10 Fantastic Podcasts to Listen to While You Work

Illus­tra­tion can be a lone­ly activ­i­ty, but it feels infi­nite­ly less so when you lis­ten to a great pod­cast! I cur­rent­ly sub­scribe to about 25, and the gen­res range from com­e­dy to crime to inter­views… and much more.

Here are 10 of my favorites — give ’em a try — and let me know the pod­casts you enjoy! I’d love to cre­ate a giant list that we can all refer to when want to lis­ten to some­thing new.

In no par­tic­u­lar order…

1. This Amer­i­can Life // TAL is the first pod­cast I ever sub­scribed to, and it’s my Mon­day-morn­ing rit­u­al to lis­ten to it. The episodes, which are dif­fer­ent sto­ries revolv­ing around a cen­tral theme, will make you laugh, cry, and even con­tem­plate your own mor­tal­i­ty. Plus, Ira Glass is great.

2. Death, Sex, & Mon­ey // Host Anna Sale inter­views peo­ple, both famous and not, about their lives, specif­i­cal­ly about death, sex, and mon­ey. She has the incred­i­ble gift of get­ting peo­ple to open up and be vul­ner­a­ble, which makes her inter­views even more fascinating.

3. Strangers // Do/did you ever lis­ten to The Moth? Lea Thau was its for­mer direc­tor, and she start­ed Strangers pod­cast fea­tur­ing, “true sto­ries about peo­ple we meet, the heart­breaks we suf­fer, the kind­ness­es we encounter, and those fright­ful moments when we dis­cov­er that we aren’t even who we thought we were…” This tale blew my mind: the teacher who could­n’t read.

4. Reply All // This pod­cast’s tagline is “A show about the Inter­net,” but it’s so much more. Many of the episodes start on the Inter­net, but go deep­er and explore how we rec­on­cile the online with basic human nature.  Also, the ban­ter between the hosts PJ and Alex is total­ly delightful.

5. Crim­i­nal // Crim­i­nal is a pod­cast about crime, often focus­ing on more “off­beat” wrong doings. One of their lat­est episodes was about peo­ple steal­ing pet­ri­fied wood from a US Nation­al Park!

6. You Must Remem­ber This // Do you enjoy film? If so, you’ve got to lis­ten to this won­der­ful show. Kari­na Long­worth explores the secret and/or for­got­ten his­to­ries of Hol­ly­wood’s first century.

7. Love + Radio // It’s hard to describe this sto­ry-telling pod­cast. The off­beat tales, often explic­it in nature, are some of the most inter­est­ing things I’ve ever lis­tened to. There’s often lit­tle con­text in the episodes — they just begin, and you’re left try­ing to fig­ure out the details. I love it.

8. Mys­tery Show // This pod­cast is so much fun! Host Star­lee Kine solves a new mys­tery each episode. The catch: it can’t be some­thing that can be solved by sim­ply Googling the answer. As you might imag­ine, this sends her down some enter­tain­ing rab­bit holes. “It’s the jour­ney not the des­ti­na­tion” is an apt way of describ­ing it.

9. Uhh Yeah Dude // Hosts Jonathan and Seth describe their show as “Amer­i­ca Through the Eyes of Two Amer­i­can Amer­i­cans.” It’s a fun­ny cur­rent events pod­cast with great ban­ter from two long-time friends.

10. Start­Up // If you’re inter­est­ed in entre­pre­neuri­al­ism, Start­Up is a great lis­ten. Each sea­son cov­ers a new busi­ness, and you get an in-depth look at strug­gles and tri­umphs that go along with it. Total­ly not bor­ing and you can learn a lot, too! Be sure to start from sea­son 1.

So, what pod­casts do you lis­ten to? Let me know in the com­ments or on Twit­ter!