I’ve read a lot of people talk about doing this, and I kinda follow, but also: almost any time I’ve tried it ends up becoming background noise and I follow almost none of it. Are those of you that do this doing simpler tasks as you listen?
I listen to science books in my car.
I listen to a lot of it, but due to being distracted by driving, certainly not all.
Buuuut because these are educational books, I don’t mind listening to them again down the line.
So I’ve listened to most of my books more than once, and I catch different information each time because I start and stop the car at different points, start and stop paying attention to it differently, etc.
It’s a good happy medium.
Now that you mention it, that might be a good approach for those trying to learn while busy, or trying to learn all the things while learning other things. 😅
Scientifically, multitasking is a myth. Some people are more adept at switching tasks more frequently. But since the audio doesn’t stop when you focus on something else, that data input is ignored.
Speaking of focus, would you happen to know of any papers or texts involved in attempting to study focus? Your mention of it got me thinking about that and realizing I’m not sure how much we grasp about focus as a cognitive process.
Gee, not of the top of my head. But I remember reading that over a year ago. It was an eye opener for me. Shouldn’t be too hard to find, I don’t think, as long as you can filter out the CompSci articles of multitasking.
I feel like there were a number of studies on air traffic controllers and pilots involving task switching/multitasking/focus. May be a place to start looking at least. I don’t have any links to share atm though.
I can listen while driving and follow along for 99%. It helps me stay calm and not aggressive. If I do household chores I’m fine, but anything else makes me miss more than 70% of the storyline/information. So simple tasks are fine, but when I need to think I’m gone.
So simple tasks are fine, but when I need to think I’m gone.
Glad I’m not alone on this…Although I think the problem for me is I also take the time doing those simple tasks to think even more which is part of what inspired this question.
It depends on what I’m doing. Driving someplace I’ve been to (ie. work, home, store), mowing the lawn, or some other mundane task, I retain it all. Well, as much as I would anyway. I had a lot of fun in high school at the cost of short term memory. If I’m doing something like estimates, or driving someplace new, or even here, now, I had to pause a book to answer this, its water through a sieve.
Listening in the car is mostly retained. Basically any other task that requires any amount of real attention or brainpower breaks my ability to retain anything. Mowing, biking, dishes, etc are all fine. But I can’t work, that takes way too much focus. I usually watch twitch streams or movies/shows I’ve already seen when I need to focus on other stuff. Then it’s just background noise.
