Talking about TIME for meetings and deadlines | Business English vocabulary class (Ep.65)

Today we're talking about time, specifically when you need more time for deadlines and meetings. If you're ever been in a meeting that finished late or had a task that you didn't quite finish before a deadline then hopefully you'll find the natural and native sounding Business English vocabulary in this episode useful for you.

If you speak English at work and want to sound more native and natural when talking to colleagues, customers, or clients, then I hope that the vocabulary, grammar, and communication tips in today's episode will be useful for you. 

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Also, if you're studying for the IELTS, TOEFL, or Cambridge English tests and exams then you might find some of the vocabulary in this episode really useful.

This podcast is all about helping you to communicate better, in English, at work. I work with international English speakers from around the world who use English, at work, as a second or third language and I hope that I can bring some of the ideas, vocabulary, and grammar, from those sessions, to you in this podcast.

Don’t forget that my full time job is helping international professionals who use English at work to improve their communication skills. So, if you need English to do your job but don’t speak it natively then maybe we can work together to help you to achieve your language goals. 

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Transcript

• Welcome back to the Breakout Business English podcast. My name is Chris. I am a business English and communication coach. And I've personally worked with over 1,000 international professionals, almost certainly just like you. To improve the way that they communicate at work in English. Thank you so much for listening and for your time. I know how valuable it is. And time is exactly what we're going to talk about today. Specifically, not having enough of it. Today we're talking about meetings ending later than intended and not finishing your work before the deadline. I wonder if you've heard of Parkinson's Law. Parkinson's Law. Parkinson's law is a well-known idea. That "work expands to fill the time available to it. Work expands to fill the time available to it. If you give a team two weeks to finish a project, well, it will take two weeks. If you give them two days, then they might just get it done in two days. I remember the first time I heard about this and realized how true it is. It usually takes me about a week to write each script for this podcast. However, sometimes I get to Tuesday night and I haven't started writing.So I sit down and I get it done. The work that I usually allow to fill a whole week is suddenly done in a couple of hours. I wonder if there are any tasks in your job that feel like this. But what happens when the work expands too much? What happens when the meeting that was supposed to end at 11 a.m.? Is still going at 11.45am. Today, we're going to talk about the vocabulary of taking too much time to achieve your goals. In the first half, we will focus on meetings. We'll look at the difference between a meeting that simply overruns due to maybe bad planning. And one that drags on because nobody knows when to stop talking. In the second half, we will switch to deadlines and look at the difference between falling behind schedule and missing the date entirely. We're going to hear some natural and native sounding vocabulary. And I've got some slightly dark history to share about where the word deadline Julie comes from. Let's get started. Let's begin with three natural and native ways to describe a meeting that is going past its scheduled time. They started late today, so I think the meeting is going to overrun. They started late today, so I think the meeting's going to overrun. Lots of people wanted to contribute, so the meeting dragged on for 30 minutes longer than scheduled. Lots of people wanted to contribute.So the meeting dragged on for 30 minutes longer than scheduled. That should have only taken 20 minutes, but the presenter managed to drag it out to over an hour. That should have only taken 20 minutes. But the presenter managed to drag it out to over an hour. Okay, let's start with the first example and the word "overrun". Overrun. We heard, they started late, so I think the meeting's going to overrun. They started late, so I think the meeting is going to overrun. This is a verb. Formed from the words 'over' and run. And it means that they have gone beyond the limit, beyond the agreed end time. There are actually a lot of ways that we can break this word up, overrun, and play around with it. You might say that a meeting is going to run over. Or maybe as a noun, you might say something like, the conference was really badly organized. There were so many overruns. There were so many overruns. And maybe even in its continuous form, overrunning our allotted time would be an issue. Overrunning our allotted time would be an issue. In a business context, Overrun is a fairly neutral factual word. It's not really a good thing or a bad thing a lot of the time. It doesn't necessarily mean that the meeting was bad. Maybe the discussion was really productive. Maybe you solved a huge crisis, but the fact is you went past the end time. If you have another meeting to go to, you can send a quick message saying, my meeting is overrunning. I'll be five minutes late. My meeting is overrunning. I'll be five minutes late. It's a professional excuse. That suggests the delay is out of your control. I sometimes find myself that I'm on a coaching call with someone, maybe explaining a grammar point or just discussing something interesting. And sometimes my sessions overrun.Sometimes they take a bit longer than scheduled that. We sometimes hear this in financial contexts when discussing budgets. If I say that there has been a budget overrun, This means that we spent Too much money. Or at least more money than we'd planned. Now let's contrast that with the second example. To drag on. To drag on. In the example, we heard, "The meeting dragged on for 30 minutes longer than scheduled." The meeting dragged on for 30 minutes longer than scheduled. I should say just briefly scheduled. Don't worry too much about it. Both of these are fine. You will likely hear both of these in both American and British English. One of these is American English, one of these is British English.Honestly, I can't remember which is British and which is American. Most people won't notice. The same is true for data and data, status and status. Maybe you've even heard tomato and tomato. The only one that people will really worry about is tomato and tomato. I'm British. I can tell you that it's tomato. But I know a lot of Americans would disagree with me.So, schedule. Both of these are... Fine.So there is a big difference in the feeling. Between to overrun and for a meeting to drag on. The verb to drag. Suggests friction and weight. Moving something heavy that doesn't have wheels is dragging it, pulling it across the floor. Imagine you are moving house. And you have to pull a heavy sofa, a heavy couch across a thick carpet. Slow It's heavy. And it takes a lot of Bert. That is the feeling of a meeting. The drag's on. It implies that the content was not really useful. When you say a meeting 'dragged on', you are telling your colleague that you were bored. It makes us think of people sitting in a room, losing energy, perhaps checking their phones under the table, just waiting for the end.So be careful using this one with your boss. You probably shouldn tell your manager. Hey, our meeting really dragged on today. That might not be great for your career. And I hope that these sessions that I do, well, maybe we overrun sometimes, but hopefully people don't think that they drag on. I don't think so. Next, let's look at a more active phrasal verb. Drag on feels very passive. It's not something people do, it's something the meeting does. However, a more active phrasal verb is drag out. To drag out In the example, we heard "The presenter managed to drag it out." to over hour. We said that should have only taken 20 minutes, but the presenter managed to drag it out to over an hour.So, again, notice the grammar change. Dragged on is something the meeting does to drag on. Dragged out is something a person does or maybe even a group of people. We usually use this to describe a colleague who always has more to say.Someone who always has one more question to ask. One more point to make Or maybe you've got a meeting that's scheduled to last for one hour, but it feels like you've discussed everything important in the first 20 minutes. Maybe your manager finds a way to drag the meeting out. To the full one hour. When someone drags out a meeting, they are taking a small amount of information and stretching it until it fills up way too much time. It suggests that this is intentional. They made this meeting long. If you want to express frustration about a speaker, then this is the phrasal verb to use. I definitely know that in a previous career, I went on a training course that took three days and I remember talking to my colleagues saying that they definitely could have done this in one day. I'm really not quite sure how they dragged it out to a full three days. But it was a nice experience. The hotel was nice anyway. And if you feel like your English studies are dragging on and you want to start making real progress quickly, then maybe we can work together. My full-time job is helping international professionals who use English work to improve their communication skills.So, if you need English to do your job, but you don't speak it natively, Then I would love to meet you. If you would like to book some time to meet with me through one-to-one video calls, just you and me, then you can go to breakoutbusinessenglish.com. That's the title of the podcast, BreakoutBusinessEnglish.com and find out more. Starting on our very first call. We can focus on the specific opportunities that you personally have to improve your English and communication skills and the mistakes that you make most often or that cause the biggest problems with your communication. And right now you can use the code podcast 30. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-3-0 at checkout to get a 30% discount off your first booking of 30, 45 or 60 minutes, whichever is best for you.Sometimes my calendar gets a little busy, so if you have trouble finding a time that works for you, then you can always send me a message through the contact page on the website and ask if I have any time to fit you in. I've worked with over 1,000 non-native English-speaking professionals, from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders, to help them achieve their goals, and I look forward to meeting you. Okay, we've managed to escape that never-ending meeting. Now we are back at our desks, and we have a project to finish.So let's talk about Deadlines. Here are three ways to talk about time limits when things are not going to plan. I'm worried we're going to miss the deadline. I'm worried we're going to miss the deadline. If we encounter any more setbacks, We're going to have to extend the deadline. If we encounter any more setbacks, we're going to have to extend the deadline. We are falling behind schedule, so we need to prioritize the critical tasks. We are falling behind schedule so we need to prioritize the critical tasks. Okay, let's start with the word... Deadline. Deadline. We use it every day. Most days, maybe some of us more than others. But have you ever stopped to think about how aggressive it sounds. Deadline. To be dead. The history here is actually quite dark. This comes from the American Civil War in the 1860s. In Prisoner of War camps, actually one very specific, very famous Prisoner of War camp, there were... No walls. Just open fields. There was really no obvious end to the prison. However, the gods... Would draw a line. In the dirt. Or sometimes there was a small wooden fence around the prisoners. And they were simply told... If you cross this line, you will be shot. It was literally a line that meant death.So this was back in the 1860s and over the past 150 years, 160 years, well something like that a long time the meaning has softened but the seriousness is still there in business a deadline. Isn't just a suggestion. It's a hard stop. In fact, It seems to reappear in the 1920s in the field of journalism and newspaper printing. In that context, it was used to talk about the.To the printer to be included in the next edition of the newspaper, likely the next day of the newspaper. By the way, please let me know if you find these explanations of the origins of words interesting. I know they don't really have any connection to how we really use the words in our working lives these days, but I just think they're really interesting. Of course, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, then you can write a review letting me know or contact me through the website, breakoutbusinessenglish.com. In the first example, we heard, I'm worried we're going to miss the deadline. And worried we're going to miss the deadline. We use the verbs hit and miss with deadlines. Almost like… archery or darts, like you're firing a weapon, which I guess makes sense when you remember where this word came from. If you miss the deadline, you have failed to deliver on time. You have taken longer than you should have. If your deadline was on Tuesday and by Wednesday morning you still haven't completed the work, then you have missed your deadline. You'll find that a lot of the vocabulary that we use to talk about deadlines makes it sound like you're shooting an arrow at something. First, we talk about aiming for a deadline. Or maybe we even call our deadline a target or maybe a target date. Then we can talk about shooting for a deadline. For instance, we're shooting for June 7th. We're shooting for June 7th. That's when we're hoping to complete our work. Then of course, if you are successful, you can say that you hit. Your deadline. Or, of course, if you're unsuccessful, then you can say that you missed your test. Deadline. And that brings us nicely on to the second example. And this was featuring the word extend. As in, we're going to have to extend the deadline. We're going to have to extend the deadline. To extend means to stretch something out. You can extend your house by adding a room. You can extend your arm to shake hands, to reach out to shake hands. And at work, extending a deadline means to increase The amount of time between now and the deadline.So, if you have one week until your deadline, maybe you can extend the deadline Doo. Two weeks. Get yourself some more time to finish the work. And let's look at the phrase falling behind. Or to fall behind. In the example we heard, we are falling behind schedule. We are falling behind schedule. If you have a deadline, then there is a speed that you need to work at. You need to do a certain amount of work every day to make sure that you hit that deadline. Maybe you've even agreed on some soft deadlines with your team. These internal targets that you've agreed on to make sure that you hit your hard deadline. That's the end date that your client or your customer or maybe just your boss requires. If you are doing that work at the right speed, then you should hit your deadline. However, if you're not working at the right speed. If perhaps you're working too slowly, then you are falling. Behind. You're not maintaining the speed or the pace that you need to. Now falling behind isn't the worst thing in the world. If you work a little harder, then maybe you can improve. Maybe you can close that gap between the amount of work that you've completed and the amount of work that you should have completed. However, if you don't fix the problem. If you don't work a little faster and a little harder, then you'll definitely miss your deadline. Don't forget that if you want to discuss any of the ideas, vocabulary or grammar, etc. In today's episode or work on your communication skills for your professional life more generally, then you can book a session with me at www.breakoutbusinessenglish.com or clicking the link in the show notes. And use the code PODCAST30, that's PODCAST30, at checkout to get a 30% discount off your first booking. I've worked with over 1,000 non-native international English speakers from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders to help them achieve their goals and I look forward to meeting you. I know a lot of the people listening to this already work with me. I think I'm speaking to a lot of people who already have regularly scheduled meetings with me.So just a note. In a couple of weeks, actually on the 11th of February, I think, I'll be going on A working vacation. I'll be in South Korea for, I think, three weeks.So usually I'm based in the UK, in the northeast of England. I will be in South Korea for three weeks.Still working, still recording the podcast. Still meeting with people and coaching people on their communication skills, but just over in South Korea.So if you take a look at my schedule for the second half of February, and it looks a little strange, maybe the times are a little bit different, then you know why. I'll mostly be working the same times, which is very late for me in Korea, but yeah, slightly different. I think I'm starting two hours later than I usually do. Between episodes of the podcast, you can get videos every couple of days on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Just search for Breakout Business English. If there's a topic that you'd like to hear me talk about on the podcast, then I would be excited to hear your ideas. Leave me a message or a comment on one of my YouTube videos and I look forward to hearing from you. If you are on Apple Podcasts, then I invite you to leave a review. Every review really helps me out and helps to push the podcast to new listeners and to grow the show.So if you found this podcast useful and you think that there are some valuable things in here, then feel free to leave a review, maybe even write a couple of kind words. And I sincerely thank you in advance. That's another great place to request a future topic for a future podcast. Future topic for a future, a topic for a future podcast, indeed.So that is it for today. Thank you so much for listening and of course for your time and I'll see you next time. On the breakout business english podcast have a great week everyone talk to you soon.

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