The morning commute, making dinner, weeding the garden – we all have chunks of time in our week when our eyes are occupied but our mind is on autopilot.

While ‘doing nothing’ is far from a bad thing (in fact, there is even a Dutch practice called ‘Niksen’ which calls upon people to be idle in order to combat burnout) it’s sometimes nice to learn something new as you go about your daily schedule.

If you’re nodding your head to what we’re saying, you’re in luck – we’ve put together a list of 15 podcasts to add to your listening rotation this spring.

“Podcast” is a word that’s floating around at the moment. So what is a podcast? Basically, regular Broadcast Radio (AM and FM radio) only has so many channels to use. As a result, radio stations attempt to appeal to as broad of an audience as possible, hence the word broadcast. In contrast, podcasting “narrowcasts” specialised content to those who choose to tune in. Podcasts have multiple distribution points such as Spotify, iTunes and Soundcloud, and websites where episodes can be listened to or downloaded.

For those who love a good fun fact, it may interest you to know where the word “podcast” itself originated. The name was first mentioned by Ben Hammersley in a 2004 newspaper article as part of a quick brainstorm of possible names for this growing new platform. The “pod” of podcast is borrowed from Apple’s digital media player the “iPod”; and the “cast” portion of podcast is taken the term “broadcast” used in radio. Despite this, don’t worry – you can still tune in if you don’t have an Apple device or iPod!

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