Podcasts have never been something I enjoyed.

There! I said it. Apologies to all my podcasting friends who produce excellent content episode after episode. I just never could bring myself to spend 30 – 60 minutes listening to talk. Talking audio requires my attention. Words are distracting. I can’t work and listen to a podcast at the same time.

And so it is, I missed out all these years. A lot. Then, I was reminded that our brains can process audio at speeds higher than normal speech. This is not new to me. However, I now have an iPad and a smart phone. Could the same concept that didn’t appeal much before work now simply because they are on mobile devices? The only way to find out is to try it.

The first app I got for this mission was iTalkFast. It worked great! So much, I even bought the pro version knowing that it was not made for the iPad. After a few uses, I noticed some interface glitches. It was negligible at first but quickly became annoying.

In just a week, iTalkFast had not only whet my appetite for podcast content, it made me crave them MORE.

You see, several things were going on about the time I started re-listening to podcasts. I committed to getting on the treadmill more and that created the perfect time for podcast listening. I wasn’t writing a blog post, emails or code. My attention was undivided and if you have ever been on a treadmill, you know you got to have something to watch or listen to. Without that, the only thing you will focus on is – when is this agony going to end?

 I promised myself not to watch TV during workout time and only consume content that helped deepen my faith or increase my knowledge. I also promised myself, if I wanted to listen to a podcast, I got to get on the treadmill.

Now, I get to squeeze in about 2 maybe 3 podcast episodes into one workout session. I’ve learned so much, been inspired, and encouraged more than I ever had been.

Besides audio podcast content, I also found this awesome app called Swift that allows me to watch videos at 2x’s the speed. Videos from TED – a resource I absolutely love but never could find time to watch work best but really any unprotected resource works. I haven’t tried it on protected content though. The great thing about Swift is, I can also watch downloaded videos. That tickles me to death because there are a ton of downloaded webinars on my hard drive.

For podcasts, I’ve just switched to Downcast. It came highly recommended by a lot of people so I will try it out and reserve comment on it for now.

Finally… all this and keeping a careful watch over food consumption with the help of the free but excellent MyFitnessPal app has allowed me to lose enough to fit into jeans one size smaller in just 10 days. It may not be much but a great start. And oh… I’m now podcasting too! Which can only be good as I’m reaching out to new audiences.

As an entrepreneur who spends a lot of time in front of the computer, losing weight is awesome. Add the fact I can now learn and put to use all the stuff I spent good money on twice as fast is awesom-er.

It’s only January but I know because of this, it’s going to be a good, healthy year in more ways than one.

Even if getting fit is not your goal this year, surely learning and profiting from that is. I challenge you to try it. If you have a mobile device, check out those apps. If you don’t, look for alternatives. Don’t overlook the simple stuff. I have an older Kindle keyboard and love it because it can read to me at 2xs speed. The newer Kindles cannot do that.

Listen at higher speeds while you work out, are driving the kids to a game, waiting in the car line at school or even doing housework. Here are the apps I use again.

• iTalkFast
• Swift Player
• Downcast
• MyFitnessPal

Try it.