How to stop saying um and uh (on calls and on camera)

The fastest way to learn how to stop saying um is simple: replace it with a short, silent pause. "Um" fills the gap while your brain finds the next words. If you get comfortable with a one second silence, the gap stays and the noise goes. You don't need to remove every filler word. A few sound natural. The goal is to stop them from getting in the way of what you are saying.

Why we say um and uh in the first place

Filler words are not a sign that you are bad at speaking. Almost everyone uses them, including people who speak for a living. They usually show up for one of three reasons.

• You are thinking out loud. Your mouth is ready before your next idea is. The "um" holds your turn while you think.
• Silence feels risky. On a call, a pause can feel like the connection dropped or like you have lost your place. Filling it feels safer.
• You don't know your next point. Fillers spike at transitions: between slides, after a question, when you move to a new topic.

The third reason is the easiest to fix, and the first one gets better with practice. The second one is mostly a feeling. Silence feels much longer to you than it does to the people listening.

Swap the um for a pause

This is the core habit. When you feel an "um" coming, close your mouth and take a small breath instead. Then start your next sentence.

It feels strange at first. A one second pause can feel like five. To your audience it sounds calm and deliberate, as if you are choosing your words with care. That is exactly what you are doing.

A few things make the swap easier:

• Close your lips at the end of a sentence. It is hard to say "um" with your mouth closed. This sounds silly, and it works.
• Breathe at full stops. A breath gives the pause a job, so it feels natural instead of empty.
• Slow down a little. Fillers often come from trying to keep up with yourself. Speaking a touch slower gives your thoughts time to arrive.

If you want a number to aim for, most people present comfortably at 130 to 150 words a minute. Our post on how many words fit in a 5 minute speech shows how to measure your own pace.

Know your next sentence before you need it

A lot of "ums" are really "where was I?" The fix is to always know what comes next.

• Plan your transitions. Write the first line of each new section. "Here's the part most people miss" is much easier to say than to invent on the spot.
• Use cue words. You don't have to memorize a speech. Three or four short cues, like "price", "story", "next step", keep you on track.
• Answer questions with a short opener. "Good question. The short answer is…" buys you a second without a filler.

If you read from a script, mark your pauses and section changes in it. Our guide on reading a script without sounding robotic shows how to mark a script so it sounds like natural speech.

A 10 minute daily drill that actually works

Awareness is most of the battle. Most people have no idea how often they say "um" until they hear a recording. This drill fixes that in about two weeks.

1. Pick a topic. Anything works: your weekend, how you make tea, a project at work.
2. Record yourself for 60 seconds. Use your phone or your laptop camera. Talk to the lens as if a friend is on the other end.
3. Play it back and count the fillers. Write the number down.
4. Do it again on the same topic. This time, pause instead of filling. Count again.
5. Repeat with a new topic for the rest of the 10 minutes.

Track your count each day. Most people see it drop within a week, and the habit starts to carry into real calls soon after.

Video calls and recordings: the special traps

Filler words get worse on camera, and there are a few reasons that are specific to video.

• Looking away for your notes. Every time your eyes leave the camera to find your place, there is a small gap, and an "um" rushes in to fill it.
• Slide changes. The pause while a slide loads feels awkward, so people talk through it.
• No feedback. In a room you can see people nod. On a call with cameras off, silence feels like nobody is there.

Keeping your notes right next to your camera helps with the first two. You don't lose your place, and your eyes stay near the lens. Lenslines is built for exactly this on Windows. It puts your script in a small notch under your webcam, and lines starting with a hash mark become cues you can jump to when you go off script. It is also hidden from screen shares and recordings in apps that use Windows' standard capture, so your audience only sees you.

For slide changes, say your transition line, then change the slide, then pause. Talking over the change is where most fillers hide.

Which filler words are fine to keep

Aim for less, not zero. Speech with no fillers at all can sound scripted and stiff. An occasional "so" at the start of an answer, or a single "um" while you think about a tough question, sounds human.

Work on the ones that get in the way:

• fillers in the middle of an important sentence;
• a run of three or four in a row;
• "like" and "you know" used every few words;
• "um" right before your main point, which makes you sound unsure of it.

When you are deciding where to start, record one real call or practice run, count your top two fillers, and work on those first.