Once or twice, after casually injecting the word podcast into a sentence, I got the blank stare from my listener that means “I don’t know what that is, but I have heard of it and I’m going to keep listening with my eyebrows slightly raised and my head just barely nodding while I feign understanding.” That’s cool with me, but if you just ask I would enjoy telling you more about podcasts.
I think I will tell you some more, but first I’ll tell you that this post is segway for me to write more in future posts about the info I consume from podcasts. I find there is much intertwining between the reading, watching, and listening that I do and I want to describe the interconnection here at Higher Extent. Up until now, my writing was in reference to books.
Anyway.
I’ve been listening to them for three years, mostly in my truck that has been without a radio longer than that. Barely in the beginning did I choose podcasts because I had an iPod that required me to download what I thought I wanted to hear before leaving the house. Instead, I would burn audiobooks borrowed from the library and upload those to the iPod. In between finding a good auidobook, I would search through iTunes for programs to listen to and download a handful for sampling the next time I took a ride. Today, with a smartphone (Android instead of iOS) and the Sprint unlimited plan, I use Stitcher Radio to search and subscribe to a light handful of podcasts. Audiobooks became the the more labor intensive approach, while the ease of accessing and the variety of podcasts has improved.
The greatest chunk of my listening time is in the car ride to and from work. Listening time leaks into work a bit when I’m not ready to press pause. Later in the evening at home you may find me doing chores and tuning in.
If you’re thinking “yeah, me too”, then you probably want to know what I listen to. It changes often, so take these two lists:
I catch all the new episodes from these shows and get archived episodes if I have time for more:
These were great for awhile, but we grew apart for different reasons. HOWEVER, I may still check in for an episode occasionally:
If you don’t like or have’t tried listening to podcasts I want to pithily persuade you to do so.
Robert Fason taught me the term “university on wheels”. That’s what I see my truck as. A fifteen-minute commute to work equates to 113 hours of travel time per year. (15 minutes X 2 trips per day X 5 days per week X 50 work weeks per year X .90—I subtracted 10% for technical difficulties and the like). In that time you could be listening to the latest news in tech, powerful true stories told by real people, live-recorded lectures from universities you can’t afford to attend, skeptical accounts of popular theories, interviews with creatives and entrepreneurs, witty economic analysis of unexpected facets of society, and on and on.
You don’t have to continue listening to the same hit singles and ads over and over again on public radio. Even if that means you have to get a $20 mp3 player
Your mind will be fitter for it.
Do you have favorite podcasts?
Higher Extent 
Reblogged this on Bradberry Spread and commented:
Here’s an example of the style of writing that I want to do more of. It comes from Higher Extent where I wrote a few articles about self improvement. This particular article was the first time I made a (hand-drawn) illustration to go with my informative writing.