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by blamazon 1071 days ago
Generally I layer podcasts on top of work that doesn't involve auditory processing, such as driving, grocery shopping, working out, laundry, etc. If you target those moments in your life when your hands and 'physical brain' are occupied, but your 'language brain' isn't, even busy folks can find time for this. It also helps to listen at a speed higher than 1.0.

Some people can do this during nearly all of their working time due to the nature of their work - welders, truck drivers, landscapers, etc. IE, not thought laborers. I think it's something of an untapped market for audio content to focus on these folks.
2 comments
wongarsu 1071 days ago
But then when do you find time to think?

Makes a lot of sense in some professions though.

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version_five 1071 days ago
Agreed, I run regularly and it's great thinking time, I find it so much more valuable to just have rote exercise to keep me physically distracted and let my mind wander. I'd consider it counterproductive to listen to anything.
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blamazon 1071 days ago
I do understand your point but that rings as sort of a tautological question to me? Either don't claim this time 100% for audio content or just think at some other time. Lately I prefer to intentionally meditate in the early morning, that is where my most productive thoughts come from. That and the shower.
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phone8675309 1071 days ago
How much of that information is actually retained though?
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blamazon 1071 days ago
I mean, I freely admit that sometimes when I'm lazy it's like 15%, but that's higher than zero! If I focus on active listening and cognition and try to write down or discuss key points afterwards (driving with a partner is great for this) I can get a lot more information retention.

Back when I was commuting I would start my working day by summarizing the podcast that I had just listened to in a text document - good way to sort of boot up my brain in the morning, without coffee.

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graypegg 1071 days ago
I actually find my favourite podcasts are the ones that take the fact I’m not retaining 100% of the content into account!

Adam Regusea’s podcast [0] I think is a great example. He’ll leave pauses in and (because of the listener-questions format) will reiterate context pretty often. (“So, [name], you asked if it’s good to [verb]… while when I [verb]…”)

[0] https://feeds.megaphone.fm/adamraguseapodcast (RSS podcast feed, not HTML)

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blamazon 1071 days ago
Agreed, Adam Ragusea's podcast is great. I think it comes from his background in public radio production. To that end I like NPR podcasts a lot. They're good about using music, audio cues, different performers etc to separate information into digestible chunks.

On the other end of that scale are very information-dense podcasts that have transcripts. I like those a lot because I find I can read the transcript after listening (or vice versa) and I get more information retention than either just listening or just reading.

My example for this is Alie Ward's 'Ologies' wherein she interviews doctors and scientists about their work, there are many excellent transcripts available [0], including this one: [1]

[0]: https://www.alieward.com/ologies-extras

[1]: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5998d8226f4ca3396027a...

Bonus example, Gastropod:

https://gastropod.com/transcript-the-big-apple-episode/

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