playground

For a complete transcript, click:

  

Sample transcript

Andrew:           Hey Suzanne. How are you?

Suzanne:        I’m good. How are you?

Andrew:           I’m doing pretty well. I had a bit of a difficult time getting myself motivated to start work this morning.

Suzanne:        Oh, why? What happened?

Andrew:           Well, I just didn’t feel like working, straight up. Does that ever happen to you?

Suzanne:        All the time. It takes me a long time to get moving and motivated sometimes, depending on the task.

Andrew:           Exactly. Me too. And so because of this, I thought it would make for an interesting episode if we talked today about procrastination.

Suzanne:        Oh!

Andrew:           A big word, procrastination.

Suzanne:        Procrastination.

Andrew:           Yeah, procrastination. What is procrastination, Suzanne? Can you give our listeners a definition?

Suzanne:        Yeah. So procrastination is when you have something that you should be doing, like an assignment or going to work, but you delay it because you don’t want to do it. So maybe the thing you have to do is overwhelming. Or maybe it’s really boring or difficult, and you just don’t want to get started.

Suzanne:        You kind of are repulsed by it, and so you do other things, like watch TV or listen to a podcast, instead of doing those tasks.

Andrew:           Yeah, procrastination is the act of not doing something you’re supposed to do because that thing is difficult or boring. Today, we’re going to do a Simplified Speech episode, where we have a totally natural conversation, but we speak slower than we usually do in our everyday lives.

Suzanne:        That’s right. And if you guys want to take full advantage of this episode, we recommend that you visit Culips.com, and become a member. Because Culips members get access to our learning materials, and that includes full transcripts of the podcasts, detailed vocabulary explanations, and quizzes for every episode. So using the learning materials, we think is the best way to study with us. So if you’re not a member, sign up today.

Andrew:           Yeah. And a shout-out to all of you who are members out there, thanks a bunch. We really appreciate your support.

Suzanne:        Yes, absolutely. OK, Andrew, enough procrastinating. Let’s get to our topic: procrastination.

Andrew:           OK. So, Suzanne, would you describe yourself, overall, as someone who procrastinates often, or are you more of a go-getter?

Suzanne:        Hmm, this is a very good question, Andrew.

Andrew:           Ooh.

Suzanne:        Because I think … I’m gonna answer your question with another question. Maybe that’s procrastinating the answer. Do you ever have the feeling that you have a different impression of yourself than o...