Podcast Multitasking

What's a podcast? It's almost like a radio show, but because you download it to your computer, phone, tablet or MP3 player, you can listen to it whenever you like. You can stop it in the middle and come back to it later, or back it up a little bit if you want to hear something again. You can even burn it to a CD and play it in your CD player—or give it to a friend!

For a long time I resisted the idea of listening to podcasts, because who has the time? I've got enough going on...I don't have 45 minutes to sit perfectly still and do nothing but listen to someone talk.

Finally I figured out that I don't have to have a big block of time to devote to nothing else but a podcast, because podcasts are excellent ways to learn something new while I do something routine. I have to clean the bathtub anyway, and it's not a chore I enjoy by any stretch of the imagination, but if I have something interesting to occupy my mind while I scrub, the job seems to go by a little faster.

Some things I can do while I listen to a podcast:

clean a bathroom
mop the floor
dust
sort, fold, and put away laundry
drive
wait for a sports practice or rehearsal to end
cook
clip coupons
file important papers
weed the garden

How do you find a good podcast to listen to?

I have a couple of favorites: Pat Gohn's Among Women podcast and Greg & Jennifer Willits' The Catholics Next Door. You can find many excellent Catholic podcasts at the StarQuest Production Network (SQPN), and a recent episode of The Catholics Next Door podcast is all about the many podcasts worth hearing. I definitely recommend that you start with that one—you may very well hear the voices of some people whose other New Media work you already know.

The best thing about many of these Catholic podcasts is that the content is “evergreen.” That means it’s not tied to current events, so if you get behind in listening to your favorite podcast OR you discover a well-established podcast and you want to go back to the beginning, you won’t feel like the content is dated. And this allows you, the listener, to choose the topic you’d like to hear about on that particular day.

While I still love to listen to "girl group" music while I do the dishes, podcasts have become my favorite thing to listen to during most other household chores.

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