Drifting off onto topics when listening/reading is what I enjoy the most! When I'm reading fantasy, I'll have to pause after a cool fight scene while my imagination reverts to a 6 year old thinking of all the scenarios where the protagonist is winning or saying a line and being smooth. When I'm reading/listening to non-fiction and trying to understand the writers intent or what the words means to me.

Not saying that your way is wrong or any less of an experience since the way you enjoy it the most is what matters. For me, reading was painfully slow and I thought listening to audiobooks would be a more efficient way of going through books. I listened to audiobooks at higher than 1x speed, thinking I would get the same experience and remove the wasteful rabbit holes that I would go down when narrators spoke too slowly, but audiobooks weren't doing it for me like reading was. When I went back to books, I realized the mental rabbit holes were what made books enjoyable.

I'm back at using audiobooks as my primary method, but now I'm aggressive with the pause button as soon as I feel myself drifting.

Again, not saying that my way is superior. I just think it's funny how people can see the same situation play out, and have very different takes on it.

I find personally that works when I can be free of outside interruptions. If I have to multi-task or respond to others, I can lose the follow track. Also no other deep thought when listening to the books, it has to be really active listening.

I find active reading much faster than active listening if it’s the only thing I do, to the point that I read ahead on podcast transcripts instead of listening to them.

It depends on the type of the book though. Harder books are better on paper. If we don't understand a sentence or a paragraph, it can be quite annoying to constantly rewind. But on paper, we can read the paragraph ten times if we want to. And make notes on the margin.

Audio books are awesome for fiction, biography etc

This! Totally agree. I can’t listen to normal speeds anymore. Otoh, I can listen to 4-6 books/week.

When I can’t get audiobooks, I just use Alexa to read from kindle books.