Speeding Things Up
I have found that I get distracted a lot when I try to listen to YouTube videos or WA recorded live webinars.
This causes me to take 10 minutes to finish watching/listening to a video that's only about 4 minutes long, and it can take me 2-1/2 hours to finish watching a WA recorded live webinar that's just a little over 1 hour because I often rewind to re-listen.
Being a real introvert, I suppose I have a natural tendency to have a lot of internal stuff going on in my head.
Then again, one doesn't necessarily have to be an introvert but simply human, since humans probably all have a "monkey mind."
Another problem is the issue of speed-thought time differential, which is the difference between our rate of speaking versus our rate of thinking, the latter being faster. This differential creates a gap that allows one to daydream while trying to listen.
Anyway, it gets tiresome to take over 2 hours to watch/listen to a 1-hour video, not to mention I wind up not soaking it in as much.
So the day before yesterday it occurred to me out of the blue to adjust the speed of the audio. (For some reason, it never occurred to me to do this before.)
That is, instead of leaving it at "normal" or default speed, I cranked it up to 1.25x speed. This worked better. I cranked it up some more to 1.50x. And this worked even better. I found it easier to pay attention without mind wandering and didn't have to rewind and re-listen. Then I cranked it up a notch again to 2x. That's 2x faster than normal speed. Actually, I was surprised that I was still able to hear and comprehend all that was said on a YouTube video. However, although I could still understand everything while listening on 2x speed, the optimal speed, in my opinion, is 1.5x.
So that's one way to speed things up when it comes to acquiring new knowledge by listening, whether it be via WA recorded live webinars, YouTube videos or whatever.
I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen. --Ernest Hemingway.
I'm wondering, do you listen to WA recorded live webinars and/or YouTube videos on default "regular" speed or do you adjust the speed to play it faster?
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I wish that there was a 1.75 times setting. 2x is a little too fast and 1.5 is not quite fast enough, but then it depends on the speaker. There is one person I watch that sounds like a machine gun already. If I boost the speed on that I can't catch anything.
Sounds like you crank up the speed already.
Right,I don't know why there's not a 1.75 speed setting. I find it odd and 1.75 is probably optimal.
Yes, machine gun speakers sound like a blur if you crank them up. They are sometimes unclear even if you don't crank them up. But people who speak clearly can be cranked up at any speed and still comprehensible.
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would never have thought of doing that! Great tip, i'll be trying this out soon. I think it would keep me more engaged.