How to stop saying um: a practical plan to cut filler words

Why do we say um?

Filler words appear when your mouth is ready to speak but your brain has not finished planning the next phrase. "Um," "uh," "like," "so" and "you know" fill that gap and tell the listener you are not done yet.

Linguists Herbert Clark and Jean Fox Tree argued that "uh" and "um" are not random noise but conventional words speakers use to signal an upcoming delay, with "um" tending to signal a longer one (Clark and Fox Tree, 2002, Cognition). In other words, fillers do a real job: they hold your turn while you think.

That is why trying to "just stop" rarely works. The fix is to keep the pause and drop the sound.

When fillers become a problem

An occasional "um" is normal and can even make you sound human and unrehearsed. Fillers become a problem when they are frequent enough that listeners start noticing them instead of your message, or when they cluster at the start of every answer.

Common triggers:

• Speaking before you know your point. Answering instantly instead of taking a second to think.
• Fear of silence. Treating any pause as a sign that you have lost the thread.
• Speed. Talking fast leaves no time to plan, so the brain buys time with fillers.
• Unfamiliar material. Fillers rise when the content is new or the stakes are high.

Step 1: build awareness

You cannot fix a habit you do not hear. Most people underestimate how many fillers they use until they listen to a recording.

1. Baseline recording (5 minutes, once). Record yourself answering three open questions for one minute each, such as "What did you do last weekend?", "Explain your job to a 12-year-old" and "What is a decision you changed your mind about?" Play it back and tally every filler.
2. Find your favourites (once). Note which fillers you use most and where: the start of sentences, between clauses, or before difficult words. Most people have one or two dominant ones.
3. Partner signal (optional, 1 week). Ask a colleague or friend to give a small, agreed signal, such as tapping the table, when you say your main filler in casual conversation. Awareness alone often cuts the rate.

Step 2: replace fillers with pauses

These drills train you to hold silence comfortably.

1. The closed-mouth pause (3 minutes daily). Talk about any everyday topic for 60 seconds. Whenever you feel a filler coming, close your lips and pause for one beat. Closing the mouth physically blocks the "mmm" of "um." Repeat three rounds.
2. Pause-first answers (2 minutes daily, 5 questions). Have someone ask you simple questions, or read them from a list. Before every answer, take a silent breath and pause for a full second, then begin with a complete phrase. This attacks the most common spot for fillers: the start of an answer.
3. Slow-and-pause reading (3 minutes daily). Read a paragraph aloud at about two-thirds of your normal speed, pausing at every comma and full stop. Planned text has no reason for fillers, so this trains the rhythm of speech with clean pauses.
4. Topic switch drill (3 minutes, 3 to 5 days a week). Write ten random topics on slips of paper. Draw one, talk for 45 seconds, then draw the next without stopping. Spontaneous transitions are where fillers hide; practising them in a low-stakes setting builds the pause habit.
5. Sentence landings (2 minutes daily). Practise finishing sentences firmly with a falling pitch and a full stop, instead of linking them with "and um" or "so." Shorter sentences give you natural places to pause.

A three-week practice plan

About five to ten minutes a day is enough.

Re-record the same three baseline questions at the end of each week. Compare the tally, not just the feeling, because many people feel worse right when they start noticing fillers, even as the number falls.

If you would rather not count by hand, Voceris scores filler words and pauses on every recording and every drill rep, so you can see your filler rate drop week to week alongside pace and clarity.

Tips for real conversations and meetings

• Know your first sentence. Most fillers cluster in the first few seconds. Decide how you will open before you start talking.
• Use structure. Phrases like "Two reasons. First..." give your brain a map, so it needs fewer fillers to buy planning time.
• Slow down. Speaking a little slower is the single most reliable way to reduce fillers. See how to sound more confident when speaking for pace and pause drills.
• Allow a few. Aim to cut fillers, not to eliminate every one. Speech with zero hesitation can sound scripted.
• Watch the replacements. Some people swap "um" for "so" or "right." If a new filler appears, treat it the same way.

Fillers, monotone and fry often travel together

People who rush and fill silence often also speak in a flat pitch and let sentence endings drop into creak. As the pauses improve, it is worth checking the rest of the voice: our guides on how to stop sounding monotone and vocal fry cover the next most common habits.

When fillers are a sign of something else

Frequent hesitation can also be part of stuttering or other fluency or language differences, which are not the same as a filler habit. If you have repeated sounds, blocks where words will not come out, or speech difficulties that cause distress, a speech-language pathologist can assess what is going on and suggest the right approach.