Nobody told you your own voice was a focus tool
TL/DR:
Talking to yourself out loud forces one thought at a time, which makes prioritizing easier and lowers overwhelm.
In your head, thoughts pile up and jumble, so you ruminate and spin out without acting. Speaking pulls your brain into a single, linear path.
Using "you" or your own name (aka “distanced self-talk”) lowers your stress response and sharpens your thinking without draining your energy
Four concrete ways to try this “external self talk”, defined below
The Whole Shebang:
“Alexis, open the doc, type the title."
“Alexis, what did you enter this room to do?” Retrace your steps.”
“Alexis, okay, let’s get your head around this; what’s the first thing you need to do? And the second?”
“Alexis, it’s time to focus; do what you’re doing right now. And close that email tab.”
I’ve said all of this stuff to myself this stuff to myself. Today. Out loud.
And yes, I work from home so it’s not like anyone can hear me (except me). But I used to work in an office. And I still talked to myself out loud. Although, I do try to lower my voice or use a whisper when others are around.
Do you ever talk to yourself?
(And no, I don’t mean that nasty “self-talk” voice in your head who’s intent on criticizing you.)
I mean talking to yourself out loud.
As you go about your business, helping you get through the day, helping you stay on task.
Well, if you don’t it might be worth a try.
Because, I've got a theory and I want to share it with you:
When you talk to yourself, out loud, you can only say one thing at a time.
And this helps make prioritization easier (since we can only do one thing at a time) and helps reduce overwhelm.
When you're just thinking, and it's all in your head and you can think many things at once. Your thoughts can be jumbled. You can start to ruminate or spin out. Without actually taking action on anything.
But out loud?
Out loud, you can only say one thing at a time. One thought at a time. (Unless you’re a throat singer, or Rahzel on the track “If Your Mother Only Knew”, but I digress.)
When you speak to yourself, out loud, you have to slow down your thinking, because your thoughts are being formed into coherent speech.
To me, an avid practitioner of this type of out loud self-talk, It feels like when I speak, I’m forcing my brain into a linear thought pattern. I’m not multitasking my thoughts anymore. So, it’s easier figure out the path forward.
Now, I’m not the first person to have found that talking to yourself out loud is helpful.
In fact, there’s research that shows that talking to yourself out loud, what psychologists call “external self-talk”, helps you learn as well as a provides a host of other benefits.
But, talking to yourself, out loud, can help you with both productivity and stress.
Encouraging this external self-talk is a technique I use with my clients quite frequently. They might come to me with a complex project or task or problem. And it feels overwhelming. And they’re not sure how or where to start.
So, I’ll start, by asking them to talk me through it, out loud. I'll ask what needs to happen first, and then what after that. And then magically (but not really magically), the project or problem or task now seems straightforward and manageable.
It's now a set of small, achievable steps. It’s no longer a scary, incomprehensible mess.
Now, you might be thinking, "but I could just walk myself through that process in my head, instead of talking out loud, where people might look at me funny”. Or, horror of horrors, judge you.
And I get it.
So, if you’re feeling a bit self-conscious:
Remember that it’s very likely no one is thinking about you at all, because most of the time, people are far too busy thinking about themselves.
Try it out in the comfort of your own home first, with no one around, so you can see for yourself how much more effective talking to yourself out loud is than talking to yourself inside your head.
Did you notice that in the examples I shared up top, that I was using my first name when talking to myself, instead of saying “I”?
Weird? Maybe.
But there’s a reason for doing so. When you speak to yourself in the second or third person, using “you” or your name, you’re practicing “distanced self-talk”. And the research shows that using “distanced self talk” vs. first person self talk has a few key benefits:
It helps you lower your emotional reaction to stress.
It helps you think more clearly
It works without draining your mental energy (unlike
My pet theory:
When you use “you”, or your name when speaking to yourself, you shift into speaking to yourself as if you’re talking to a friend. And we usually have better, more clear headed advice for our friends and we’re nice to our friends by default (unless you’re a bad friend!)
How can you put this into practice for yourself?
Break down complex project/problems
When working out a plan for a project, task or problem, ask yourself the following questions, out loud, and then answer yourself, out loud.
What is the end goal here?
What’s the first step?
What's the next step?
And don’t forget to document what you’ve uncovered so you don’t lose it.
Stay focused and on task
When you're trying to get yourself to take action on something or you’re working on something complex, talk yourself, out loud, through the steps as you're doing them.
It’ll be harder for your brain to become distracted by other things, because it's forming the thoughts into words in support of your goal.
Writing
When you're writing, say the words out loud to yourself as you write. Or use voice typing technology.
You can't backspace your speech, so you'll get a first draft out faster and you can then get to editing.
Bringing order to your messy, chaotic thoughts
If you use AI, this is another use case I’ve been loving.
Sometimes, you’ve got a lot of thoughts, and you’re not quite sure what do to with them, but don’t want them running circles in your head anymore.
Most LLMs have a “voice mode” and you can use it to speak out your thoughts and ask the AI to make them coherent for you.
Maybe you need a summarization, maybe you need to turn those thoughts into a to do list, or maybe you just needed them reflected back in bullets instead of a jumble. Either way, I’ve found this to be a helpful and clarifying method.
Are you a big “out-loud self-talker” already? If so, let me know!
And, if you haven't tried talking out loud to yourself, well, are you intrigued enough to give it a shot?
When you’re ready, here are 4 ways we can work together:
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