Category: Tips

Ever watched a recorded webinar 2-hours long only to find there was nothing substantial in it? Or, does the presenter talk r–e–a–l–l–y  s–l–o–w–l–y?

You can avoid such things just by speeding up the video.

I usually download all videos and then watch them with 1.5-1.8x playback speed. You can start with 1.1x and then slowly increase speed. After some time you’ll easily listen to (and understand) 1.8x playback speed without issues.

Here’s the tools I use.

YouTube

YouTube allows increasing speed of videos by clicking on the settings button.

Step 1: Downloading Videos From The Internet

Download Firefox addon DownloadHelper. It will recognize 90%+ of videos and you’ll be able to easily download them to your disk.

Step 2: Changing Playback Speed

There are probably also other video players that allow for change in playback speed but my default one is VLC Player. It’s free to download on their homepage.

You can use iOS app Swift or for iTunes Speed-Up (Mac).

This helps enormously and really increases the amount of videos you can watch in an hour.

I’m sure most of us have a bunch of books on our shelf or to-read list but never get to actually read them. I enjoy reading and always wanted to read more but somehow couldn’t get myself to read more than the 2-3 on my summer vacation.

Last year I read a great little productivity trick from Jerry Seinfeld. I tried it for two activities which just wouldn’t move to my daily routine: reading and (short) exercise. I don’t use this technique anymore but it did put both of these activities into my regular, almost-daily routine.

How I Read 1000% More Books Than Before

First of all – reading on a daily basis as recommended by Jerry. No matter if it’s just 15 minutes, I always read at least one chapter per day.

I also read at least two books at a time. This is one of the major lessons – if you get bored of one book just move to another. If you don’t like the book, drop it and start with a new one. There’s no use in reading something that you’re not enjoying.

You might think that you can’t keep track of that many books – and you can’t. That’s why I take notes for each book and gather them in Mac Notes (I use Kindle which allows you to easily highlight text). When I finish the book I also summarize the summary in a “tl;dr” (too long, didn’t read in geekspeak). This is the core of the book in 4-5 sentences.

I also read a non-business beside one or two business books.

Everything I read or want to read I keep track of with the free website Good Reads.

Going Forward

Twenty books per year is not really that much. But if you’re like I was, 10+ additional books can make a BIG difference – it did for me. Try it out and let me know how it goes!