How to Make the Most of YouTube

And how to learn efficiently while watching

Learning by watching videos online is a huge practice right now with YouTube being the go-to platform for most people. Search for whatever you want to learn on YouTube and you will most likely return at least one video with an answer to your query. Even searching on search engines will often return YouTube videos as a top result.

Now consider that we can watch YouTube on our phones – this means we can watch while cooking, while waiting at an airport, while on the toilet, while in bed, while in a taxi, and, well, pretty much anywhere. So we have easy and free access to learning material that we can view wherever and whenever we want, but just because we can watch almost anywhere and at any time we want, that doesn’t mean we are watching, and learning, efficiently.

We watch YouTube efficiently by combining its built-in features of controlling the playback speed, full-screen mode, Watch Later, and queuing with the learning techniques of teaching someone else what we learn and taking summary notes.

In this blog post, I will share some of my tips and tricks that have helped me maximize my efficiency while watching YouTube. These tips will help with all types of material, and although this post is targeted mainly toward YouTube, the tips will generally be applicable to all video learning sites. The later tips are great for other learning formats too; books, audiobooks, lectures, etc.

Here is a summary of what we will cover:

• Playback Speed
• Full-screen mode
• Watch later / Add to queue
• Teach someone
• Take summary notes

Playback Speed

Did you know that YouTube has playback speed controls? If you didn’t then this tip is a real changer of the game. All we have to do is click on the gear icon then choose Playback speed and we will be presented with 8 preset speed options and the ability to customize the speed.

Why would we want to change the playback speed? So we can get through the video faster and onto our next video/task is an answer that may spring to mind, but, this, on its own, is not – or should not – be our goal. It’s great to be able to finish a video quickly, but we need to ensure we are taking in and internalizing the content, or what’s the point in watching in the first place? Our goal, therefore, should be to learn as much as we can from the video.

Let’s look at speeding up a video first. We might choose to speed up the video for a couple of reasons: 1. The person is speaking too slowly or the content is too spaced out for us. No matter why, if the speaker is too slow or the content is too spaced out then we run the risk of becoming bored and letting our minds wander. If this is the case then turning up the speed will help us stay focused and engaged. 2. We have watched the video before and we are now revising the content. Turning the speed up will make this revision phase go faster. When we are revising the content, there isn’t the need to hang on to every word being spoken – we are just refreshing the information in our brain and a faster pace can help us with this.

Now let’s consider slowing down a video. Slowing down a video is useful if the speaker is speaking too fast or the content is too fast-paced. If we are taking notes during the video, we want to allow ourselves time to take those notes without the hassle of pausing the video every few seconds. I find the ability to slow a video down very useful when watching coding tutorials – I can code along at the same time as the teacher without rushing my typing and making mistakes, or worse: focusing more on typing than what I’m supposed to be learning.

Whether we speed up or slow down, it’s important not to go too far. Too slow and we run the risk of our minds wandering, or taking an unnecessarily long time to finish videos. Too fast and we are unlikely to be able to keep up, or we will have to keep going back and watching the same bit – negating the benefit of speeding up the video in the first place and adding some frustration to the mix. Find that sweet spot for the video you are watching – one speed probably won’t do for all the videos you watch.

How long does it take to watch a 10-minute video at x speed:

Full screen mode

Using full screen mode, or at least theatre mode, will really help us to focus on the video. The more stuff on our screens, the more distracted we will be. Remember that those video thumbnails are designed to grab your attention – if they are on the screen then we will be tempted to click them. The same goes for advertisements, other open windows, and flashing notifications. The more space on our screen that the video takes up the less distracted we will be. Full screen is often optimal, but if we are taking notes or coding along then theatre mode is a good second-best option.

This may also be a good opportunity for us to tidy our desks/office: it will provide a lot of the same benefits as using full-screen mode. I’ve written a blog on this here.

Watch Later / Add to Queue

The Watch Later option is great when we find multiple videos we want to watch, or when we want to watch a video but can’t concentrate on it now. If we hover over a video thumbnail then the Watch Later option will pop up. Click this and the video will be listed in our Watch Later list. The video is then accessible through the Library tab. By saving a video to the Watch Later list, we don’t miss out on videos by forgetting about them or watching them at non-productive times. They will be sitting there ready when we are.

Add to queue is similar to Watch later but it adds the video to our watch Queue. For example: if we start one video and then add another to the Queue, YouTube will sync this next video to start playing after the one we are currently watching.

Both these options are great in aiding us to remain focused. If we were to simply try and remember which videos to watch next then we wouldn’t be fully focused on the current video – we would be worried about forgetting the next one and dividing our attention. We may even simply forget about the next video and, therefore, potentially pass up a great learning opportunity.

Teach someone

I have a blog post that covers this point in far more detail here. But the basic idea is this: the best way to learn is to teach. When we intend to teach what we are learning, we focus more and learn with more intent. By going one step further and actually sharing the knowledge, not just thinking about sharing, we start the recall process which is extremely beneficial to committing material to our long-term memories.

Take summary notes

Summary notes are another ideal way to kick-start the recall process. When I talk about summary notes, I mean the action of writing, typing, or dictating notes about what we have just watched. Note that this is different from taking notes during the video – which is also a useful practice, but with different benefits from taking summary notes. There would be no harm in taking summary notes and notes during the video, but if we are only going to choose one method then I recommend summary notes.

There are two stand-out benefits for us when we take summary notes after watching a video: 1. the recall process is initiated – a key trick to committing information to our long-term memory. 2. The act of writing/typing/dictating a note makes us want to record it correctly. If we were to only think about what we had learned then it would be easy to gloss over parts – probably the parts that are most hazy to us i.e. the parts we need to focus on the most. By wanting to record correctly, we will be forced to think back with more attention to the details or to go back and watch parts of the video again.

And there we have it, five short and simple tips to get the most out of watching YouTube. I hope you have taken something from this article and if you have then start the recall process and share your new knowledge with someone else.

Signing off

Iain McClafferty – The Five Year Mortgage