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Comment by lbacaj | Hacker News Reader

I think distractions are just the beginning of our issues, a much bigger factor on how much I can read is Time.

As we become adults, with responsibilities Time is incredibly hard to find. Big readers tend to be productive people and as such the more active and busy we are the harder it is to sit down and read. This might sound like a straight forward problem but I find myself bookmarking great articles or writing down great books I heard about only to never really find the Time to go back and read them.

As a little shameless self promotion this problem of not having enough time to read led me to build an App that lets me listen to any article from the web. It converts the article to Audio using some amazing open advancements in AI/ML. Now when I’m standing on the train with a coffee in my hand and holding a pole with the other I can get through a ton of this content from the web distraction free.

You can check the app out here: https://articulu.com

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> but I find myself bookmarking great articles or writing down great books I heard about only to never really find the Time to go back and read them.

Try replacing “can’t find time” with “not a priority”. It means the same in practice and makes for a huge shift in perception and your own personal feekings towards stuff. Especially in the guilt department.

You have more important things to do and that’s okay. When you come across a book that’s important enough you will magically have time for it. Priorities are fun like that.

Probably a lot of people just get lured in by social media, video games, Netflix, etc and then spend far more time on these things than they would actually like. I doubt many people are consciously prioritizing their web surfing or video game time, but it just turns out that way since these things are designed to be habit forming.

I agree and saying "not a priority" instead of "don't have time" helps with that too.

"Sorry reading books is not a priority"

Wait ... then what is a priority? Social media? Screw that!!

And it prompts you to [try to] do better with your time.

Remember when we used to read books a few pages at a time on the pooper instead of scrolling through twitter or hackernews? Good times.

Haha yeah, absolutely. I've limited my social media use to HN only for a while now (mainly because I feel it is one of the few sites left where you can just have a civil discussion without things getting too political) and I feel I'm significantly happier and more productive now than I was a few years ago. Of course many other things have changed in that timeframe, but I don't really ever see myself using Facebook or other popular social media again. Quitting all that is quite liberating.

One of my plans when I retire is to read a LOT of books. Yet one day I read a post by a HN contributor where he said, "But nothing's really stopping me from doing that NOW" and he then embarked on regularly walking to the park and reading. As a result I've been trying to do the same thing, because when you start computing numbers and realize you only enough time left in life to read a paltry number of books[1], you learn to prioritize really quickly.

[1] https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html

I think that's great. That said, I've tried audio (books) and it's just not the same as reading (print). Reading, to me, seems to engage the mind in a deeper way. It is, nearly by its nature, more proactive and participatory. On the other hand, watching and listening is far more passive. You don't work to consume, you just wait for it to come to you.

For example, when you read you can pause, re-read, etc. On the other hand, who watches the news (for example) and uses pause and/or 30 second rewind? Not to get off topic but my personal theory is this is why journalism today is so shoddy - because it can be. It's just an endless stream and no one is pausing long enough to say "Hey! Wait a minute!!"

I completely get this.

Between family, my full time job, side projects.. I had no choice but to listen to some of these books as Audio books.. I ended up pretty much listening to 25+ audio books this year.. the only way to make the content stick is to:

1) take a ton of notes

2) do exactly as you say, rewind over and over until you can mark it down.

These are the next few features I want to add to this thing, taking notes and rewinding quickly and bookmarking snippets precisely because of your point that audio requires a little more work to retain. Still worth it though, I would have never been able to read that many books this year given how busy I am.

Ultimately I will concede that it will never beat reading, but when we have no time or are commuting? This, in my opinion, is the next best thing for busy people.

Could you...hit button, have it rewind some fixed amount of time (10 secs a tap?) and then email / store a text transcript of that segment?

__That__ might be something I'd like to try.

For sure planning the rewinds by second but even more I’m planning sentence rewinds so one could rewind sentence by sentence and even saving snippets of one or more sentences..

I hadn’t thought about emailing that though, it’s a solid idea thank you.

I still buy paper books, mainly because the library frowns on highlighting and notes in the margins :)

Fwiw, I've been wanting to do a website where I - and others? - could share the highlighted bits (in an easy on the eye pull quote-y sorta way). More or less my personal notes in public. Kinda like Cliff Notes meets meme-y inspiration type quotes. But also as a sample of the book for those curious about reading it. That's why I'd want a transcript. For my records, so to speak.

I should ask mention, 95% of what I read is non-fiction.

To be clear, I don't care if the text is the __exact__ bit I want to save or not. A bit too much on either end is time. I can always edit (if necessary). My immediate want / need would simply be the capture.

Two more things to add...

1) It was recommended to me at one point to listen at a faster playback speed. Evidently, the novelty forces the brain to focus more, and thus have better retention.

2) What about a audio effect for highlighting? Some sort of filter? Or perhaps more bass? Something to say "you liked this bit before"?

I think we are definitely already planning the first one.

The second one is super interesting.. I’ll have to think about it a bit but it’s a great idea for sure.

I probably listen to ~40 audio books a year and I'd love something that allowed me to review the text of what I had just listened to and re-read and highlight specific parts.

Also something that displays diagrams/maps sensibly would be good too!

Edit: And by "love" I mean "pay" - I'd happily pay the same amount as my Audible subscription for a service that helped with this.

Personally, I've found my problem is more "feeling like I don't have time" rather than actually not having time. You can always find things to do to fill each moment, but at least for me, the majority of those things are neither necessary (such as writing this post) nor am I doing them as efficiently as possible. I find through regularly reviewing how I'm spending my time, I'm always finding things to cut out that are a waste of my time or finding ways to be more efficient so that I can focus on the things that are actually important to me. Possibly I am just more distractible than average so I have to keep pulling myself back in to focus, but I don't think so.

I think most people do have time but its filled with other activities like checking social media and watching videos. To find time to read a book requires dropping something else.

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