How to Easily Listen to One Audiobook Per Week

Reading is tough for me with 4 young kids, clients and real estate investing. I love to sit down and read a good book but I don’t always prioritize it so in order to stay with my goal of 1 book per week I make sure to listen to audiobooks any chance I get. Here are a few of my audiobook hacks to make sure I reach my goal of 1 book per week.

Audiobook Speed

I listen to audiobooks at a minimum of 1.5x speed, a lot of the time I listen on 2x or more. You adjust to the point where normal speed is not bearable. Listen to 1.5x for a few hours, it will be tough to go back to regular speed after.

Listen in the car

This is the biggest audiobook hack, turn off the radio and turn up the audio book. Replacing audiobooks with whatever your stereo is playing will turn drive time into a productive learning experience. Most people spend hundreds of hours per year driving, imagine where you will be if you maximized that time with an audiobook.

Listen while renovating a property, cleaning your house or yard work

One of my favorite times for audio books was while renovating our house hacks. A matter of fact audiobooks got me through some unforeseen tough times during renovations. My genre of choice during those times were self help, mindset and philosophy.

Grocery store

Great way to get two things done at once, shop and listen. Although not a practice I follow as much today being a full time realtor, any social setting (even during Covid) is an opportunity to network. When I was first starting out in real estate investing I did not need to be a social butterfly as much so it made sense to pop in the head phones

Running/Working Out

When your body moves your mind groves! I love to run, audiobooks make it a bit more fun. Most runs or workouts are 30 minutes to an hour, 3-5 times per week. This is a great opportunity to double dip on health.

Boring Zoom Meeting

Ok full disclosure, be carful with this one. We all have boring meetings especially when first starting out in real estate, mainly because most of us have W2 jobs at first. Supplement these meetings with some worthwhile audio, even if its just background noise. Just make sure to pause your book if you unmute yourself.

Listen at work

Ever boss loves a good listener.... Audiobooks for construction type jobs are great. I used to install floors listening to audio books. For an office type setting audiobooks and headphones make for some good background noise, low volume 2x speed. Your subconscious mind will pick it up.

Listen while sleeping

I recently picked this trick up a few months ago. Continuing with the subconscious mind when listening in your sleep your mind will pick up on what is being read to you. I will listen to the same book each night for a week on 2x speed, low volume and notice a huge difference when I listen awake. I find that I understand and remember more.  A collogue of mine listens to the same book for entire week while sleeping and claims to be able to read the same book in under an hour knowing exactly what he read.  Cool trick, give it a shot and let me know how it works for you.

Genre of Audiobooks

Although genre does not have a direct effect on my tips to listen to audiobooks it does correlate to the end result of why I am listening to audiobooks. Listening to books that will help you get to where you want to be is a must. Self help, mindset, how to, business, real estate, and more. Listening to books that help you get to my goals is my priority.