The reason you are not listening to what you want when your mood hits is because you can’t get to it fast enough. Whether you know it or not, you are drowning in listening choices. Audio options abound. Often, the time it takes to search for songs, podcasts, or audiobooks is what keeps us from listening when we decide we want to listen.
I know I thought about putting on some soft background music during the family dinner, but with only two or three minutes between the time I think about it and the timer stops, I gave up. Making the perfect playlist is not difficult, but it can take some time. The same goes for finding a new podcast episode or audiobook that matches your mood, as well as a certain length of listening. It’s not hard, it just takes time.
Take these few steps now to prepare to listen faster in the future.
Create playlists for lots of layouts
When it’s time to dance, cook, study or sleep, you want to have music in line and ready to go.
Having playlists in a wide range of states is the key to quickly tracking those moments and not just starting the first playlist you find that matches your keyword search. The best way to do this is to add songs and albums to various playlists at the same time you add them to your music library.
If a song doesn’t fit in an existing playlist, we recommend creating a new one about how the song makes you feel or the time of day you’d like to hear in the future.
Creating dozens of playlists is great for very specific states, but also consider creating a few very large ones. For example, creating playlists called simply “Morning”, “Afternoon” and “Evening” is a way to always have a selection of songs ready. “Lying Down”, “Up and About” and “Blood Pumping” is another way to group the songs in general and to cover different listening times that will appear in the future.
While you’re busy, get rid of redundant playlist names. If you have five lists, called “New Good Songs,” they later create indecision and uncertainty. You can also use emojis in playlist titles if this helps you identify them faster.
Backup podcast episodes
The beauty of listening to podcasts is that there is one for every topic of interest. There are millions out there, from big-budget narratives to casual conversations between friends. The volume of content is excellent, but it can also be a curse.
Personally, I like to listen to weekly technology news podcasts most of the time. The ones I listen to the most are usually between 45 and 90 minutes. This is the perfect length for my daily run and helps me kill two birds with one stone. There were occasional times when I didn’t have new episodes available and it actually kept me from running that day.
To combat this problem, I kept a few episodes of shows from which I unsubscribed. There are just too many good podcasts and not enough time. From time to time, when I lose the battle with my listening tail, I will unsubscribe. It’s nothing personal, but it helps me stay healthy.
But instead of deleting shows from which I unsubscribed from my podcast player, I will keep a few episodes of those shows so that I always have one available to listen to, even if the usual ones end that week. The ones I keep as a backup are forever green episodes Revisionist history, Hidden brain, and TED radio time.
Emergency sounds
There are times when you just need sound. Whether it’s an approaching term or just unexpected moments of stress, sometimes it helps to have a background sound. Honestly, in these cases it doesn’t matter what the sound is – it just has to be one touch.