Yeah, I do that for audiobooks, but find it super annoying with most podcasts.

For me it works well when a professional narrator is reading at a slow, deliberate pace…. because speeding it up just makes it a quicker, deliberate pace. Some narrators I can handle at up to 1.6x, others no more than 1.3x.

But podcasts typically involve natural speech… people talking at varying rates. The rhythm gets weird when you speed it up… and even more so if there’s musical scoring involved.

Brad, check this out: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/06/the-rise-of-speed-listening/396740/

Things get even more complicated when I decide to listen to an audiobook. I tend to put podcast listening on hold while I try to plow through a 10-20 hour book in a few weeks or less!

Thanks for the info, Brad, esp. b)! Well, actually, I have a similar listening strategy to yours. I have to go on lots of walks. 😉

a) There are a few podcasts I listen to every episode of (This American life, Reply All, and a few others), so I set my podcatcher to hold an unlimited number and if my phone starts running out of storage space I know it’s time to play catch up. But I usually only save 2-5 episodes of other shows like Planet Money, Note to Self, and others that I’m OK with just listening to when I have time. I do keep up to 10 episodes at a time of 99% invisible, because they come out so often and they’re short enough that sometimes I’ll go months without listening, and then binge-listen.

b) BeyondPod is pretty much a traditional podcatcher, in that you add a subscription and it automatically grabs the latest episodes for you. If I want to listen to a long MP3 and not worry about losing my place between listening sessions, I treat it like an audiobook and use Smart AudioBook Player for Android instead.

c) I typically listen to podcasts when I’m going for a walk or a bus ride or exercising. I listen to live radio when cooking or doing other household chores, because I don’t usually care if I miss something in the background. But since most of the podcasts I listen to are in-depth interviews or long-form narrative, I don’t want to risk missing too much when my attention is focused on other tasks.

This strategy also motivates me exercise and/or walk more 🙂

I have a friend who listens to podcasts all day while he’s working, but I think that’d drive me crazy. I usually listen to music during my workday.

Instead of giving you a full list (and besides non-English podcasts, and single episodes of whichever interesting discussions I find on YouTube and make an audio out of them), rather some recommendations:

https://duncantrussell.com/ – This is deep. Duncan survived cancer, is a stand-up comedian, takes too many drugs and is into spirituality.

https://www.aboveavalon.com/podcast/ – Wall Street meets Silicon Valley. This may be too much Apple for some tastes, though. Neil has a very good grasp on where technology is heading though, inside Apple and outside, most notably cars and wearables.

Another interesting question is, if you listen to your podcasts in the foreground with full attention, or more as background noise? I have podcasts for this and that, too, I also use different equipment for the different listening circumstances.

Haha, I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment or not. 🙂

FYI — a lot of podcast players have adjustable speed controls. I don’t usually like to use them, since it seems weird speeding up people who are talking at their natural speed, but they do exist.

I do like to speed up audiobooks though, since most professional narrators do speak slowly enough that you can go at 1.2 or 1.3x normal speed without making their speech sound unnatural.