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How I listen to audiobooks (with Kindle and Audible)

I started listening to”The Terminal List” during runs and… it’s awesome.

I gave up on listening to fiction audiobooks a few years ago. I’ve always wanted to (and still want to) read a bunch of sci-fi books. I thought I’d start by listening to a bunch of Neal Stephenson’s books. I tried to listen to “The Diamond Age” while walking around New York. I’d stop paying attention for a few minutes then need to back it up a few chapters. Then at some point I’d stop paying attention for longer than that to the point that it was hard to even figure out what part to back it up to.

But I gave fiction audiobooks another shot when I started running a few months ago.

One thing that helped: switching genres from sci-fi to thrillers. I started with Don Winslow’s “The Power of the Dog” trilogy

A second thing that’s helped: being able to play audiobooks in the Kindle app with the reading indicator. Now I’ll often drop the combined $20-$30 to have a book on Kindle and Audible. You used to be able to add the Audible book for $7.50 for a lot of books. But it seems like there’s probably some sort of change in publishing deals that’s made that far less common with newer releases. Anyway, when I get lost it’s a lot easier to back things up to a place that I remember using the Kindle app because it’s easier to skim through text than it is with a combination of skip forward/skip backward buttons. 

Third, sort of along with the above change, the Kindle app allows you to do an infinite vertical scroll with most books. The audio syncs so that if you scroll enough to where the current word is off screen, the audio will start back at the top of the screen. You can also highlight a word and start the audio at that word.

I listen at 1.5X when running.

I listen at 2-3X when reading the text version on Kindle. I play the audiobook to get the word indicator at the same time. At 3X, I’ll have to backtrack sometimes but listening at the same time helps keep me moving forward in the book. If I’m on my phone, it’s also a nudge to not switch to other apps.

I’m reading more and I’d bet I’m retaining more. Though in my head I’ve also pared back the importance of retention or trying to understand every last detail of things. The man wants revenge. Sometimes I’ll look up who he’s currently brutalizing and remember, oh yeah, that’s why this person is a scumbag.

“The Power of the Dog” by Don Winslow – 5 Reactions

I want to write more about books as I’m reading them and I should always take the time to write about books I finished. I’ll just try to get 5 points down or something like that.

1. I need to finish this trilogy (along with a few other series): I remember seeing the subway takeovers for “The Force” a few years ago when I lived in New York. I didn’t buy the book then but now I want to read all of his books. But I’ll definitely start with the rest of the Cartel trilogy. I’ve read the first book of a few series in the past few months: ”Fourth Wing”, ”Hyperion”, ”Red Rising”, and now “The Power of the Dog”. I’ll likely jump right into ”The Cartel” (Book 2).

2. Now that’s how you weave stories together: I don’t read a ton of fiction, but it’s been a while since I’ve read something with the stories of multiple characters coming together so well. It’s been over a decade since I first read “Hyperion” and I remember it coming together in “The Fall of Hyperion” but it doesn’t quite happen in book 1. “The Power of the Dog” is tied up nicely on its own. I actually sort of don’t want to read book 2 because I worry about what might happen to characters I’ve grown attached to.

3. Always cool to know places in books (so having both New York and San Diego in it is a treat): Major cities I’ve lived in: Seattle, San Diego, New York, and San Francisco. Most of the time it’s New York I’ll get a kick out of seeing in media. (Top of the list for me is from Succession: My wife and I met at the “You are not serious people” karaoke bar on 32nd street in New York.) This one had a lot about San Diego. Though it’s a different time from when I lived there, I enjoyed mentions of Horton Plaza, Fashion Valley, Chula Vista La Jolla, etc.

4. No character is black and white (well except one): Cops with twisted motives. Honor amongst thieves. Governments and churches in cahoots. Multiple times through the book, Winslow’s able to quickly make you care about what happens to characters. He goes through their upbringing and you see the paths taken that eventually justify decisions that would otherwise seem crazy. Then there is one character who is pretty much evil. Gives other characters the creeps. Gives me the creeps.

5. If you love Narcos and Sicario, “The Power of the Dog” is a no brainer: My path to this: Dune 2 came out and I watched with my wife then we decided to go through all the [[Denis Villeneuve]]’s movies we hadn’t seen. Started with ”Prisoners” (chilling), then “Blade Runner 2049” (awesome), and then “Sicario” (loved it). Each one got me into Reddit and YouTube explainer rabbit holes. ”Sicario” got me of course reading about the CIA—beginner level stuff like I only learned from the movie that they don’t operate domestically. At some point a comment said something like “Read ‘The Power of the Dog’ to learn more about how the cartels rose to power.” I’m glad I did.

Other current books I’m reading: Finishing up Andrew Huang’s “Make Your Own Rules”, started Junji Ito’s “Uzumaki” and don’t know if I’ll finish it because it’s creeping me out at night already, and I also started Ryan Higa’s “How to Write Good” because I want to read more books by YouTubers since I’m enjoying Andrew Huang’s book so much.

Dan Kennedy x Rian Doris: write when you first wake up

Dan Kennedy in “No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs”

On the other hand, I believe you can train and condition your mind to your schedule. I, for example, have trained my subconscious mind to solve assigned problems and to write advertising copy or content copy for me while I sleep. Scoff, but virtually every morning, at 6:00 or 7:00 A.M., I go directly from bed to computer, put fingers on keyboard, and race, race, race to input all the copy pouring from my subconscious, which it has accumulated during the night and has been impatiently waiting to get it committed to the printed word. It feels somewhat like having waited way too long to pee, rushing to the bathroom and barely getting your clothing out of harm’s way before explosively powered urine floods the bowl—not that I’m comparing my writing to pee. Others make that comparison, and I’ll leave them to it. But now, when I have to write, I have to write!”

This reminded me of a recent episode of Rian Doris’s channel/podcast. He talks about removing all the things before the start of something. Mastering friction.

Action sports athletes can jump off or lean and go over some edge and they’re immediately immersed in the work. The more you can make your work resemble that, the easier it will be to stay consistent.

Something Rian Doris recommends: work right when you wake up. If you’re a writer, start writing a minute after waking up. Your brain during sleep and your brain in the fog where you can’t remember your dream no matter how hard you try… is very similar to your brain when in flow in work. You can hop right in if you jump into work right after waking up.

That said I’m very interested in the flow vs. deliberate practice debate. Maybe it’s a false dichotomy. Practicing both is good. Being able to be deliberate about both is good. Sometimes you need flow to perform well. Sometimes you need deliberate practice and struggle to actually increase your skill level.

In any case, I need to sleep now. Maybe when I wake up I’ll hop right back into writing another post.

Cal Newport: The overhead stacks up (so focus on one thing at a time)

Cal Newport talks about overhead tax in “Slow Productivity”:

Further, imagine it takes seven hours of core effort to complete a single report, and each report that you’ve committed to write generates one hour per day of overhead tax (emails, meetings, occupied mental space, and so on) until it’s completed.[*] In this thought experiment, if you commit to just one report at a time, giving it your full mental attention until it’s done before you agree to start working on another, you’ll complete reports at the rate of one per day (assuming you work eight hours per day). If, on the other hand, you agree to take on four different reports simultaneously, the combined overhead tax of maintaining all four on your task list will eat up half your day in logistical wrangling, effectively doubling the time required to complete a single report. In this example, doing fewer things ends up producing more results.

When you have too much work in progress, there’s too much overhead tax. It’s not just filling in the existing gaps in your day to day. It starts to create the default framing for your day, then you’re trying slice your actual projects into the gaps remaining.

In the old rocks in a jar analogy, overhead tax is the sand that fills the jar in the first place. You don’t even have to put the big rock in first to get its overhead tax sand.

You can fill an entire day with overhead tax. It’s one type of fuel for procrastination.

You can prevent it from stacking so much by parking projects in a backlog. Though, just stretching the parking lot analogy, there are different ways to park.

If you really can’t put it on hold, it’s like double parking someone with your hazards on to run into a building. It’s still going to generate some overhead tax and take some mental energy on the backburner.

To truly remove the overhead tax, you’ve got to find the equivalent of an unmetered unreserved un-everything’d parking spot. At a team level, this could be a team backlog where a project actually might not be assigned to you at all. So you can focus strictly on what you’re assigned to and others trust and follow the team’s system. They can see what’s on your plate and you’re allowed to focus on it.

I’m now thinking of eating at a buffet while double parking someone so I know there are too many metaphors here.

Time to run.

Andrew Huang: Make a lot of stuff

From “Make Your Own Rules: Stories and Hard-Earned Advice From a Creator in the Digital Age”

The thing that really made me better was just that I worked. A lot. There was no substitute for time spent on my craft. I should’ve known this from my experience with piano lessons, and from seeing the regimens of the virtuosos at York, but I had never felt that level of drive for mastering a particular instrument. I had the mistaken understanding that practice was mainly about physical training—getting your fingers or your voice to respond with nimbleness and accuracy. The truth is that it’s just as much about your mind. I eventually realized that writing and production were my deepest musical passions, but also that they could be practiced. Of course they can: after writing your hundredth song you’ll be a better writer than you were when you wrote your tenth.

I loved Ali Abdaal’s “Feel-Good Productivity” but wish it had more about his journey on YouTube. I love Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act” but it had stories about specific artists he’s worked with. Luckily, each of them has a podcast where they share more of those sorts of things.

Andrew Huang’s book has similar themes and he does talk about his journey making stuff online. I grew up on the internet in a similar time, so of course I’m really enjoying the stories about late 1990s/early 2000s internet. Putting a site together with HTML and FTPing things to servers.

He has a deep deep understanding of music. I made awful rap songs with my friends in high school. We would hop to whatever the best free audio host was at the time (SoundClick sticks out in my mind) and join forum tournaments to try to win some prize: usually a drum machine or something like that.

My friend won a smaller tournament and won a GameCube, then the tournament hosts said it got lost in the mail or something like that. I don’t remember exactly other than the fact that he won but never got the GameCube.

Okay anyway. I’m loving the book so far. One chapter motivated me to make… something tonight.

Create every day, judgment free. Make it a point to set time each day (it could be fifteen minutes, it could be all evening, whatever is feasible to you) to buckle down and create. Do just the creating—no editing, no polishing. That means no revisiting yesterday’s work to try to make it better—or at least not during this judgment-free window. Let brand-new ideas happen without worrying about them being complete, perfect, or even good.

And this post is it.

Robert Greene: remember that you used to have stress

From “The Laws of Human Nature” by Robert Greene:

Most of us remember a golden time of play and excitement. As we get older, it becomes even more golden in our memory. Of course, we conveniently forget the anxieties, insecurities, and hurts that plagued us in childhood and more than likely consumed more of our mental space than the fleeting pleasures we remember.

Journaling is great for remembering that it wasn’t perfect. These days I do try to skew toward positive things happen when I’m journaling. But it’s not as highlight reel-y as a social media feed.

Sometimes I’ll flip back through old notebooks. (Usually when I’m supposed to be decluttering or something.) It’s not so much that I see either flawlessly happy periods or any dark nights of the soul.

Instead, and I’ve heard this isn’t uncommon so I don’t kick myself too much for this anymore, I see that I’m worried about a lot of the same things I still worry about today. How I’ll finally lose 10 pounds. I’ll finally focus on a side project. Maybe this time.

Or I’ll see some work thing that doesn’t matter at all years later. It’s at least a good reminder that any single specific work thing today won’t matter in the long run.

Some things really turn golden over time that weren’t golden at all in the first place. When I moved to New York, for 5 weeks I hopped from Airbnb to Airbnb to Airbnb to Craigslist sublet to finally a formal sublet. This wasn’t squalor, but it was one of the most stressful periods in my life.

Now all I remember is the excitement.