Start At 10% Lifehack

By Leo Gura - October 14, 2024

I found a huge lifehack for how I consume video and audio content. It’s very simple and obvious but a game-changer.

From now on I start consuming all video and audio content 10% in. And 20% in for any topic related to news or politics.

That’s it. That’s the whole hack.

The way it works is, if I open a new YT video, podcast, or audio book, I jump 10-20% forward and starting my watching/listening from there.

Over the years this will save you 100s of hours of wasted time. Most YT videos and podcasts have no meaningful content within the first 10%. It’s a bunch of boilerplate, intro, recap, garbage, devoid of substance. The way your mind works, you don’t need to consume content in linear order. You can start watching a video or reading a book from 50% and your mind will still make sense of it. And if that 50% is good enough you can go back and listen to it from the start. But most content is not deep enough to warrant such meticulous attention. Except mine of course. You gotta watch my videos from 0%.

This simple little lifehack has revolutionized how I consume content. I am no longer a slave to the linear format nor do I respect the sequence of events that authors lays out. I jump around and scavenge from content exactly what I need. Stop trying to be a completionist about content (books, videos, podcasts, etc). Most content is not good enough to warrant it and actually abuses your time and focus. Take back the authority of your own mind. Learn material how you need, not how someone laid it out. They don’t know you. They don’t know what you know and what you need.

Throw away this notion that you need to sit down and consume a piece of content from start to finish. From now on, content has to earn that right.

If you skip the first 20% of political videos, especially, you will jump straight to the good bits. Over time you will develop a feel for which content should be started where. It’s an intuition you will build.

Click Here to see ALL of Leo's juicy insights.