Words such as “um,” “like,” and “you know” often appear in conversation to give speakers time to think. For some, this can indicate a lack of confidence in themselves and their own ideas during conversations. Some utter filler words while talking to people at cocktail parties and presentations, which points to nervousness and a lack of knowledge. These words determine how people will react to your speeches and thoughts, and they may distract the listeners from the actual message.
If you hope to sound confident and earn the attention and respect of colleagues and potential clients, then skipping filler words will take you a long way. This habit increases the risk of confusion and ambiguity when speaking. In everyday conversations, these words signal authenticity, showing that a person is speaking naturally rather than pretending. So, it’s okay to use them when chatting with friends. The trick is to use them less often instead of trying to stop completely. If you pay attention and practice, you can slowly cut down on them.
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How to Remove “Um” from Daily Conversations?
If someone asks you a question, you can take time to collect the ideas. Pause while talking, and collect the thoughts you want to share. This strategy will help you take an energetic start; it will also help you skip the crutches from talks. Similarly, you can also use the trick while moving from one topic to another. So, here’s a simple formula to reduce ‘um’ in daily conversations:
● Pause while presenting ideas
● collect the thoughts or ideas you want to share
● Speak energetically according to the mind map you designed
Along with these suggestions, the following are some additional tips that can help you reduce the use of filler words.
Recommended Tricks to Skip Filler Words like Um from Your Conversations
People usually rely on fillers to act more efficiently in their presentations or talking to strangers. The impromptu conversations of life usually get marked with such verbal faux pas.
Here are some tricks from a psychological perspective that address the human resilience of such words:
Try to Recognize Situations that Offend You
Trying to sound knowledgeable under pressure may increase the use of filler words. If you know the situations that trigger the explosion of disfluencies or verbal clutches, you can prepare yourself to deal with them.
Practice on Your Own
Speak to yourself on a general topic for about one minute. Try to avoid the filler words during spontaneous speaking. You can record your speech on your computer or mobile phone. Listen to the disfluencies you made during this and skip such words from your life.
Ask Someone to Count Your Filler Words
You can appoint your friend to calculate your verbal crutches. Try this in your spare time and lunch break. It will increase your awareness of how much you use fillers in your speech. You can ask your colleagues to count the fillers and argue with you when speaking such words, and it will help you minimize the use of filler words.
Try to Speak Slowly
Some get nervous whenever they talk to strangers or want to create an impression on people, and they fail to gather their thoughts and ideas and utter verbal clutches. Practice speaking gently and slowly.
It will help you assemble your thoughts and express them more decently and professionally. You’ll find that over time you’ll get rid of the extra words like um while speaking slowly. Experts say that this is the easiest trick to avoid clutches.
Use Short and Meaningful Sentences
Research proved that providing relief to your mind helps you be very fluent and confident during daily life. Try to remain confined to the short sentences. Don’t use compound sentences, and it is because simple sentences help us avoid words like “um” while speaking. Similarly, do not start with any sentences containing prepositions. Prepositional lines increase confusion and due to which people ultimately make verbal disfluencies. In this way, limiting your conversations to short sentences helps to minimize informal communication.
Avoid Overwhelming Eye Contact
Sometimes, intense or prolonged eye contact can make you nervous, which may trigger filler words like “um” or “uh.” Instead of avoiding eye contact entirely, try to distribute your gaze naturally across your audience. Briefly make eye contact with different people to engage them, then look away to gather your thoughts. If you are on a video call, focus on the camera or your screen to simulate eye contact while staying comfortable. This approach helps reduce nervousness without appearing disconnected.
Use Strategic Silence to Your Advantage
Many fear silence in conversations, leading them to use filler words to fill the gap. Strategic pauses can make your speech more impactful and give you time to gather your thoughts. Instead of saying “um” or “uh,” take a brief pause to breathe and mentally organize your next sentence. This technique not only makes you sound more confident but also keeps your audience engaged, as they will naturally anticipate what you’ll say next. Practicing intentional pauses will help you replace filler words with meaningful moments of emphasis.
Accept Your Imperfections
Everyone has quirks, imperfections, or moments of hesitation. Recognize that it’s normal to pause or stumble occasionally while speaking. Even the most accomplished speakers sometimes use filler words like “and” or “um.” Rather than feeling overwhelmed, accept these moments as part of the natural flow of conversation and focus on gradually improving your speaking skills.
In summary, practicing all these tricks and willpower can help you to minimize 50 percent of such words from your conversations. So, you can use these tricks from time to time to stop using filler words.
If you’re also working on organizing your thoughts more clearly, you might find our tips on the how to overcome writer’s block helpful.
I’m an entrepreneur and digital marketing enthusiast who loves helping people grow—not just in affiliate marketing, but in all areas of online business. I enjoy showing others how to build a strong brand, create meaningful content, and use tools that make work easier. Over the years, I’ve learned what truly works in digital marketing, from creating websites that convert to building an engaged audience through email and social media. After more than ten years in the field, I’ve gathered plenty of lessons I enjoy sharing through my writing and talks. I use my own experiences to help others reach their goals and build something lasting. Besides running my business, I’m a fiction writer in the speculative genre, with dozens of short stories published in various magazines and anthologies. For eighteen years, I was a Top 10% Reviewer at Zoetrope, an online venue for creatives, where I helped members strengthen their writing. When I’m not working as a writer or marketer, you’ll probably find me cooking, reading, or watching a good baseball game. I live in my birthplace of New York City.