52 Weeks To Better Genealogy - Challenge 31 - podcasts

This week's challenge in 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy was to listen to a podcast. A few weeks ago, I had downloaded several episodes (would you believe 384 of them?) to my new netbook, with the idea it would be nice to have them available when I wanted to listen. It's always been difficult for me to listen to something while I'm writing or doing research, so I had to change my strategy on this.

I loaded about 30 hours worth of podcasts onto one of my mp3 players in preparation for this challenge. I already have another mp3 player filled with a variety of audio books. It's amazing how many audio books you can "read" just commuting and doing errands. So now I have one player for audio books and another just for podcasts.

This morning I took off on my walk and cranked up an episode of Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems. The episode that came up was #78 from early in 2010. Lisa talked about her new grandson, shared some email from listeners, shared information about the podcast and a few other odds and ends. She's very personable and sounds like she's talking with you, not from a script. It was very enjoyable and made my walk seem to go so much faster.

Later this afternoon, I had a lot of dead time while waiting for an appointment. Rather than sit around looking at a magazine in which I had no interest, I pulled out the mp3 player and listened to some more of the podcast. Yes, just filling in those empty spaces of my day with genealogy podcasts is definitely a good plan. That little mp3 player will be with me all the time now. For the next several weeks, Lisa will be my walking companion!

Even though I was familiar with podcasts before, this challenge allowed me to better focus the way in which I listen to them.

52 Weeks To Better Genealogy is a series of weekly prompts that are a bit more challenging and are geared towards those new to the field of genealogy and family history as well as those who want to brush up on some skills which might be a bit rusty.