Building a listening habit, get more out of every Audiobook

An Art

The listening and understanding of something is an art. Just like the designing of an architecture or a visual. Any misconception or wrong pick would lead to nowhere.

Same is the situation with audio books. Majority of listeners start with zeal but within a few days they give up. Reason being they do not know how to get best from their audio books selection!!!

Listening of an audio book is totally opposite to the watching or reading of a movie or book. It needs a specific skill which could be learned just like the skills of cycling, hiking or cooking. People who who successfully use their audio books have develpoed some specific habits which help them to get best from their audio selection in chores of daily life.

This guide covers all those specific habits which a good listener must need for getting the best from their audio books. The correct time for listening, notes taking, to speed of narration and a growing and lasting habit of listening audio books — all are discussed in some detail.

Listening Is a Skill

We all assume that listening is a passive work that does not need our attention and focus but it is not true and is an universal wrong belief. There is no use of listening of Gulf War, or technical details of a tech or business company or 27 years in the South African jail when are not attentive or focused to the words that enter our ears.

The difference between passive hearing and active listening is of the same nature which are in players and spectators in a stadium. In one an audio play in background but we do not what is being played and told. Just a sound. No sequence or dot connection of the events.

While in the other, we know what is going on and who and what is being told to us. Knowing the sequence and connecting the dots!!

An active listening could be developed by the techniques given below….

Part One: Choosing the Right Listening Moments

The selection of book is not as important as the moment of when and where to listen is the most important thing in audio memoir listening.

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Different listening contexts suit different types of memoir content. Knowing the right match for the moment would enhance both listener’s learning and enjoyment.

Commutation

The daily commutation, whether by car, train, bus or on foot, is the richest moment for listening any audio book. The reason is nothing but the spare time which could be otherwise lost in overthinking or useless talking. The time could not be used for anything other than this audio listening. Thus, changing a dead time into more productive and constructive work!!

Commuting is especially good for the listening of memoirs. Politics, military plannings, celebrity lives, entrepreneurial struggles. Such material with strong forward momentum keep their listeners engulfed looking impatiently what happened next in the story.

More philosophical memoirs like those of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning or Ray Dalio’s Principles demands pausing and thinking. Which make them and the like unsuitable for commutaing listening.

The physical activity of any kind provides the settings where the listener is physically engaged while the background listening of audios keep their attention fixed and focused to listen attentively what they are listening to giving no room for distraction.

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Military memoir is especially good for exercise listening leading their listeners imaginations to battlefields and drills. Thus making their physical exercise more energyzing and fitting for them. The Lone Survivor or Old Breed will raise the heartbeat and emotions of its listeners in gym exercise!!!

Daily Chores

Cooking, cleaning, laundry, gardening — Some tasks need listener hands but not their mind like cleaning, laundering, cooking etc. These memoirs do not need full concentration. Rather they are an easy dose to take. Celebrity and business memoirs are the best pick for such times!!!

Evening Listening

Bed time and quiet evenings are best time to listen the philosophical memoirs that demand more attentions, reflection, pausing for its listeners to ponder on. Long Walk to Freedom, Just Kids, Dreams from My Father are best selection for these times with a relax and unhurried mind. But be careful not to sleep when listening to such deep philosophical work!!

Travelling

Audio memoirs best hearing times are the long flights and road trips. Where listeners are free to listen the audio books they like. Imagine the serotonin level in the mind of the listener who has just completed an audio book in their flight. For travelling books with strong narrative shoild be selected that does not need pausing and reflections time and again. Obama’s A Promised Land, Schwarzkopf’s It Doesn’t Take a Hero, McConaughey’s Greenlights are its examples.

Part Two: Managing Speed

The narration speed has more impact on the listening and understanding of listeners than anything else.

Speed Matters

The default narration speed for most audiobooks is calibrated for spoken word, estimated at 150-160 words per minute. This speed is slower than the natural pace of humans talking in a conversation. Some listeners feel that this is speaking pace is too slow and draggy for them.

Increasing speed has two benefits: the listening thus becomes more time saving. Another yet queer fact the is improvement of focus. As a little faster narration gives less time to human brain to wander.

Selecting Speed

Starting with a normal narration pace will skill up the listening power of the hearer. With time passage, the increaing narration speed would give the benefits of both time saving as well as comprehension without the loss of ideas and understanding of the audio book. The speed selection for audio books should be done on the basis of their genre, topics covered, and narrations.

Author-Narrated Memoirs and Speed

The speed selection criteria could be rather overlooked for author-based-narrations. Speeding the narrations of Obama’s audio books or that of Tina Fey would lose their punch and touch for their listeners.

Part Three: Staying Focused

There is no use of listening to an audio book when the listener does not focus and get lost in the wilderness!! Some famous and used techniques for keeping focus are;

Setting an Intention Before Each Session

Before playing the audio book, it is good to pause and recap what the listener so far have listened. Short breaks and pausings would help the listener to analyze and recollect all the previous details.

Active Prediction

The active prediction is like a weather forecast telling the viewers about the developing situations. It may or may not come out true but it gives an idea about future weather. So is the process of Active Prediction where a listener tries to predict what is going to happen in the audio book. This technique does not fade their interests in the audio book.

Chapter-wise listening

The continuous long sessions of listening surely would affect both the attention as well as focus of the listener. A chapter-wise listening, pausing, and analyzing would boost both the interest of the listener and their recapping.

Listen Again

If the listener feels that they wander in the wilderness finding no clue what they have heared so far, they should immediately stop what they are listening now. After a brief break and relaxation, they should resume by recapping and re-analyzing the prevoius context. In this way they would get a better a understanding of all events so far.

Physical Notes

Noting down would further add to the understanding and comprehension of the audio books by its listeners. Using a pen and paper or a noting app is the way for remaining on the track. This physical or virtual notes would serve as reading material for them at any time.

Part Four: Taking Notes from Audio Memoirs

The common question about these audio books is how to retain their ideas for long as they are aerial in nature with the concern that they would evaporate quickly after their completion. Some common techniques to resolve this concern are;

Bookmarking Method

Almost all the major audio apps give the features of bookmarking to their listeners. The listener can easily bookmark any points in their listening app for their reference.

Post-Session Summary

The bulleting down the main points after each session would help in remembering the points the listener had heared so far. Just imperfect 4 or 5 headlines points will help them greatly.

Character Map

The long political or military memoirs have many characters and complex relationships understanding of whose is sometimes difficult. By keeping a simple character map, that is a list of all persons in the memoir in which all their pros and cons, roles, and relationships are written down will enhance the listeners comprehension.

Quotation Capture

Audio makes capturing quotations difficult but all good audio plaforms gives the feature of bookmarking. Listener can easily bookmark their favorite line which they later can transcribe for them.

Part Five: The Best Equipment for Audio Memoir Listening

Good headphones and mediocre headphones clearly impact the quality of sound in an audio. Bad quality does not convey clearly the inentions.

For Commute and Exercise

Wireless earbuds are the practical choice for active listening.

For Home Listening

For evening listening at home, over-ear headphones are best.

For Driving

Bluetooth connection is best for car driving.

Part Six: Building a Sustainable Listening Habit

The best listeners are those who have built consistent listening habits over months.

The Daily Minimum

Setting a daily minimum listening time would boost up the listening and comprehension of listeners.

Attach to Existing Habits

The daily routine a person do daily could be a boosting stuff for their listening habits growth. A Gym-goer would like to hear a military memoir in the Gym than of politcal one, as it enhances their fervor for physical exercise.

A Visible Listen List

If the listener keep their listening list on their home page, it would make its listening more easy and appealing to them.

Start and Finish Rule

If the listener follow this rule as fixed and unchanging for their audio books list, it would help them in the completion of their tasks very easily. The most interesting and captivating part of any memoir is its third part where the author reflect, recount, and conclude their life and memoir for their listeners and readers.

Part Seven: The Listening List

All human beings differs in their likes and dislikes. So a fixed and universally applicable audio books list is impossible to make for them. Everybody has to select a list of their choice. make

Genre Balancing

Genre balancing would their listeners interest and zeal always buring. Hearing too many audio books of the same genre would lead the listeners to fatigue and exhaustion. A mixed listening collection of military, celebrity, political, or businesss tycoons will keep the listeners interest alive.

The Era Balance

Era balancing is essential. It keeps interest thriving. For example, a WW2 memoir should be followed by a modern celebrity one, then taking a memoir of a colonized country will give show the face imperialism. Thus mixing and balancing all eras and genres side by side.

Difficulty Level

The difficfulty level in the selection of audio books is must. If selection is too heavy or too light, the listeners would lose their interest very quickly. A dose of philosophy, politics, or economic memoir should be followed by a lighter course of audio books making its digestion easy for their listeners!!

Just Start…

A quick and easy to listen of the audio books is given below for creating the habit of listening.

• Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
• A Promised Land by Barack Obama
• The Old Breed by Eugene Sledge
• Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Final Thought

Listening to audio memoir is one of the most enriching habits that a person can develop. If a listener is persistent in their journey of audio listening, they could learn and absorb more from the experiences of these great lives than those of conventional book readong. It is the utility of spare time which otherwise lost in the useless activities.

Start, play and learn from great lives!!!

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