Download Video Into Your Brain
A natural extension of Downloading Text Into Your Brain is to consume audio and video more efficiently.I do this by speeding up playback to be anywhere between 1.2x and 2x faster. Another useful trick is to skip ahead (past ads, uninteresting segments). I like to skip ahead by 30 seconds and skip back by 10 seconds (to rewind after skipping too far forward).
Some examples where I'll use this technique:
- To watch a technical talk that's important but not interesting
- To watch things that are enjoyable but not quite worth their time tradeoff. For me, this applies to YouTube channels that are funny but too slow-paced. And ones that have too much uninteresting filler.
- To listen to podcasts which are also often too slow-paced
- To skip past ads and sponsored content
- To fast-foward through the credits in case there's a post-credits scene
Not all content consumption is about efficiency, of course!
Sometimes I want to savor every moment. For example, I won't speed up a TV show like Westworld which is dense with references, foreshadowing; which is made to be beautiful and thought-provoking.
I've built my own tools for doing this which I won't be sharing today. But you don't need my tools to get started! There's a useful bookmarklet called yuptude. There's more info on that website. In case it goes down some day, here's the raw bookmarklet:
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