How to be Productive While Watching YouTube Videos

YouTube has everything. It is more than a website, it has in fact evolved to be a search engine. According to Forbes, “YouTube’s user-friendliness, combined with the soaring popularity of video content, has made it the second largest search engine behind Google”. With this level of popularity, surely you can find endless materials for learning and personal growth purposes. But that said, as this same rule applies to any social media, you need to be careful and wise about the time you spend there.

If you think you cannot be productive while watching YouTube videos, well keep reading because you might want to know this. On average, people usually spend around 40 minutes watching videos on YouTube per day. That number may be lower than what you expected but what if you can make use of that 40 minutes fully for your own benefit rather than watching a compilation of Reddit’s strange questions?

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Go Incognito and Protect Your Recommendations

Well, there is nothing inherently wrong with watching compilations of Reddit’s questions on YouTube. However, think about the last time you fell down the rabbit hole of watching things that are totally unrelated to you and your well-being (i.e. pimple-popping videos, 5 minutes crafts, or TikTok compilations). Then without realizing it, you have spent almost 3 hours watching similar videos. We call this type of content “sticky videos”. And that is 100% what YouTube’s algorithm does. They make sure that you will keep getting the same video recommendations so you will never leave the app.

So, if you want to stop watching pointless videos until 3 AM and get a hold of your sleeping schedules, use incognito mode both on your desktop and mobile gadgets while browsing YouTube in your leisure time. Since incognito mode protects your personal history data, if you stumble upon a sticky video while browsing in it, the same video will not be recommended on your home. This way, once you are satisfied watching a stableman take care of horses’ hooves, you can log out of incognito right away and risk no more time spent uselessly.

Find Parts of Videos Using Transcript Feature

Let’s say, one day you stumble upon a very insightful tutorial video about how to take a cool shot with your smartphone. You liked and saved the video for future reference. The next day, you want to replay only the part of when the creator showed you how to do the shot, yet you cannot remember at which minute the demo actually starts. Worse, the video is one hour long so watching the whole video will be a complete waste of time. So, what should you do?

YouTube has this feature called Transcript Feature, basically a feature where you can view the full transcript or closed caption. To access this, you need to:

1. Click the three dots button on the right side of the like, dislike, share, and save buttons 

2. Click “Open Transcript” and this will open a new box containing all the transcripts from the video you are watching

3. Pressing Ctrl/Cmnd+F to open the search box

4. Type the things you remember the creator said just before they began the demo, for example, “Let me show you how it’s done” 

5. If you remember correctly, then the words will be found in the transcript box alongside the timestamp which you can click to jump right onto it.

There, you can save so many times and dive straight into the project you are currently working on!

While there is no shame in watching questionably interesting videos on YouTube, you should still be mindful about the time you spend on it. Do not let social media control you when you should be the one controlling. Hopefully, these two tricks could help you sustain a more productive activity while browsing YouTube. Good luck!

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