How to Improve Your English Daily
Are you a “can-do everything” and a “multitasker” type of person? Let me convince you into decreasing the huge number of goals you’ve got, for a couple and actually attainable ones.
Hello everyone and welcome back to a new edition on: How to Improve Your English Daily! In every new article I look forward to publishing, I always aim to bring new ways to not only improve our English skills, but also set a stronger life foundation as a whole.
Who am I to do so? Another human being living their life in 2024, tho neurodiverse, you can take that as an extra spark of outside of the regular thinking.
Since I chose to acknowledge my future as ultimately, my very own responsibility, life has only become better, lighter, and feeling this sense of overall freedom is non-negotiable — Stoic some may say.
Enough of me, let’s dive into today’s topics! Shall we?
Index
1 — Limit your goal count — setting yourself for success
2 — Group activity — Team random project creation
3 — Solo activity — Essay writer-to-be
Extra → If you’d like you can join our weekly meetings to practice your English in real time! Here’s the link to sign up.
I do encourage you to jump straight to the point you find the most attractive rather than reading everything out of behavioral habit.
Limit your goal count — setting yourself for success
I am well-known for having a lot of parallel activities at any given moment. Being called crazy, “running” all of the time, and “you should slow down”, yet… I feel like all of these things just aren’t enough and honestly feel I’m able to achieve so much more.
I feel like all of these things just aren’t enough and honestly feel I’m able to achieve so much more…
I’ve had routines such as studying medicine, ballet classes, modern dance classes, choir, and going to English classes all at once. Then a more recent one, working a 9–6 job, writing these articles series, being part of a just-starting org to enable Uruguay in the space-related themed subjects, doing a machine learning program, hitting the gym daily, a side hustle-to-be, more, more and more. Why don’t I ever feel fulfilled?!
Why don’t I ever feel fulfilled ?!
Now I do have the answer. I’m splitting my attention so much every day, that I’m not paying enough attention to anything really, to the real point I’m able to.
How? Well, I started by declining offers.
At no single moment did I slack off on any of my ongoing goals, I’ve actually played them pretty well. However, I know down deep inside, at heart, that pretty well is not truly me, nor enough. Not that doing pretty well is not enough, is more than enough in several personal situations. In my case, at the moment, I know that I can do more and feel the best.
How? Well, I started by declining offers. By turning down some, I’m able to give more to what I know will give me the greatest return. For instance, at the moment I’m focusing on these 3 main goals:
- Improving as much as I can at my job — gotta support the family!
- Increasing the number of articles I publish monthly, without compromising quality.
- Giving the best presentation I can about my machine learning final project.
Well, hitting the gym daily and eating accordingly is always a must to get all of these done!
Isn’t it just so interesting how declining some offers or putting some not-so-good relationships aside, doesn’t actually shrink our opportunities but actually enables us to be better? and lighter!
Several articles in this series contain my point of view — based on my own neurodiverse human experience and book-reading — regarding more not always actually meaning better. There’re so much more scenarios in life in which if you decide to stop saying yes to everyone and everything, you actually live, your life, the way you know in your gut is the way to go.
80–20 rule — Pareto Principle
Tho this rule’s all over the internet, books, podcasts, etc., I’ve always passed by and never actually sat and thoroughly thought about it. It’s too simple, why would it require my attention? That’s a known issue for me.
This rule is all about understanding how the 80% of our results, actually come from 20% of our efforts… give yourself a minute to think about this.
1First off — Identifying High-Impact Activities. By keeping this rule in mind, you can identify which activities are yielding not only the most significant results, but also how you feel when pursuing them. For instance, I’ve noticed that certain types of articles or topics tend to garner more attention and engagement than others, I can either rely on them, or continue with my gut which’s been in my opinion, better. The results I’m aiming for are not more views, but more engagement from those looking to work on themselves and grow.
2Second — Streamlining Commitments. This feeling of being spread too thin across multiple activities, my focus being diluted and potentially my effectiveness has raised the biggest red flag for me. By applying the 80–20 rule, I’m able to assess which activities contribute most significantly with my long-term goals and which might be less essential. Decluttering my schedule by reducing or eliminating the less impactful 80% activities, enables be to focus on the crucial 20%, thus bringing me closer to my cause.
fighting over nonsense falls under not-priority column
3Third — Prioritization and Decision-Making. Highlight the importance of prioritizing tasks that have the greatest impact. For instance, if you’re looking to secure a promotion, then focusing on tasks that are directly visible to or valued by decision-makers, can be more fruitful than tasks with less direct impact on your career progression, thus fighting over nonsense falls under not-priority column.
4Fourth — Enhancing Satisfaction and Fulfillment. When feelings of not being fulfilled despite being very active and busy, the 80–20 rule can help by guiding you to invest more in the activities that not yield the most results but also bring the most personal satisfaction. Focusing on these rewarding activities can increase your sense of accomplishment and contentment.
Applying the 80–20 rule allows you to optimize these resources by concentrating on what’s truly effective and valuable
5Fifth — Efficient Resource Allocation. In our day-to-day basis allocating resources such as time, attention and energy tend to oppose quite the challenge. Applying the 80–20 rule allows you to optimize these resources by concentrating on what’s truly effective and valuable, rather than spreading them thinly over many tasks with minimal returns.
Hope my brief summary of this amazing rule helps you organize better your life. In my personal perspective I’ve got to keep this one around, mainly in post its or something of that sort, my nature is to go all out and work on as many things as humanly possible, however, nowadays I’m focusing more on output as I’m on my way to specialize in some aspects of my career and not so in the research of interests' part of life.
Which of your activities are truly delivering outcomes, and which are not as effective?
Identifying these can dramatically increase your productivity and satisfaction.
Group activity — Team random project creation
Let’s get the organizing started! Working as a team to conquer a goal bigger than ourselves, hey, there we’ve already got at least purpose down. Let me explain more about this.
As per usual, according to my methodology when it comes to learning, focusing in rather harder and more anxiety-provoking subject shift focus from our own insecurities — accent, lack of vocabulary, new to the language, etc — to actually getting the job done.
For instance, let’s give our team which’s looking forward to learning English, a project for them to organize, gather resources, create maybe a Google Drive for it or some Word docs. All in English.
By doing this, not only are we improving the overall knowledge of the English language among the group, given all documentation shall be written wholly in English, then vocabulary, grammar, speaking, all of these skills are being worked on; but most of all our team's relationship!
The How
I already gave you the why, added value for both your team’s English skills and overall relationship. Now I’ll be focusing more on how to make this happen.
First off, list some projects for the teams to work on prior to the activity. While asking people to come up with a project might be exiting and an interesting way to start, it does take much of the attention from the learning side of things…
Here I’ll list some suggestions:
- Tech Podcast — or the area you prefer
- Marketing Campaign
- Fashion Show for Charity
Now let’s say we have 1 group of 6 people; we chose “Fashion Show for Local Charity”, and now they need to team up and come with a high-level plan of what’s needed.
No need for real data gathering, I’d suggest asking the team to do some of these:
- Brief description of what the event’s about
- Invite letter for attendants
- Official letter for asking sponsor's help
- A local venue and schedule
- Thank you letters for all attendants
All in all,
Here we’re aiming high, we’re looking forward to those nicely written letters, professional request letters for sponsors and amazing thank you letters for all the attendants… or well, emails, call me old fashion haha.
Now, take a minute and look back to the very beginning of the activity, were they immersed in not being amazing English speakers? or were they rather distracted by the thought of: “how am I going to plan this charity fashion show?”
Amazing, isn’t it?
Solo activity — Essay writer-to-be
Let me start by stating this must be one of my favorite activities at the moment, but my most all-time dreaded activity…
When I first started writing, I was quite young and was mostly because — luckily enough — my parents sent me to English classes, not because I loved writing, I actually hated it.
Honestly, writing has to be my all-time insecurity, even worse than any body-related insecurity.
Hated?! That’s a rather strong statement, isn’t it? It made me feel so little and a human failure, I could almost never get my real message through, the ideas were all over the place and didn’t make much sense. My English teachers would always rate me below average, made me re-write them fully and tell me how I wouldn’t follow what was taught in class. Honestly, writing has to be my all-time insecurity, even worse than any body-related insecurity.
Now whenever someone tells me how nicely I write these articles, or how amazingly I get the message through, I just get the chills. How in the world did I turn out from the worst writer across all my school to high school student time, to be told I write actually good!! So, if I could, you very much can as well!!
Disclaimer: I know I write articles nowadays; however, essays are indeed my favorite.
The Basics
First off, if you’re just starting out, write about something you’re passionate about. No need for a super-duper perfect politics related topics, unless you’re into those of course haha. Or even outstanding use of vocabulary.
What you do need however, is to do some prior research about the topic you chose, some brainstorming here and there, pinpoint the top aspects you want your readers to understand, gathering some official quotes and listing any bibliography always adds some extra points — hehe.
we’ll be focusing on just getting the writing started!
Let’s start small and conquer from there.
It’s very much known that a good essay needs at least 4 paragraphs: an introduction, two body paragraphs and a conclusion. This structure sets a clear path for your ideas, making it easier not only for you while writing, but in reality, for the reader to better understand you.
We won’t be focusing on any specific sub type of essay, like argumentative, expository, narrative, descriptive essays, etc; we’ll be focusing on just getting the writing started!
Before doing the actual writing, make sure you organize your research and thoughts into an outline accordingly, this helps the flow of information a whole lot. Additionally, ensure your outline can cover all 4 paragraphs.
Introduction
I’d strongly suggest starting with a bold statement or any interesting hook to capture the reader’s interest. For instance:
- some surprising fact
- a question
- the boldest statement you can come up with, etc
always remaining respectful, am I right?
The introduction is the perfect place for setting some background on your topic, setting the context helps the reader stablish themselves for what’s to come. You can also wrap your introduction up by adding a thesis-like statement that presents your main argument or point of view.
Body Paragraphs
Even though 2 paragraphs are the standard for when you’re just starting out, you can also stretch it up-to 3 if done right.
Each of your paragraphs need to be focused on a single main idea. You can template them out at first by:
- starting each paragraph with a topic-related sentence which introduces the idea.
- A fact about the idea — for instance, if I’m writing about the pros and cons of remote work, I’d start the pro-remote with a statistic which supports my case, and from there I’d be able to expand.
- A question to engage the reader with — keeping the theme or the pros & cons of remote work, given this is my cons remote work paragraph I’d use something like: How frequently are you not in pajamas?
Follow any of these suggestions with supporting statements towards the main focus of each paragraph, use examples, quotes, or data to back up your point in order to make your writing even more reliable.
Conclude Your Essay
The big finale! Take this opportunity to wrap up your ideas in the best way possible — do remember, small attainable steps, but engaging anyways — there’s a bunch of templated ways to start the conclusion with:
- All in all, — important to keep that coma there!!
- To wrap things up,
- In summary,
- As has been demonstrated/shown,
- Taking everything into account,
- Overall, it might be said...
- On the whole…
Here you’ll be restating your point in a new way, linking it back to the points you’ve discussed, ending with a closing though or a call to action always wraps the whole writing pretty nicely, you can even hook readers to wait for a follow-up essay!
Review, Revise & Feedback
Drafting is of utmost importance, don’t aim to have the essay done completely in a single try. Commit to doing 1–2 drafts beforehand, ideas come clearer as you go.
Revision comes a close second to drafting, reading through your essay looking for new ways to improve the expression of your ideas helps a whole lot for a much better outcome. Check the flow of your arguments, make sure all points are clearly and logically presented.
Edits — this entails grammar, punctuation, and any spelling errors you might have. Consider style and word choices as well.
Feedback! — If possible, have someone you know read your essay and provide feedback. Fresh eyes can catch errors and provide valuable insights as if your message is going through as you mean to.
My Grain of Sand
Given you’ve got to this point, most likely you’re thinking but who’s going to read my stuff!!, let me tell you, I volunteer!
Here’s the link to a Google Forms for you to submit as many writings as you’d like!
To bring this article to a close,
don’t ever lose faith on yourself regarding any type of improvement. We’re not only ever-evolving beings, but also there’s proof we’re able to change, for the good or the bad…
Neuroplasticity! Conquer discipline when it comes to your goals, believe in yourself to become whomever you wish to become. I am on that journey myself and aiming to help as many people as I can get is currently on the works.
Thanks for investing your time and believing in my writing!
I do want to highlight that feedback’s truly appreciated, even if it’s not straight-up positive, do help me improve and share better posts each month!
Hopefully, I’ll be posting once a month (twice if possible).
Next post: beginning of May 2024.
Follow me on GitHub here. Also, here’s my LinkedIn just in case.
Next article’s index:
- The power of repetition & rehearsal
- Group Activity — The Interview
- Solo Activity — Article writer-to-be
