Enhance Your Midlife Learning Through Podcasts With These 3 Quick Ideas

Episode 41 | (00:00):
Hey there, friend. Are you ready to enhance your midlife learning through podcasts? You know, there are so many podcasts out there, so much information that we can glean from and start applying to our lives. But how do you manage all of it? How do you make sure that your midlife learning isn't just going in one ear and out the other?

(00:20):
So these quick little ideas (there's just three of them, 1, 2, 3) are gonna be helping you retain information better, get organized with the information that you do have, and get a plan using small bite-sized nuggets of action.

(00:34):
Yeah, you heard it, fun-sized actions so you can make sure you don't move into the backsliding that we all have a tendency to do. You ready to learn what they are? All right, let's go. Let's dive in!

(00:48):
Hey there, Easy Ager. Let me ask you a question. What do you do after a podcast is over? For instance, you're listening to my podcast on a regular basis and it's done, you're hearing the outro music and I'm saying goodbye and blah, blah, blah, and finished.

(01:38):
So what do you do? Do you begin implementing some of the things you just learned immediately? Do you say, "Oh, wow, that was so nice. What a great podcast," and then go about your merry way? Or do you completely forget about what you just heard?

(01:52):
I will be the first to admit — and I have no shame in saying this — I've done all three. There are times when I have heard something that resonated with me so deeply that I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, I gotta do this." And I just immediately get my pen and paper out and start writing down the plan. This is how I'm gonna implement, and I'm all over it.

(02:10):
And there are times when I go, "Wow, that was really nice, that was good. Nice, nice. Very nice podcast," and I don't do diddly squat.

(02:17):
And yes, I admit there are times when I completely forget about what I just heard, primarily because I was doing something else. I could have been emptying the dishwasher or cleaning the garage or getting the laundry in or taking the laundry out. I wasn't paying full attention.

(02:37):
In today's post, I'll give you three ways to enhance your learning from podcasts. Once you begin applying these steps, you're going to have a resource that you can turn to so you can get your brain going with new ideas and be able to apply some of this wisdom and advice. You've got these helpful tips, and you're just going to love it. It's so much easier.

(02:58):
Okay, so the first way to do this is really simple. Take notes. Just keep a notebook. You can keep a written notebook or a digital notebook Just keep a notebook by your side as you listen. Take notes. Write down anything that sparks your interest because if you're writing down the things that are meaningful to you, you're gonna remember them longer.

(03:18):
And it also helps to keep your notes in one place. When I started listening to podcasts, I used to grab whatever was handy to jot down notes. So I created this very odd-shaped collection of the yellow stickies and the notecards and the back of envelopes and then, of course, the formal 8.5" x 11" sheets.

(03:37):
As you can imagine, this organizational system didn't work very well because I couldn't find them. They'd get stuck to each other. They'd be falling off the back of my desk, whatever. So now, I keep notes in a couple of places.

(03:51):
One of the places I keep things is called a bullet journal, which is basically a blank notebook of pages with dots. These dots can help you design a journal in a way that works best for you. You can just use a standard method or you can create your own layout.

(04:08):
The beauty of the bullet journal is that it can contain a lot of different activities in one notebook. I use it for my daily to-do list and my monthly tasks. I use it to keep list of books that I wanna read or business activities, home repairs, notes about what I'm learning from different podcasts or blogs, etc. I mean, it just goes on and on.

(04:29):
So keeping my notes here means I have everything in one place rather than managing a number of different notebooks or odd-shaped stickies and notecards like I used to. Life got drastically simpler once I started doing this.

(04:43):
If you're looking for a digital option to keep everything in one place, try Evernote or Google Keep. Evernote has free and paid versions. I used the paid version for many, many years but recently, I decided to move over to Google Keep because it comes free with your Gmail account.

(05:03):
So if you're thinking, "Hey, I've never seen Google Keep," let me tell you how to find it if you have a Gmail account. I'm going to describe it from a laptop view, but I'm sure it's pretty similar on your phone as well.

(05:13):
So on your laptop, you can get to Google Keep from your Gmail. Just go to the top right of your screen while you're in Gmail and click on those nine little dots. That should take you to a new screen that gives you Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Mail, and all those different things. Scroll down, and you're going to see a yellow icon for Google Keep.

(05:33):
Like the bullet journal, both of these little digital gems — Evernote and Google Keep — let you keep notes in one place. You can organize. You can categorize with the labels or the colors or the tags or the notebooks. Best of all, you can sync them across all your devices and share information with others as needed.

(05:52):
So if you're looking for some digital options, those are going to be two great ones for you to check out. Taking notes, that's the first thing.

(05:58):
The second thing, number two, is: Take time to review and reflect. So you've gotten organized. You've taken your notes. You're all on top of it. You are on it. Take a moment. Give yourself a few minutes to review and reflect on your notes before you walk away from them. Highlight the items that were most important to you or that offered you an "aha" moment when you were listening, something for you to think about.

(06:20):
Then ask yourself a few questions. What did you learn? What meant the most to you in this entire podcast? How can you use this in your daily life? How can you apply this to your life? What results do you wanna create and how are you going to feel once you've created these results? And why do you wanna make this change?

(06:42):
Taking the time to do this will help you retain the information better. It's also going to give you something to think about and just percolate on. There are always some good little nuggets of wisdom in every podcast I've ever heard. So that's the second one.

(06:57):
Number three: Once you figure out what you wanna do and how you're going to apply this, you're going to get a plan using fun-sized actions. Yes, our little fun-sized actions, our little bite-sized nuggets of action are going to get us where we want to be.

(07:12):
And using these means that you can get where you wanna be with a minimal amount of backsliding. And isn't that the worst? You do really well for a couple of days and then you backslide, you start falling back into old habits. So by using these fun-sized, little, tiny bite-sized nuggets of action, you're not going to scare your brain into resistance, all right?

(07:33):
I talked about that on some earlier episodes, but that's the point of using fun-sized actions. If you've unsuccessfully tried making changes before, give these little actions a shot because you're going to be surprised at how effective they are.

(07:50):
So to recap, when you finish listening to a podcast, you can take notes in a written form or digitally, take time for review and reflection, and take fun-sized actions so you don't scare your brain into resistance. With these three little steps, you're gonna be enhancing your learning quickly and easily. Best of all, you will remember what you just listened to (which is pretty much an issue with me all the time, heh!)  ;)

(08:20):
I hope this helps you. Just use one or all three of these and see how it works. And if you're not already an Easy Aging® Insider, go to TheEasyAgingShow.com and sign up right now. And until next time, peace, love and blessings to you and yours. Take care. Bye-bye!