>I listen to a few hundred audio books a year while working.
What do you do that you can immerse yourself in novel and get work done at the same time? I want that job. I've never had a job that was mentally so untaxing that I could listen to a book at the same time.
There are many 'overwatch' type jobs, a number that carry heavy responsibility, that mostly only require "light regular attention" and the skill level to be on the ball and top of your game in bursts.
Versions I've had:
* Control room operator in an industrial plant (watch, make sure things are routine (listen to music | audio book), deal with "exceptions" (tradespeople locking machines out, bringing them back online, co-ordinating)).
* Maintaining throughput on data processing pipelines (eg: geophysical data processing, tape | drive | archive loading, initiating various steps, looking for "oddities" .. letting the machines run (listen to audiobook, watch console)).
* Several other variations I could list (but time is short ATM).
Physical labor. A friend of mine has a job like this, in their parents' egg wholesaler business. It's a hard job, but has two major benefits: keeps him in good physical shape, and lets him listen to audiobooks pretty much the whole time. I sometimes find myself envying him that.
For one, I thought I read way too much sci-fi in my life, but it turns out he's listened to every single book I did, every one I have on my "to read" list (except maybe Greg Egan stuff), and then a couple dozen ones I never heard of.
Not the same premise (I don't listen to audiobooks), but what helps me get through my reading list was buying an ereader and put my whole library on it. It goes with me everywhere, and every time I have an urge to take my phone, I open it instead. Can go through a normal book in a couple of days.
I really should hire someone to do it, and spend my time with electrical engineering. Even then, about half of the time I'm designing a product, I can listen to audio books. Component selection is the most mentally taxing part, followed by early stages of schematic capture. Once I have everything operationally figured out, the more mundane schematic work isn't at all taxing, and I'll do it while listening to audio books. Circuit board layout I almost can't do without listening to something. It's very similar to playing puzzle games.
I do the same, but at 2 to 4x speed depending on the book, that cuts down the time significantly. I don't listen while working though, as I work in software not in the other fields that were mentioned in the answer to a sibling comment which are more monotonous in nature perhaps.
Wow, how do you even process it at that speed? I normally listen at 1.2x, but feel like if I hit 1.5x, maybe 1.8x if it is a really slow narrator, I'm maxing out. I mainly am listening to it while I'm running though, so 5-20% focus on that depending on traffic or if I have to cross streets, the rest of my focus on the book. Are you just sitting and listening to it at that speed focused in on it, or are you just abled to digest it at that speed?
Practice. The more you listen the faster you can go. I can digest it at that speed, yes. Sometimes I watch shows like that especially if there's a lot of filler content, anime in particular. No one has time to go through a thousand episode.
some peoples brains just operate faster, like have a faster clockspeed in the same way CPUs do. i feel like people who can read extremely fast also correlate strongly to people who can listen to audio very fast. my partner is an unbelievably fast reader, like the fastest i've ever seen, but she also has a phd in maths and is generally brilliant, i have no idea where im going with this. some peoples brains are just wired for high amounts of data bandwidth. but also practice, and it also depends on the original speed of the speaker/content.
That's even a bit short. The median I listen to is probably around 12 hours, and the more popular series tend to be in the 20 to 30 hour range. Brandon Sanderson titles can hit in around 60 hours.
I usually read/listen to a lot of books, compared to most people, but not several hundred. And if you're reading Brandon Sanderson as part of that - wow! I'm envious :)
A working year is ~250 days. I suppose it is possible with a minor playback speedup to hit 1.2 books/working day, 300 per year. Which sounds unbelievable, but good for them for having a job which just requires a butt in a chair.
What do you do that you can immerse yourself in novel and get work done at the same time? I want that job. I've never had a job that was mentally so untaxing that I could listen to a book at the same time.