May 05
25
Lifehacks, Podcast and Audioblog
Do you ever have any awesome trick that keep you productive or make your work more efficient? Every creative and intelligent person I’ve met always has some kind of “magic trick” to keep them productive and efficient.
Lifehack
Danny O’Brien coined the word “lifehack” for this kind of trick. Since then a lot of website picked up the word and as viral as it went, created another “cult” of lifehacker. Here are some great websites about lifehack:
While most lifehacks seems so obviously simple, some of them are actually ingenious. For example one of my favorite is using podcast and audiobook to boost productivity.
Podcast
I own an iPod. An old one, the 10GB 2nd generation, nothing fancy. I’ve been using it mostly for, obviously, music and quite content with it until I discovered podcast. Listening to podcast change my way to receive information. While I still depend on the web to keep up with rapid information about life, the universe and everything, sometime I found it could be a big time waster. That’s why I depend on RSS Feed to keep up with my daily information intake because I have more than 200 feed subscription and because I don’t have internet connection at home, I use podcast to catch up with more information on the go.
The beauty of podcast lies on its portability. I could listen to them anywhere while I am cleaning my apartment, walking home, jogging and exercising, cooking and just before sleep. Most of my subscribed podcasts are technology oriented but I do have quite a few music oriented and everyday life thingy podcasts. Here are my current rotation:
Must listen:
- Daily Source Code: Podcast by the Podfather, Adam Curry. Talking about everything about podcast world in general.
Tech Podcast:
- this WEEK in TECH: If you miss “Call for Help” on TechTV then this is your cure. Leo Laporte, Yoshi, Kevin Rose and lots of those guys.
- MacCast: I am a Mac Geek and this show is for Mac Geeks, by Mac Geeks.
- Geek News Central: Todd Cochrane amazing geek news and he is publishing a book
about podcasting!
- IT Conversation: Just to keep up with IT trends.
- MAKE Podcast: Like Make Magazine? Like to build, hack and tinker stuff? This is your podcast then.
- Digital Experience Podcast: Better than Roy’s e-lifestyle. Guaranteed. Hi Roy™.
- The Wizards of Technology: Geek stuff, you’ll love it.
- This Week In Science: All scientific news you can digest.
Music related
- Coverville: A MUST if you love good music. A thrice-weekly voyage into the world of cover songs.
- Podcast NYC: Podsafe music, no legal issue here. Grab what you like and enjoy.
- Mashup Town: Love Mashup? You will love this show.
- De-Fi Radio: Another Podsafe music.
And believe me when I said: “There is no such thing as ‘Information Overload’, your brain is capable to process much information at once. Trust your brain, it could do wonder.”
Audiobook
While podcast is feeding me with information, listening to audiobook is proving to be very rewarding. The same reason applied to audiobook as to podcast. While I enjoyed sit comfortably and read a good book, sometimes it also make time flies so quickly. I often hear people complain that they don’t have time to read because they are just too busy. My advice, get a portable audio player, digital is preferred, and get audiobooks. Then you could listen to them while you are driving, jogging, exercising, cleaning or doing things that normally would not give you a chance to read.
It may feel awkward for the first time and may not even work for some, but if it is your cup of tea then great! You just become more productive while being entertained or learned.
Enjoy your life
There is nothing more enjoyable than life itself. Instead of juggling with dozen of things at hand, wouldn’t be nice to have some free time to enjoy your life?
So while it is great to lifehack your life, please do keep in mind that there are more out there than just things to get done.
Have a fun life and enjoy!
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Audio Book Free Listen Online from Audio Book Free Listen Online @ September 7, 2008 11:21 AM
Isn't it wonderful to listen the book of your choice. Choose from our mass …
7 Comments
wah..sampe dibuat kategori baru ‘lifehack’ ditunggu deh ‘lifehacking’ lainnya. Great post. ..sudah baca Seth Godin blog? ada ttg Podcast juga..
Really a good posting. And I believe that one of the way for you 2 enjoy your life is doing blog :)
Saya sempet baca soal podcast di blognya Seth Godin (http://sethgodin.typepad.com). Apabila blog dianggap sebagai SMS, apakah menurut Mas Avi fenomena podcast bisa-bisa ‘berakhir’ seperti MMS? MMS tentunya fitur yang lebih lengkap dari pada SMS, tapi karena relatif mahal, tidak kompatibel untuk HP lama & ‘tidak simple’ malah ujung2nya tidak bertahan seperti SMS (kasus: Indonesia).
While lifehack suggest various ways to be more productive, I do not think Podcasting is suitable for me in the near future. Seems I must wait digital ink for reading while being away from my desktop. :)
Lifehack itself is motivational for me to provide useful content, practical for daily life, and relatively not so difficult to be accepted by audience in Indonesia. But I really do not have any origin idea for writing such kind material by myself. How if collecting useful material from other sources and let them flowing like stories in Slashdot-style? Seems promising — even I am still unsure too about its material in Bahasa Indonesia sources.
A challenge!
Waktu itu kakak saya minta bantuan untuk sebuah paragraf di Thesis-nya. Akhirnya saya tuliskan sesuatu yang pernah saya baca di Trilogi Manuel Castells. Waktu itu saya bilang ntar ya footnote-nya menyusul. Kebetulan saya juga mengutip bagian yang sama untuk skripsi saya. Yang jadi permasalahan kemudian adalah..Saya lupa itu ada dihalaman berapa dan setelah dicari di appendix ketiga buku tsb, ga ada yang tepat.. aha! gunakan saja www.amazon.com buku-buku tertentu memiliki feature ‘Search Inside This Book’ tinggal ketik kalimat yang dimaksud, keluar deh page berapa aja yang ada kalimat itu..trus tinggal bandingin sama hardcopy yang kita punya..selesai deh masalah :)
Podcast emang bagus, kita bisa denger suara dan juga penambahan suara latar kalau perlu.
Semoga teknologi ini bisa lebih bermanfaat. Gimana kalau VideoCast(atau apalah mau disebut)? saya rasa ini juga bagus, dan apalagi sekarang banyak sekali kompresi Audio Video yang bagus.
Thanks for the huge vote of confidence! I’m flattered you listen to my show (De-Fi Radio)! =)
Keep up the great work here. I really enjoy the site.
Priyadi @ May 26, 2005 4:53 PM
The beauty of podcast lies on its portability, the beast of podcast lies on its requirement of bandwidth :(