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Comment by andai | Hacker News Reader

Maybe go for a long drive? Long walk? Whatever floats your boat.

I used to do manual labor and I would work my way through like eight hours of audiobooks per day.

I've noticed after I've switched to audiobooks that my retention is horrible compared to reading. For actual complex topics, it's even worse.

I’ve found this too but I think audiobooks still have a place, they just can’t something you rely on being able to perfectly understand. A second book on the same topic or something in a topic loosely related but interesting. Or fiction to help stay awake on long road trips.

I agree. I use audiobooks for fiction. For learning I need to read the thing to really retain anything.

It's likely the same for me, but I tend to relisten to audiobooks I like, sometimes dozens of times. I have a hard time focusing on physical books, and I've probably only re-read a handful of them, so the net effect is that I take in more with a good audiobook.

I would like to learn to focus... (https://youtu.be/1IRn8BN3Qhw?t=331)

Haha.

I used read a lot of books when I was younger, then slowly stopped, and found getting back to reading quite hard as well. Armed with the knowledge that I used to be able to do this, I just forced myself to. And after a while, I found I had no trouble committing any more.

I think it really is a matter of distraction. When I was using public transit a lot, I managed to get through books really quickly by substituting them for my phone. And there was a period where I had no phone for a few months in a new city, and I just read constantly. Even outside while walking. I do the same on my phone, after all.

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