Listening Skills
December 16, 2014 9:17 AM   Subscribe

Looking for self-help books with a workbook style to improve listening and reading, or exercises that you know of for daily practice that can help with this.

So I’ve just recently noticed that either my listening skills are pretty terrible and I’m just noticing now or in my adulthood they have degraded. My spouse will give me a list of three things to do while we're team cleaning or cooking and I will mix-up the steps or forget the middle one, I will have conversations at work but forget small, but relevant details from them. Although this is more a problem at home than at work, and I'd like for my spouse to not have to deal with this problem forever. I’m pretty sure it’s specifically a listening problem and not ADD/ADHD. I think it has to do with not being fully present in the conversation. When I think about it after the fact I think sometimes people are telling me things and I forget to pivot my entire brain onto the conversation and just start giving automatic responses, or while I’m being told something I’ll start thinking about one aspect of the problem and forget to listen to the rest of what someone is saying. But I don't realize this is happening until I've messed the thing up. Are there any books or exercises you’ve found helpful to break out of sloppy listening habits?

Sock puppet because I don't want this visible to any future employers.
posted by sockymcpuppeterson to Human Relations (5 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: If I may make a suggestion outside of your workbook request; I'd like to suggest mindfulness meditation. Whereas most folks think that meditation is supposed to "empty your mind", it's actually meant to help you focus on just one thing. A mantra. Your breath. Things of that nature.

If you go to the Headspace site, you can sign up for free and get their Take 10 program for free. It's 10 minutes a day for 10 days and it teaches you this type of meditation by focusing on your body. Watch their animations where they explain meditation. I found them very useful in my own beginning practice. I use their iPhone app every day.

Perhaps doing this will help you be present in those conversations going forward.
That, and maybe carrying around a little Moleskin and pen :)

Best of luck to you!
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 11:03 AM on December 16, 2014


Best answer: I can be the same way. Have you tried repeating back? Not only will it hopefully get you to shift your focus, but if you misheard or someone misspoke, the confusion can be cleared up right away. Also, make your default response some variation of "just a second." It breaks the flow, so you can't just keep nodding along, and I find it helps my brain realize that it's time to shift focus.

For longer conversations at work, summarize what you're supposed to follow up on. You can even trail off a little, indicating you know there's something else, but its stuck on the tip of your tongue, and people are usually happy to jump in (plus, its a good idea anyways, even if everyone is fully engaged in the conversation, people can walk away with different ideas of who is responsible for what).
posted by ghost phoneme at 11:59 AM on December 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Are there any books or exercises you’ve found helpful to break out of sloppy listening habits?

I will second "repeating it back" but add the twist of "in your own words."

This is what I did with my oldest son, who had issues with this as a kid. If I asked him to "repeat it back to me," he was perfectly capable of saying the same thing I had said word for word while paying zero attention and/or having no understanding of what any of it meant. But if he repeated it back in his own words, it forced him to focus on the conversation and to think things through.

I also asked him to stop what he was doing and LOOK at me while I talked. We later realized he has auditory processing problems and was basically supplementing his hearing with lip reading. So he honestly just didn't understand what was said if he wasn't looking at me while I spoke. He simply misheard a lot of things.
posted by Michele in California at 12:43 PM on December 16, 2014


Elevate (for Android and iOS) has some listening exercises.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 1:51 PM on December 16, 2014 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Thanks guys, I suspected mindfulness was going to come up I'll look into some other mindfullness podcast questions on the Green, and thanks Michelle in California for the "in your own words" advice.

he was perfectly capable of saying the same thing I had said word for word while paying zero attention and/or having no understanding of what any of it meant.

This part rings pretty true to me.
posted by sockymcpuppeterson at 10:05 AM on December 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


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