My 4-Step Framework for Learning With Audiobooks (2)
are written for clarity so they're actually fairly simple to understand. They're not normally using
really, really big fancy words. Speaker 1 (07:23):
One of the exceptions to this is Happy by Darren Brown, which actually uses a lot of complicated
words. It's a self-help book about stoicism and happiness, but it's really hard to listen to at
2X speed because it's just kind of complicated. So really it's about fiddling the speed and
getting to a point where it's fast enough while still being comfortable to listen to. The second
big area of non-fiction books I listen to for learning are general interest books.
Speaker 1 (07:42): These are books that are about an
interesting topic that I want to learn more about, but I'm not necessarily interested in absorbing
every single detail so that I can apply it to my life in some way. For example, recently I've been
interested in the idea of globalisation. So I came across a book called The Globalisation Paradox,
which is kind of interesting. Speaker 1 (07:56):
And so again, I'm just trying to fiddle with the speed to make it comfortable, but I'm also not too
annoyed if I don't catch absolutely every single word, because what I'm trying to do is just get a
general gist of, hey, let me explore this topic of globalisation a little bit more. And so for
a book like that, I was happy listening to it at 2.5 times speed or potentially even 3 times speed,
depending on like the speed of the narrator. Speaker 1 (08:14):
And finally, the third big category of non-fiction books that I listen to for learning are deep
learning books where I'm like, okay, the reason I'm learning this is because I'm so
interested in the topic that I want to actually absorb everything I can from this book and I want
to potentially be able to explain it to friends further down the line. So right now, for me,
this is philosophy themed books. Speaker 1 (08:30):
There's this philosopher called Alan Watts who I've recently discovered who's absolutely sick,
but I want to deep learn that kind of stuff. I want to really be able to understand
and get into Alan Watts' mind and really understand his take on stuff. And therefore,
I actually start listening to those at one time speed and try and force myself to stay
somewhere between one times and 1.5 times, because I know that really, as stuff happens slowly,
even if it feels too slow for me, the deep learning is happening behind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (08:53): And as I'm rehearsing the things that the author
is saying in the audio book, as I'm thinking, actively thinking about what's being said,
then it's just, I don't know, in my mind, forming more connections and helping me figure out, oh,
okay, cool. I would explain it to my friend, Jamie in this specific way. Right, tip number three for
getting the most out of consuming audiobooks is to recognise when your mind starts to wander. This is
always going to happen. Speaker 1 (09:13):
It's going to vary depending on the book and the topic and the narrator and your mood and
the speed of narration, but whenever I find my mind wandering and I think, oh, the words
are coming in one ear, but they're going out the other, I don't really know what I'm listening to,
at that point. I either rewind back a few kind of like a few minutes so I'd be like, "Okay,
cool," and I get back into it. Speaker 1 (09:29):
But if this happens more than once or twice, then I'll know, okay, cool. My mind is wondering
right now, I'm not going to continue to force myself to listen to this audiobook. Instead,
I'm going to close the audiobook, maybe pick up another fiction audiobook instead,
something like that, potentially even listen to music, potentially even just be in silence with
my own thoughts because I know right now my mind is moving too fast to actually bother continuing
to keep up with this audiobook. Speaker 1 (09:48):
And finally tip number four for consuming audiobooks is guilt free abandonment. And
this is where if I find my mind wandering more than once or twice in a listing session, and
then the next day or the next week, I come back to the same audiobook and I continue to find my mind
wandering from it, usually I'm like, all right, cool. This audiobook isn't doing it for me.
Speaker 1 (10:04): It's not to say it's a bad audiobook, but I'm just
going to completely abandon it without feeling guilty about it at all. And certainly in the past,
I used to feel guilty about not finishing a book, not like abandoning a book, but to be honest,
if it's not doing it for me, life is too short to be listening to books that I'm
just sort of mind wandering and I'm not getting the full vibe out of at the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (10:20): And really this is an
important point about learning from anything, whether it's books or textbooks or audio books,
or even lectures and videos and podcasts, you can always abandon it once you feel you've gotten
value out of it, or if you feel like you're not getting value out of it rather than feeling like
you have to force it. I'm not about forcing. I'm just about working with our natural ebb and flow
of energy and working with our natural ebb and flow of interest almost like a sine wave.
Speaker 1 (10:41): All right, let's now move
on to step four, which is the processing stage of learning from audiobooks. Now a real downside
of audiobooks is that it's genuinely very hard to take notes if you're trying to learn stuff
from audiobooks. And honestly, I think this is one of the main reasons why people for learning
often prefer reading rather than listening because when you're reading, you can actually take notes
and absorb stuff as you go along. Speaker 1 (10:57):
But the key that I find to actually learning properly from audiobooks is to find a way to
take notes during the process. Now there's a few different ways that you can do this.
You could potentially use the bookmarking function that's built into Audible. By the way,
this is not sponsored by Audible, I wish it were, but it's not. You could use the bookmark
function in Audible and that saves that 30 second period that you snippet it out.
Speaker 1 (11:15): Some people I know find this helpful. I don't
personally find it helpful because it's always way too much of a faff to actually revisit my
bookmarks and re-listen to those bits. And then be like, "Oh, but the real bit I wanted to bookmark
was a minute before, rather than 30 seconds before, now I have to go to the timestamp of the
audiobook." It's just a real nightmare so I don't really find that particularly helpful myself.
Speaker 1 (11:31): The second option, which is
one that I do is to actually genuinely take your own notes while you're listening to the audiobook.
Now there's basically two main ways that I do this. The first one is if I'm listening to an
audiobook in a place where I'm able to pause it and get out my phone, i.e, not when I'm driving,
then I will pause the audio book, I will get out my phone and in Apple Notes, I have a book notes
folder and I'll just sort of write down a few things on my phone, a few bullet points from
what I've taken away if I want to take notes on a particular section of the audio book.
Speaker 1 (11:55): Alternatively, if I can't get out my phone
or I can't be bothered to get out my phone and I still want to take a note from something I've
heard in the audio book, often what I will do is I'll open up the app draughts on my Apple Watch,
which allows me to dictate stuff like audio into my watch, which is what I can do while driving.
Speaker 1 (12:09): So I'll say something like,
"Hey, just listening to nine lies about work. I think it's chapter number four and they're talking
about blah, blah, blah. They're talking about have praise and feedback, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah. So yeah, worth revisiting that bit." And then that will get saved to my draught
inbox, which then syncs to. It syncs across all my devices, my Mac, my iPhone, my iPad, again,
not sponsored at all, I wish it were. Speaker 1 (12:26):
But then whenever I want, whenever I can be bothered, whenever I feel like it, then I can
go through my draught inbox and be like, "All right, cool. So this was a note from nine lies
about work, let's just copy and paste that into my Apple Notes thingy for that particular book." But
then beyond taking notes as I go along the book, if I really want to genuinely learn from the book
and take more stuff from it, I will just buy the book in physical copy or in Kindle version.
Speaker 1 (12:46): Generally, I prefer Kindle
version because then you can highlight, you can synchronise, you can take notes on the computer,
which is way quicker than taking notes by hand. But sometimes there are some books where it's
just nice to have the physical copy of it and take notes in the margin. I don't do that very often,
but it is nice to do very, very occasionally. Speaker 1 (13:00):
And beyond buying the physical book or buying the version on Kindle, if I really want to continue
to kind of get the most out of it, usually I'll turn it into an episode of Book Club, the series
on this channel where we talk about books and I summarise books. And generally I find that I
gain so much more from a book and I genuinely learn from it when I get to the point where I can
actually explain it to someone else. Speaker 1 (13:18):
And so for me, that involves basically either writing an email newsletter about it or writing
a tweet thread about it or making a Book Club video where I summarise the book. Now, if you're
interested in the specific workflow, the specific process that I use for taking notes from books,
and you are a massive nerd like me, then you might like to check out my workflow series which
is available on Nebula. Speaker 1 (13:34):
If you haven't heard by now, Nebula is an independent streaming platform that's built by
me and a bunch of other creators. And on Nebula, we can put really niche stuff like a very specific
video about the workflow that I use from taking notes from books and audiobooks and stuff without
having to worry about, is it mainstream enough to appeal to the YouTube algorithm? It's not trying
to be a competitor to YouTube, it's literally just a place where we can put stuff where
it might be useful to some people in our audience, but not necessarily to the whole crowd.
Speaker 1 (13:55): And so on Nebula, I've got
my exclusive workflow series, which talks about this kind of nerdy stuff and I also have my older,
deep dive interview series. So back in lockdown, I did a bunch of remote interviews with really cool
people around the internet. And while I've started a new podcast, the old episodes, the interviews I
did a year ago are still ridiculously valuable and only available in Nebula for you to listen to.
Speaker 1 (14:13): If that sounds good and you'd
like to get access to this exclusive library of my own content along with exclusive content
from a bunch of other creators that you might be familiar with, then the easiest way to sign up to
Nebula is to actually sign up to Curiosity Stream who are very kindly sponsoring this
