Near the beginning of Ghostworld, one of my favorite movies, Enid - an alienated young artist and our heroine - and her best friend Rebecca are at a dorky high school graduation party. A guy awkwardly approaches the pretty Rebecca, ignoring Enid, so Enid butts in to ask, "So what are you going to be when you grow up, Todd?" Todd, looking at Rebecca and in a small effort to impress her, replies, "Well, I'm going to major in Business Administration and, I think, minor in Communications." Enid hauls Rebecca away by the elbow, saying to Todd, "Yeah, see, that's exactly the kind of thing we're trying to avoid."
In that spirit, I offer you a crazy-ass time management guy (why are time management guys always guys?):
Audio learning is the perfect multi-tasking activity. Most people who know me know that I'm listening to audio books, podcasts, etc. several hours every day. I'll do this whenever I'm driving, while exercising, doing stuff around the apartment, etc. I've been able to crank through an unbelievable number of books in the last year.... One of my favorite things to do is to go for a run with a few podcasts or an audio book queued up. In fact, I recently completed the LA Marathon while simultaneously listening to the first half of John Battelle's book The Search. It was kind of fun to know that I was getting both a workout for my body and for my mind.
Yeah, see Todd, that's exactly the kind of thing we're trying to avoid. Books are not information-delivery systems. I don't want to learn to sleep five hours per night, or schedule meetings with friends at the gym so I can work out while fulfilling my friendship duties, or save time by listening to books while commuting.
"There is more to life than increasing its speed" (Gandhi).
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2 comments:
I've tried audio books but it's so easy to tune out and not pay attention. I'm wondering how much this guy is really getting. And what his motivation is for doing it in the first place. Maybe if he'd sit and *read* a book he'd get more out of it than listening to it while he jogs.
Whenever I see people listening to podcasts or the audio on the train/Metro, I think of the beginning of the movie "Shawn of the Dead." Where everyone's riding around with this zombie look on their face, completely blank and empty. And I look at the people who are just sitting or standing or whatever, and I think, hey that is some good commentary there- everyone's just riding around like zombies. Except for the people listening to their podcasts; at least they appear interested in some part of the world around them. And they can talk to you about more than monday night sports.
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