I’m a podcast junkie, and LISTEN TO THIS is a recap of my favorite tidbits, soundbites and short bursts of brilliance that I have to share with everyone who will listen. After digesting hours and hours of podcasts, here’s the best 9 minutes from this week.
PEOPLE SAY I’M GAGA OVER MERLIN
MAC POWER USERS | Workflows with Merlin Mann III
This episode is the third annual workflows interview with Merlin. The workflow episodes provide helpful examples of top producers and how they achieve and accomplish so much. I find myself asking a lot of people about their workflows and sometimes have to explain what I mean. Merlin does of nice of job of simply defining this silly word:
“Workflow is understanding your job, understanding your tools, and then not thinking about it any more.”
I picked up several tips for better utilizing my tools (for example, using location as a context in OmniFocus), and I think the 2-hour interview is worth every minute, but if you only have time for a quick snippet, skip to 1:32:01 and catch his comments on leaving a little of bit of capacity in your box.
LIAR, LIAR FIRST TIME CALLER
DAN PINK OFFICE HOURS | Dan Ariely
Dan Pink’s Office Hours is a new podcast for me. It’s an interview style podcast with big time authors and speakers. He broadcasts the show live old-school style, in that, to listen live, you dial in to a conference call where you have the opportunity to ask questions radio-talk-show like. It’s monthly making it an easy add to my subscriptions, and I’m eager to go back and listen to a few older ones.
This week, Dan’s guest was Dan Ariely, author of The Honest Truth About Dishonestly. He’s conducted some fascinating research about when, how, and why we lie and cheat. The section to catch comes at 32:54 when Ariely explains three reasons for moral deterioration: increased distance from money, greater awareness of how much other people are cheating, and more instances of feeling cheated.
BONUS: Check out Dan Ariely’s Conscience+ app. It takes the angel/devil approach to helping you justify many decisions.
KIDS WILL TAKE A CHANCE
TED RADIO HOUR | How do Schools Suffocate Creativity?
Sir Ken Robinson is a delight to listen to speak. He’s witty, charming, and a fantastic storyteller. We homeschool our children, and I’ve recently been pushing my youngest two to focus on punctuation. I’ve been meeting a little resistance, and at 5:48, when Robinson talks about whether literacy or creativity should come first, it was the perfect reminder that I need to ease up and let them keep writing away punctuation-free for now. Listen all the way through to his story about the little girl drawing God. Here’s one of my favorite quotes from his presentation that I used as a quotograph on ObservationPaper.com.
Podcast Test Drives:
- When I was trying to subscribe to Dan Pink’s Office Hours, I downloaded Office Hours produced by The Society Pages instead. Back in the 80s, we hosted a conference with the theme of “Let the Dreamers Wake the Nation” which is a line from the Carly Simon song Let the River Run that was featured in the movie Working Girl. Our keynote speaker tried to prep for the conference and thought watching the movie might give him some insight. He accidentally grabbed a different movie with a similar title - Working Girls. This Office Hours is also an interview show and has me curious enough that I plan to keep it around for a few more weeks.
- I also test drove the app Downcast this week based on the recommendation from Tom Silk. You can increase the listening speed on Downcast to 3x (a little too fast for my taste). I’ve only listened to two shows on it so far, and I’ll continue to play with it this week. One big downside, no bookmarking feature which I use a lot for LISTEN TO THIS.
Unsubscribing from:
Science Friday. I enjoy the show, but I can’t give it two hours a week (even at double time). I’ll add the blog to my RSS feed and download any episodes that particularly catch my interest.
Other podcast posts you might enjoy:
What about you? What podcasts did you enjoy this week and what do you recommend? Leave your favorites in the comments below.