Speed-listening, a habit you should try
In a world overwhelmed with information, catching up with everything you want to read and listen to is difficult. Yet, one habit allows you to consume more of the content you want
Podcasts, Audiobooks, and even YouTube Videos can be worthwhile content. However, especially podcasts and audiobooks tend to have daunting time costs for people getting into it. That’s where speed-listening comes in. Consuming some content faster provides some crucial benefits.
Consume more content
Listening to things and twice their average speed or even just 1.5x allows you to consume more content. You can read, respectively, listen to two books in the same time it previously took you to read one. Listen to more podcasts in the same time. Whatever you are speed listening to, you can consume more of it in the same time.
Even though you might not pick up every little detail, listening to two books fast than one book slow is much more valuable. The value you can derive from listening to more books and podcasts rather than listening at normal speed is far more significant, and hence it will benefit you.
This might sound straightforward, but here’s an example to further visualize the advantage. You want to listen to audiobooks, one about productivity that will help you be more productive, and one is novel, but you know you’ll enjoy it. When you listen to things twice the usual speed, you can know read/listen to these books in the same time it would’ve taken you to listen to one of them. That’s great, isn’t it?
The quality of the content becomes less important
This might sound underwhelming and not desirable, but you have to look at it from another side. The more (worthwhile) content you can consume, the less the quality of each individual content matters. Because you can consume more content, the probability that you’ll listen to some great content grows massively. So if you happen to listen to something that did not satisfy you, that is no big deal.
However, if you only read three books a year, these books better are damn good. If only one of them isn’t really what you expected and falls short in quality, one-third of the written content you consumed was not great, and hence you’ll question if it is worthwhile to even look for new books.
On the other hand, if you manage to read 20 books in a year, not every book has to be exceptional. If there is one lousy quality book among the other 19 great ones, you won’t mind because you’ll go on with the next great one.
Reduce the time cost
Obviously, if you listen to things faster, they end up taking less time. The reduced time costs lead to reduced importance of choice.
When you invest the time you’ve gained into listening to more worthwhile content, the chance of you discovering something you wouldn’t have otherwise is massively increased.
Reducing the time cost of consuming content also lowers the bar of starting to consume said content. So if you’re struggling to start reading books and listening to podcasts, speed listening can be the way to get into it.
Let’s look at an example: The Joe Rogan Experience is one of the world’s most famous podcasts. Host Joe Rogan interviews a variety of guests, ranging from Elon Musks to up and coming comedians. However, episodes tend to have a length of about 90 to 120 minutes. That’s an enormous time cost, and even though the content is mostly worthwhile, two hours can be easily too much. So if you listen to the two-hour podcast at 2x speed, which is manageable after about a week of speed listening, the whole podcast will only take up one hour. What you do with the other hour is now up to you, consume other content, meditate? You decide.
Drawbacks
Naturally, listening to things at two times speed also has certain drawbacks. One of them is that you may miss something. While this indisputably true, the things you miss when you don’t read as much are way more. Again, it comes down to the utilitarian view that you derive more value from listening to more things at 2x speed than just one thing at the regular rate.
Another drawback that is often brought up in the context of speed listening is the opinion that you don’t enjoy the things you are listening to or watching as much as you would do otherwise. In my case, this isn’t true. Rereading Harry Potter on 2x speed is just as good as it was at normal speed. Especially if you slow down the climax speed, it makes the whole story work almost better. Also, you have to differentiate why you watch or listen to things. If I am procrastinating and want to kill time on YouTube, I don’t want to consume more content in the same amount of time because I specifically planned in the time to watch some videos. However, if I want to read a book a friend recommended because it has excellent advice, I want this advice as quickly as possible, so I listen to the Audiobook on 2x speed.
Getting started
Starting to speed, listen to content can be difficult because our brains have to adapt to the new speed. However, our minds are really fast to pick up, and it won’t take long before you listen to things at 2x speed quickly.
To start, choose a speed that is still comprehensible for you, but you don’t feel entirely comfortable listening. After a few minutes, your brain will have adjusted to the new speed, and you can increase the playback speed even further.
There is no end to pushing yourself to listen faster. However, I found that breaking the 2.5x barrier is quite challenging, so I stick to 2 or 2.5x listening speed.
It didn’t take me long to get to 2x speed, about two weeks, even though it sounded bizarre and unnatural when I started.
Conclusion
I can only recommend trying out speed listening. Consuming more worthwhile content is something everybody can benefit from. Whether you want to start reading more or are really into Podcasts, you’ll be able to finish more of your favorite content, or you’ll lower the bar to begin consuming worthwhile content.
Stay safe
Raffael