3x speed mistakes form for substance and wastes time besides, because podcasts are much more for fun than self-improvement.
Let's be honest with ourselves here: no one listening to a podcast is ever just listening to a podcast. You're running or driving or doing the laundry or working out or working or walking the dog, so in terms of learning it's more than anything like hypnopaedia [1], which doesn't work. You're not really engaging with the material, which in any case can only go so deep because it's a radio show and you're using it for what we've used radio shows for since radio shows were invented.
That's not to say podcasts can't also be useful in the instrumental way that 3x-ers seem to seek. If you've got a good memory or are in a position to take notes, they can provide fruitful directions for further investigation. But that's not the kind of raw data upload that 3x pretends to optimize. That's just finding places where it might be worth putting in real work, of the sort that listening to podcasts isn't.
Turn off the speed boost and give up on the idea that you can "level up" without doing the work - hell, even in the video games from which that metaphor is drawn, you have to grind for XP or at least progress the story. So get to work! Progress your own story. And listen to podcasts, if you want to, for the fun of it. Believe it or not, that's allowed too.
I never understood why I never listened to podcasts. But you explained it to me - I hate doing two things at once, because it means I do them both badly.
It depends a lot on the primary thing. One rarely needs much in the way of deep focus to fold laundry or do dishes or clean a bathroom, after all, and some light entertainment makes these tasks go by noticeably faster and more pleasantly than they do in its absence.
Let's be honest with ourselves here: no one listening to a podcast is ever just listening to a podcast. You're running or driving or doing the laundry or working out or working or walking the dog, so in terms of learning it's more than anything like hypnopaedia [1], which doesn't work. You're not really engaging with the material, which in any case can only go so deep because it's a radio show and you're using it for what we've used radio shows for since radio shows were invented.
That's not to say podcasts can't also be useful in the instrumental way that 3x-ers seem to seek. If you've got a good memory or are in a position to take notes, they can provide fruitful directions for further investigation. But that's not the kind of raw data upload that 3x pretends to optimize. That's just finding places where it might be worth putting in real work, of the sort that listening to podcasts isn't.
Turn off the speed boost and give up on the idea that you can "level up" without doing the work - hell, even in the video games from which that metaphor is drawn, you have to grind for XP or at least progress the story. So get to work! Progress your own story. And listen to podcasts, if you want to, for the fun of it. Believe it or not, that's allowed too.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep-learning