Ask HN: How do you retain what you learn from podcasts?
I listen to a lot of podcasts and realised I was retaining almost nothing. Finished episodes buzzing with ideas and forgot everything within 48 hours.
Curious what others do. Do you take notes while listening? Re-listen to episodes? Use any tools? Or just accept the loss?
12 comments
It's the same as reading books. You won't remember everything, but you'll definitely remember parts of it.
If you read more books on the same topic, you still won't remember everything from each individual book, but you'll remember parts of each.
Those bits add up quick, and you'll eventually find that you now know more than you knew before.
If you're in a conversation on something related to what you know you've read before, or you're writing about something related, but you vaguely remember the details you wish to speak about, you can revisit that book and skim it until you find what you were looking for. Now, that part you just found would stick with you for much longer.
All I wrote is about reading books, but it also applies to podcasts.
I too love listening to podcasts and reading books.
I've had threads asking people for their favorite podcasts -
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43220656
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44308854
If you read more books on the same topic, you still won't remember everything from each individual book, but you'll remember parts of each.
Those bits add up quick, and you'll eventually find that you now know more than you knew before.
If you're in a conversation on something related to what you know you've read before, or you're writing about something related, but you vaguely remember the details you wish to speak about, you can revisit that book and skim it until you find what you were looking for. Now, that part you just found would stick with you for much longer.
All I wrote is about reading books, but it also applies to podcasts.
I too love listening to podcasts and reading books.
I've had threads asking people for their favorite podcasts -
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43220656
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44308854
The revisiting point is the key insight here. The problem is most people have no structured way to go back. Notes help but only if they're searchable and actually live somewhere you'll return to.
I don't. Listening to people talk is the worst way for me to learn anything (reading and doing are the best), and podcasts are entirely worthless to me on that count. So I stopped bothering with them.
Finished episodes buzzing with ideas
Then those ideas are very low value.
Great ideas are the ones that make you stop listening/reading and compel action.
Doing is much much more valuable than knowing once there stops being a quiz next week.
Good luck.
Then those ideas are very low value.
Great ideas are the ones that make you stop listening/reading and compel action.
Doing is much much more valuable than knowing once there stops being a quiz next week.
Good luck.
> Finished episodes buzzing with ideas and forgot everything within 48 hours.
Write them down?
For me, podcasts are for entertainment and exposure to ideas, not for learning that needs to retained. Otherwise it becomes yet another thing that you ruin the enjoyment of by trying to squeeze out the max value from it.
But if you are getting interesting ideas, writing them down to process later seems like a very obvious thing to do.
Write them down?
For me, podcasts are for entertainment and exposure to ideas, not for learning that needs to retained. Otherwise it becomes yet another thing that you ruin the enjoyment of by trying to squeeze out the max value from it.
But if you are getting interesting ideas, writing them down to process later seems like a very obvious thing to do.
Aggregate knowledge is the key. It is the primary way i have learned topics for years. Depending on how good the podcast is at analogy and such, made nearly any topic ingestible. And it will sit in the back of my head until some factoid comes up weeks or months later that is relevant.
And when notebooklm came out with their pod cast feature I was in heaven.
And when notebooklm came out with their pod cast feature I was in heaven.
NotebookLM is great for this. I went down a similar rabbit hole which is actually part of what led me to build something in this space. Curious how you use it for podcasts specifically.
Pretty simple. Slap in sources. Then generate an audio overview. You can guide the direction of the show pretty easily. Give it 5 minutes and you have a podcast where the hosts gabber on about the source material. Learning via osmosis.
I did it with my substack article I did a few days ago on the whole project glasswing. While I wrote it. The damned podcast presented the material in a way that helped explained the topic more than my article did. Its fun.
I did it with my substack article I did a few days ago on the whole project glasswing. While I wrote it. The damned podcast presented the material in a way that helped explained the topic more than my article did. Its fun.
thats the thing. without active processing you will forget it. make notes actively and if you want to keep it long term create flash cards with anki. but podcast imo are more infotainment.
I like Mochi (www.mochi.cards) even more than Anki for this because it has a "notebook" mode. Often new information is not in digestible or flashcard-ready form. Notebook mode allows the user to type up or dump in the received information and gradually work with it (valuable in itself!) en route to creating flashcards to incorporate into the SRS once the material is analyzed and learned.
But +1 to all the commenters (such as parent) who urge (hand-)writing the material (taking notes), active processing, real-world use of the information, and SRS to rehearse retrieval.
But +1 to all the commenters (such as parent) who urge (hand-)writing the material (taking notes), active processing, real-world use of the information, and SRS to rehearse retrieval.
Anki is underrated for this. The active processing point is spot on — passive listening is basically just entertainment dressed up as learning.