I've made meaningful progress on things I'm learning by listening to podcasts at 3x speed + "Smart Speed". Could I have made more progress by listening slower? Maybe, though that's debatable. Would I have even started? Absolutely not.
Before I ever found speed controls I'd start listening to podcasts and then just give up because it felt so boring and slow. "Why would I listen to podcasts or audiobooks when I could read them at several times the speed, back up, reread things, copy sections into my notes, and skim past the parts I already know?" is a common thing I used to say. Podcasts don't have an index like a real book, and it's hard to flip back and forth between two sections.
Now, I'm not listening to podcasts related to programming, despite that being my main profession. I'm listening to a podcast about a hobby and one I'd like to improve at, and I'm doing it while I work, drive, or otherwise do things that don't demand that part of my brain. I'm also not afraid to rewind or slow down, particularly if there's a guest on whose voice I'm not familiar with.
There are over 600 episodes (maybe 700 by now?) in the backlog of the main podcast I'm listening to right now, each between 30 minutes and 4 hours, with an average around an hour and a half or so. That's a lot of audio. I've been listening for months and am around 175 or so episodes in. If I was listening at 1x speed then this podcast might be a 5 or more year commitment.
If I was studying for a test, maybe I'd slow it down. Maybe I'd choose a format like text where available. But this particular show is not in lecture format. It's structured as an ongoing discussion between people who want to improve at something very intricate and ever changing. I'm listening to hear how different people approach these situations. So having the speed of the conversation be fast enough that I'm not losing the thread of what's going on is more important than catching every little detail.
I'm listening to hear stories, or for debates between people who look at the problems in different ways and want to find holes in their own approaches. I'm listening for what people's mindsets are like and how their opinions change over time as they gain more experience and revisit topics they've covered in the past.
I also listen with the intent of deliberately practicing the thing they're talking about, and use that to build up my own experience and opinions. For any given topic that comes up on the podcast I can typically tell you the stance of each of the hosts as well as any guests that were on, and I can tell you whether I think their reasoning is sound based on my own attempts. So while my listening is passive I actively engage with the content on a regular schedule.
Before I ever found speed controls I'd start listening to podcasts and then just give up because it felt so boring and slow. "Why would I listen to podcasts or audiobooks when I could read them at several times the speed, back up, reread things, copy sections into my notes, and skim past the parts I already know?" is a common thing I used to say. Podcasts don't have an index like a real book, and it's hard to flip back and forth between two sections.
Now, I'm not listening to podcasts related to programming, despite that being my main profession. I'm listening to a podcast about a hobby and one I'd like to improve at, and I'm doing it while I work, drive, or otherwise do things that don't demand that part of my brain. I'm also not afraid to rewind or slow down, particularly if there's a guest on whose voice I'm not familiar with.
There are over 600 episodes (maybe 700 by now?) in the backlog of the main podcast I'm listening to right now, each between 30 minutes and 4 hours, with an average around an hour and a half or so. That's a lot of audio. I've been listening for months and am around 175 or so episodes in. If I was listening at 1x speed then this podcast might be a 5 or more year commitment.
If I was studying for a test, maybe I'd slow it down. Maybe I'd choose a format like text where available. But this particular show is not in lecture format. It's structured as an ongoing discussion between people who want to improve at something very intricate and ever changing. I'm listening to hear how different people approach these situations. So having the speed of the conversation be fast enough that I'm not losing the thread of what's going on is more important than catching every little detail.
I'm listening to hear stories, or for debates between people who look at the problems in different ways and want to find holes in their own approaches. I'm listening for what people's mindsets are like and how their opinions change over time as they gain more experience and revisit topics they've covered in the past.
I also listen with the intent of deliberately practicing the thing they're talking about, and use that to build up my own experience and opinions. For any given topic that comes up on the podcast I can typically tell you the stance of each of the hosts as well as any guests that were on, and I can tell you whether I think their reasoning is sound based on my own attempts. So while my listening is passive I actively engage with the content on a regular schedule.