
Ask HN: How do you learn via audio? - wintercarver
I find myself avoiding audiobooks of nonfiction content for fear of not being able to engage deeply (reread, flip back and forth, check footnotes, highlight, annotate, etc).<p>Are there any methods or tools to help effectively engage with audio content?<p>(Note: I think all bets are off for books with charts and equations - you have to go digital&#x2F;paper book in that case. I am asking more about general nonfiction.)
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tmaly
I listen to mostly non fiction audio books during my commute.

If I find a key point that I want to save, I write it down when I arrive.

If I find there is a good amount of knowledge that I simply cannot recall, I
look for a short summary of the book in paper form.

If there is no summary, I will look for a good used copy in paper form.

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latexr
I’ve noticed general nonfiction books tend to be _way_ longer than they need
to be. I’m not the first to make this observation, and won’t be the last. Most
(including from often recommended authors, like Cal Newport[1]) have a single
core idea stretched to fill a book. If you can find a talk by the author on
the topic, it will be a better use of your time.

But on to some practical tips. Every person is different and without knowing
you personally some of these might miss the mark, but I’ll give them as they
apply to me; hopefully some will be useful to you.

You _will_ forget most of what you read, including entire books you enjoyed
and left an impression on you, but the core ideas will stay. A good nonfiction
book has the potential to update your mental model of the world. That stays
with you even after you forget all the individual arguments that provoked the
change. In sum, don’t fret about “engaging deeply” and making annotations you
will never read. Consume the book. If you found it has potential to be
relevant in your life, make a note of it and come back to it at a later point
in life. You might find some of the ideas that were novel to you when you
first read it now feel like common sense and are part of your personality.
That book has done its job. You may tag it again for future reconsumption, or
discard it.

Keep a digital copy of the book in your phone while you listen to the
audiobook. If there is an idea you really want to save for later, pause the
audiobook and search the written version for a string of three or four words
you just heard. An exact short phrase is typically enough to find the right
spot. Annotate it there.

Listen at over 1x speed. The exact speed will depend on both your practice and
the book. I get distracted by other thoughts both when I read and when I
listen, but when I listen I can tell the software to make it more challenging.
The trick is to set the audiobook playback speed slow enough that you can
still comprehend it, but fast enough that it takes effort to do so. That will
leave no space for stray thoughts, increasing the attention you give the
content.

Programming books aren’t a good fit for audio, so they don’t tend to be
produced as audiobooks, but there is still value in audiobooks with charts and
graphs. Those tend to bundle a PDF with the required images and the narrator
will tell you where to look. Even so you may not need to check, as what
matters in a graph aren’t the lines, but the conclusions. If you trust the
author’s honesty and competence, you may eschew looking at the pictures and
accept their interpretation of the data.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Newport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Newport)

~~~
wintercarver
Thanks for the thoughtful reply - I agree with a lot of your sentiments. I'm
OK with forgetting content (am old enough to be at peace with that), but I do
have my own mostly-maintained-with-consistent-diligence process of
highlighting/annotating and reviewing most nonfiction I read. It's how I get
my nonfiction kicks and am not ready to accept it's just not worth it or
possible (in an efficient manner) with audio.

Also, I don't think I can justify indulging in buying audio _and_ digital
copies of all books (have only done this twice, to test it out), but I have
experimented with bookmarking times and going back to re-listen, transcribe or
jot down thoughts. It's extremely time consuming.

