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Are your mornings always go, go, go? And this week, are you swamped on the go or in a rush? We live in a busy world. So today you'll learn 12 English expressions perfect for busy people. Welcome back to JForrest English. Of course, I'm Jennifer. Now, let's get started. Let's start with go, go, go. This means to be very busy, generally when you're doing one thing after another. So your state is go, go, go, go, go, go. Now, we use this to describe something. So you could say my schedule is go, go, go from the moment I wake up until bedtime. So you're constantly doing something.
You can use this in a general sense and say life has been go, go lately and notice the present perfect because it started in the past and continues until now. You could use the past simple and say it was go, go all day at work, maybe yesterday or last week. Notice here the sentence structure is noun, my schedule, the verb to be conjugated. My schedule is and then the phrase go, go, go. You can also say she has a go lifestyle. So notice here we're using go, go, go plus noun. The adjective go comes before the noun in this context. So notice the spelling change where you have the dashes instead of the commas.
Don't worry about taking these notes. I summarize everything in a free lesson PDF. You can find the link in the description. Let's review another expression with the word go to be on the go. This means to be busy and moving from place to place and to have very little free time. So you might say as a consultant, he's constantly on the go. Now this sounds to me like he's moving from place to place. So maybe he works from home. Sometimes he works from the office, he has to go to client sites, he has to travel. So he's on the go. You might say she's been on the go since 6:00 AM.
You've been on the go for days. O it started in the AST and it continues until now. So she's busy, but she's also going from place to place. Maybe she has to get groceries, pick up laundry, run another errand. So it doesn't always have to be with work. Of course, we're busy in our personal lives as well. You can make a general statement and say I'm always so an adverb of frequency in the present. Simple. I'm always on the go during the week. Now, if you want to sound even busier than on the go, you can use to be running around like crazy and the nolo running around like crazy. This means to be extremely busy moving between
tasks or places with little time to rest, so it intensifies the last expression. You might say I've been running around like crazy all day and notice the connected speech with like crazy. Repeat after me like crazy because we have that K sound in crazy so we won't say it in like crazy. You might say she was running around like crazy before the event started. So notice our verb to be conjugated in the past, but we still have our verb in ING. So this is the past continuous. You can use this in the present continuous. Everyone's running around like crazy trying to finish the project.
Let's review to be swamped. Have you heard this one? Natives use this on a regular basis to be swamped. This means to have an overwhelming amount of work, Oregon tasks. So you have a lot of work, but you feel overwhelmed, swamped. So it has a more negative feel to it. You might say we're swamped with new orders this week, so there are a lot of new orders, which is positive, but swamped sounds too busy. So you're overwhelmed. And notice that pronunciation because that Ed is pronounced as AT swamped, swamped. You could say, I'd love to help you, but I'm absolutely swamped today. So this might be a way you decline a request for help.
And you can even add an intensifier like absolutely swamped today. Now you can also use all these phrases to ask about other people. So you might ask that person, why are you swamped today? And then maybe you can offer some help because we're swamped over here. Let's review to be in a rush. Notice that preposition in a rush? I'm in a rush. This means to need to do things quickly because of limited time. So just remember that it's limited time. So you might say, sorry, I can't talk right now. I'm in a rush. And you'd probably say it with a rushed voice or rushed body language.
And then again, you could ask someone why are you in such a rush today? So notice I use such to intensify it, but it's in a rush. In such a rush today, You can also use this to describe someone's actions. For example, she left the office to catch her train, but how did she leave the office? She left the office in a rush to catch her train. Now you can use in a rush or in a hurry. They're both the same. So you can just replace rush with hurry and you have the same expression. Here's another expression that natives commonly use to be stretched thin. Stretched thin, This means to have
too many responsibilities and not enough time or energy to manage them. So you could say our team is stretched thin right now. We've been stretched thin before, so your team has more work to do than capacity. Maybe someone quit or you had to lay someone off and that's the reason why your team is stretched thin. And notice that pronunciation because we have stretched that ends in AT sound that Ed is pronounced as T. But then thin begins with an unvoiced TH. So we're going to combine that together and say stretched thin. So make sure you get the unvoiced TH though stretched thin, thin, stretched thin.
You could say she's feeling stretched thin between work and family. So she's trying to balance these and she doesn't have enough time or capacity to do both fully. So notice here I use the verb feel. You can use be or feel. With this expression, you could say they've been stretched thin since the new project started. So here you're identifying the reason why that they don't have enough capacity for the work. It's because of the new project. Another common expression is to be pressed for time. This means to have very little time available to do something. So you might say I'm a bit pressed for time. So let's keep this meeting brief and
notice that pronunciation pressed for time. So that for is going to be an unstressed Fer and pressed ends on AT, but it'll be very soft. Pressed for time, pressed for time. I'm pressed for time today. Or you could say, can we discuss this later? I'm really pressed for time today. You can intensify this and say we're quite pressed for time today. So we need to be efficient. I'm really pressed for time. Have you heard the expression to be tied up? This means to be busy and unable to do something else. So you might say I'm tied up in meetings all afternoon.
He's tied up at the moment, but he's hoping you'll be able to stick around for a while even though I have so much work to do. I'm tied up in meetings all afternoon. So you're unable to do something else and notice that pronunciation. Tied up. Duh. We're going to take that D sound from Tide and we're going to put it on the preposition up so it will sound like tied up. Repeat after me tied up. And this is commonly used as a reason why someone is not available. So the receptionist might say, oh, sorry, Jack's tied up right now, but he'll be free this afternoon. Or you could say, sorry, I couldn't take your call. I was tied up with a difficult customer.
Let's review to have one's hands full. This is a great expression. It means to be very busy dealing with many responsibilities or problems. O You might say I have my hands full with this project. I have my hands full O it's one roject, but there are many different responsibilities or maybe even problems with that one roject. Or you might say she's a new mom running a startup. She definitely has her hands full. So remember you have to conjugate the verb have depending on the subject and time reference. Or you could say I was going to ask for some help, but it looks like you
already have your hands full. So maybe you walk up to a person's office, but then they look very busy. It looks like you already have your hands full. So notice in this one you need the possessive determiner. My hands and hands is always plural. My hands, your hands, our hands, whatever it might be. Our next expression might sound a little odd to be up to 1's ears in something. Joe, I'm up to my ears in work. This means to have a large amount of work Oregon tasks to deal with. So you could say I'm up to my ears in paperwork. So maybe you could imagine a stack of paperwork that goes literally up to your ears just to help you have an image of this expression.
Or you could say we're up to our ears in customer requests. And remember, you can use these with non work items. Of course, there are 7 people in my household, so I'm always up to my ears in laundry. You can just imagine the amount of laundry. So notice that preposition in and then the noun in laundry. Let's review to be buried in work. This means to have an overwhelming amount of work. So much work. It literally covers your entire body, so you can imagine the paperwork, the laundry. Of course that's figurative. You might say I need to
cancel our dinner plans tonight. I'm buried in work, so of course. Notice that pronunciation. Buried like a strawberry, buried with a soft D for the Ed Buried, buried. And it's the verb to be that you need to conjugate. We've been buried in work since we launched the new project. So it starts in the past and continues until now. Or maybe you say since Joan quit, my team has been buried in work. Of course, when he's here, he's buried in work. Let's review the verb to juggle, to juggle. Now this is commonly used with other information to juggle things and you can even add at once. So let's review different examples. But first, this means to manage multiple tasks or responsibilities at the same time. Can you juggle by the way?
I don't think I can, but you can imagine what that's like. One wrong move and everything comes crashing down South. You might say it's not easy juggling being a mom and being a CEO. How is she going to juggle work? So you have different tasks, all the tasks associated with being a mom, all the tasks associated with being a CEO, and you can imagine this person is trying to juggle them. So notice here the sentence structure is your verb juggle. And then we have a gerund being a mom and another gerund being a CEO. That's a very common sentence structure.
You might also say I spend my day juggling meetings and emails. So again, meetings, emails and all the tasks associated with them. So here in this expression, it's the verb juggle, and you have a noun and noun. So you can use gerund and gerund or noun and noun. You could also say my team is juggling several projects at once. So notice here instead of two distinct things, you can just be general and say several projects, several responsibilities, several reports at once. At once is optional, it's not required. And you could use a different time reference as well, like right now. So here is 2 juggle conjugated.
And then you could use several, many different or another plural word and then a plural noun. I'm sure you are busy. So now you have many ways to express that. Do you want me to keep helping you expand your vocabulary? If you do put go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go in the comments. And of course, make sure you like this lesson. Share it with your friends and subscribe to your Notified every time I post a new lesson. And you can get this free speaking guide where I share 6 tips on how to speak English fluently and confidently.
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