Looking Back On My 2-Month Podfast

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The Experiment

I committed to not listening to podcasts for the month of November 2021.

Takeaways

  1. There is great value in silence.
  2. You are likely fooling yourself if you think that this next piece of content is going to change your life.
  3. There are better ways to learn than listening to podcasts.
  4. I can see how a 30-day podfast might become a yearly practice of mine.
Figure 1 – How much time I spent listening to podcasts on the Pocket Casts app.

My Experience

I spent more time listening to podcasts since 2018 than it would have taken me to go around the world twice in a hot air balloon. This is nuts. It’s the equivalent of roughly 30 minutes per day (as of this writing on January 8th, 2022).

I think it is fair to say that podcast addiction is real. Most of my podcast consumption was “educational” but that doesn’t change the fact that too much of a good thing can be bad. Podcasts are not the best way to learn. The listener is often passively consuming surface-level information. It’s a form of escapism. It’s just another cell of the productivity prison.

My friend told me that he would be scared to fall behind on his podcast feed if he did a 30-day podfast. For me, that was a big part of the calling to a podfast in the first place. I had this constant feeling that I had to keep up with the infinite stream of information. I always thought to myself that maybe this podcast is going to be the one that makes me smart or improves my life satisfaction. Keep in mind that I know I’m unlikely to get significantly happier (What I Learned from Tracking my Mood for 1000 days). Yet, I currently have 135 podcast episodes downloaded on my phone and 140 videos on my Watch later playlist on YouTube. Why is that? I figured that doing a 30-day podfast couldn’t hurt and would help me investigate what is going on under the hood.

I am a big believer in walking. I try to walk at least 30 minutes per day. It was the first time in a while that I went back to walking in silence. It was difficult for me to go for a walk in silence before because I felt like I was wasting my time. After all, why walk in silence when you can walk and learn about the benefits of mediation at 2.5X speed? What I failed to realize is that there is wisdom and richness to silence. Sure, there is an opportunity cost to walking in silence but I would argue that the average knowledge worker has a bigger opportunity cost to listen to a podcast while walking. The silence was an opportunity to unwind and organize your thoughts. There were all kinds of things I rediscovered from this newly enforced quietude. I found Cal Newport’s insight walks to be useful for my basketball research. I listened to music while cooking dinner for the first time in months. I played with my cat more. I started listening to audiobooks again.

Oddly enough, I ended up going roughly 60 days without listening to a podcast. This much-needed break helped me see through the facade of needing to be up to speed on all the latest information. My podcast consumption has dropped since doing the challenge (for the better) and I’ve been much more intentional about the process. This is a challenge that might find its way into my yearly practice.

We are finite beings wrestling with infinity.

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Affiliate Links

  1. Silence – Erling Kagge
  2. Walking – Erling Kagge
  3. Deep Work – Cal Newport
  4. Four Thousand Weeks – Oliver Burkeman
  5. The Antidote – Oliver Burkeman
  6. Atomic Habits – James Clear
  7. Take effective book notes – Readwise
  8. Invest Automatically – Wealthsimple Invest Robo-Advisor
  9. Build your own portfolio – Wealthsimple Trade
  10. Save money and make a little – EQ Bank High-Interest Savings Account

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