Replace um with a closed mouth
The usual advice is good because it is mechanical: when you feel an um coming, stop. Breathe. Then say the next word. The silence feels longer to you than to anyone listening. Ums are often a fear of silence, not a lack of vocabulary. Practice in low-stakes talk — a voice note, a meeting standup — not only on stage.
Record, then listen once without fixing it
Speakers who never hear themselves keep the same fillers. Record a two-minute explanation of something you know. Do not edit it on the first listen. Count the ums. That number is more useful than a generic “stop saying like.” After you know your pattern, then cut a practice take with a filler-word remover so you can hear the same script without the stalls. The contrast is the lesson.
Do not confuse editing with practice
Cleaning a YouTube take is the right move for the audience. It does not train the next take. If you only ever ship edited speech, the live version (interviews, workshops) will still stall. Use the editor for published files. Use the pause-and-breathe drill for live speech. Searches for “how to stop using filler words” are about the drill. The cutter is a separate, honest offer at the bottom of this page.