With the new year comes New Year’s resolutions. I personally haven’t made one in a few years as I never tend to stick with it. Really, most people don’t, I believe. During quarantine this year, I fell down a rabbit hole of productivity YouTube and revamped the podcasts I listen to. Instead of picking one time of the year to try and better myself, why not make it an on-going process throughout the year. While I’m not going to be recommending podcasts to improve every area of your life today, I did want to share two things that I think may help you on the start of this journey.
The first is what I consider to be the best podcast app available on iOS. The other is a list of some of the podcasts I really enjoy that I feel I’ve gotten the most value out of. It’s possible that the app I recommend or the shows I get value of may not give the same value to you, but I wanted to at least share some of what’s worked for me with the hope that maybe it will inspire someone else to look at the systems they use.
Overcast
(Free or $9.99/year) | Website
When it comes to podcast listening, the go-to app for me has always been Overcast. I’ve never had an outward hatred of Apple’s stock podcast app that ships on every device, but I’ve always been someone who prefers an app that give me more options for control. Overcast was highly rated at the time so I decided to pick it up. For point of reference, this was back when the app still had a $4.99 in-app purchase to unlock some of the premium features. Now, the $9.99 annual subscription is only there to hide ads. I personally don’t pay the subscription every year, but I also find the ads to be incredibly unobtrusive — I can’t recall them ever taking over my entire screen and I’ve never accidentally opened one. Any time I’ve opened an ad in Overcast, it’s been 100% intentional.
The reason I prefer Overcast to any of the other podcast apps available on Apple’s App Store is because the developer, Marco Arment (Accidental Tech Podcast co-host, founder of Instapaper, and Tumblr lead developer), has built some really great features around audio into it.
In addition to having a slider to control the speed of the the podcast you’re listening to, the app also features a button labeled Smart Speed which automatically adjusts the speed of a podcast to cut out silences. The best part is that this works alongside any speed adjustments you’ve already made. The other two buttons in this area are Voice Boost which does remaster the audio of your podcast but makes all the voices louder (there’s some shows I use this for), along with a toggle to save these preferences to this show. This means that when jump from show to show, I always know that I’ll be listening with the speed and settings I like already in place.
While Overcast is officially only available on Apple platforms, there is also a web app available. No offense to Marco but I’ve never been a fan of the web player and would actively avoid it. It just doesn’t have the same polish as the app. The good news, however, is that with the release of Apple’s M1-based Macs, you can install the iPad version of Overcast on your computer and it works great! I’ve actually started listening to podcasts on my MacBook when I’m doing something mindless and don’t need to fully focus on the task at hand. I believe that he’s still working on a proper macOS port of Overcast (thanks to Catalyst technology) but as far as I know, there’s no release date on the horizon yet.
My Podcasts of Choice
The MacSparky Collection
Shout out to MacSparky himself, David Spark. There’s enough of his podcasts that I listen to that I’ve chosen to present them here as their own collection. For those of you not familiar with his work, David Sparks is a California-based lawyer who has been creating Apple productivity content for years. In addition to podcasts, he has a blog as well as a virtual learning platform. I’m currently working my way through his latest release: The Paperless Field Guide.
Onto the podcasts!
Mac Power Users
This is a show that I had actually stumbled upon years ago, back when Sparks was still hosting with Katie Floyd. I did actually fall off of listening to this one for a few years when I switched over to Android and was moving my workflow away from Apple products. When I went out last year and picked up an iPhone 11, this was one of the first podcasts I resubscribed to. Sparks’ co-host is now Stephen Hackett and the show continues to be full of great productivity tips for Macs, as well as other parts of the Apple ecosystem.
Automators
Co-hosted with the wonderful Rosemary Orchards, this is the show to listen to if you want to learn all about shortcuts and automation on Apple products. One interesting fact about this show: David Sparks can be a slow speaker, so I usually bump the speed of his shows up quite a bit, but on this one, Rosemary Orchard talks so fast that I actually have to listen to this one one notch slower than I usually listen to Mac Sparky shows at.
Focused
Rounding out the Mac Sparky collection is David Sparks and Mike Schmitz talking abut general productivity stuff. While there’s still an element of technology in the discussions on this show, you’ll also find episodes focused around more analog methods of being productive, such as bullet journaling.
Other Podcasts
Not Overthinking
Ali Abdaal has definitely been a fixture in my life over the course of the last year. I discovered his videos during quarantine and watched quite a few of them in binge — I’ve been subscribed and watching his new content ever since. I even wrote here about how he turned me into a speed listener!
This is a podcast that he hosts with his brother, Taimur. Much like his YouTube channel and newsletter, the content here is something that can both benefit your life while also making you think.
App Stories
Federico Viticci and John Voorhees of MacStories host this show and use it to talk about apps. Sometimes the show features and interview with a developer, other times it looks at workflows. I generally leave every episode feeling like I’ve gained some piece of knowledge by giving it my time, though.
Nested Folder
Hosted by Rosemary Orchard and Scotty Jackson, this is another podcast I really enjoy that focuses heavily on productivity. Generally, I come away from episodes of this show with something to think about in my own productivity systems that I use across the various platforms that I use.
Under the Radar
This is a podcast that’s always under thirty minutes. Hosted by Marco Arment (there he is again) and David “Underscore” Smith (of Watchsmith and Widgetsmith fame) talk about various aspects of app development. I’m not an app developer myself, but I’ve loved hearing Marco and David talk about their experiences with the apps they’ve developed. As an outsider looking in, I’ve found it very enjoyable but understand that it may not be for everyone.
Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown
Technically this one isn’t actually out yet, but I listened to the preview that’s already live on the show’s feed and I think this one is going to be very thought provoking. It’s no secret that Mayim Bialik is more than just a talented actress, she’s also got a PhD in Neuroscience!
Mental health issues are nothing new, but the discussion around them being so much more public feels like it is. Given her background, I think that her show is going to have a lot of useful information regarding all areas of mental health and being more familiar with the topic can only benefit the public conversation.
Those are the podcasts I feel that I’ve been getting value out of. What are the shows that you feel you get value out of? Post your shows of choice in the comments below so I can check them out! Happy New Year, everyone!
Dan Stransky 