I hate podcasts, because the medium is demanding. It demands so much time from me, demands focused attention to follow along. I wish I didn’t find them so damn useful to keep giving in to the medium’s demands.

But to do so, I have to alter my regular habits to accommodate podcasts in the daily routine. Time that was consumed by music for majority part of my life is taken over by podcasts now. If I have even a minute free, earphones are plugged and I continue what I was listening to. There are times when I question whether the medium actually deserves so much of attention from me.

So every now and then I look and relook at my subscribed podcasts list to decide which podcasts earn their place. I relook at my habits to see what I can change to make this manageable.

• If there is a podcast which I hardly listen to, it’s unsubscribed.
• If there is one whose last episodes I hardly remember, it’s unsubscribed.
• I rarely stay subscribed to podcasts that might talk about the same sets of topics (that means very few tech podcasts).
• I do not want news from the podcasts, I want views, perspectives.
• None with daily episodes. Rather I prefer podcasts that are spread across the week. So if I find that there are multiple (more than 3) podcasts delivering episodes on the same day, few are simply unsubscribed.
• I always listen at 1.2x speed. “Trim Silence” mode is always on in PocketCasts. I do not care of the lost fidelity. I recently tried to let the silence stay on and I felt everyone was deliberately being a slow speaker.
• There is a big reason I use PocketCasts. Overcast is a loved app amongst the tech community and I tried hard to use it. But it just doesn’t respect data usages limits. It either allows to download all episodes every time or not notify about a new episode at all. I, on the other hand, want to look at the episode, read what it’s about and then decide whether to download. PocketCasts’ a lot more flexible.
• I like if the podcasts, especially long ones, do chapters. It’s easier to skip over the topics I just have no interests in.
• I listen to ad reads if they aren’t robotic, if the host believes in the product. That’s least I can do to contribute for their efforts.