Keeping Sane At Your Boring Office Job

I have a desk job, and it’s a miracle that I haven’t gone crazy and started banging my head against the wall. Want to know how I’ve managed to keep my sanity? Podcasts.

It’s like talk radio, but you get to choose what they’re talking about! Here are some of my favorite podcasts, and I hope you’ll discover and enjoy them too!

Two quick notes before we get started:
1) Everything mentioned below is available for free in iTunes.
2) I listen on my iPod Touch at 2x speed. I’ve gotten used to this and find now when I listen at regular speed, it feels like the speakers had a stroke!

So without further ado, here are my favorite Podcasts:

Sports

• The Best of Mike and Mike in the morning. For the casual and not so casual sports fan, Mike and Mike is great for catching up on all the daily news in the sports world.  For a guy like me, having Mike Greenberg representing us shmoes who never played professional sports and gives a perspective that really propels the conversation while Mike Golic a past professional football player can give us the Jock side! The best part of the podcast is not having to listen to 12 million commercials to get an ounce of sports talk! It’s great, check it out!
• Dave Dameshek NFL.com Podcast.  Dave Dameshek who used to be (and maybe still is) a writer for the Jimmy Kimmel show does an excellent show about Football news…although he can drift to other sports and topics.  I find his sense of humor and pace to be really fun and gives my running workouts a great deal of thought and diversion!  He’s funny, he’s clever and if you can get by the voice, you’ll really enjoy this show!
• Rich Eisen Podcast.  Another “regular” guy living the dream and hanging out with pro football players all day.  Rich comes off so likeable and so appreciative of the life style he’s been blessed with and also discusses MOSTLY football but will have some celebrity guests as well.  I can’t wait to get into the real season and hear some solid analysis and banter.
• The Dan Patrick Show. This show comes in three, one hour installments.  He’s the king of sports radio, he’s got great personality, and excellent interviews.

News

• NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. (Video)  You can’t beat this, no commercials just a solid 20+ minutes of daily news to get you caught up.  A solid news anchor with a great sense of humor.
• CBS Radio News Daily.  Just another way to get yourself caught up on the headlines in about 8 minutes.

Entertainment

• TMZ Live. (Video)  Unfortunately, I’m hooked on this crap.  The great thing about this show is it’s not a “tabloid” they do real news reporting, they just only report on celebrities.  Lots of perspectives around their office, and my favorite is when the lawyers chime in on the legal aspects of the daily happenings!

Comedy

• The Adam Carolla show.  Boy is he bitter, but he’s funny!  It’s a long podcast and it is available daily.  He spouts off about the pluther of things that annoy him.  He has some cohorts that join him, including the aforementioned Dave Dameshek.  He has a news anchor who provides news clips for Adam and his guests to rip into.  Definitely a fun diversion! Adam has sworn himself off ofHollywood built himself his own “Pirate Ship” and offers many ways for you to help keep wind in his sails!
• Penn Gillette’s Sunday School.  This is also a Product of ACE Broadcasting (Adam Carolla Enterprises) Playing on Penn’s well known atheists beliefs!  Mostly a peak behind the curtain of Penn Gillette.  Sometimes we see too much, but mostly we see a very gentle guy with strong opinions that are more often funny then not!
• The Nerdist. Chris Hardwick’s show where he interviews a very impressive list of celebrities and again, very man of the people.  He’s quite quick and a clever interviewer.
• Kevin Pollack Chat show.  This is an amazing interview show IF and only IF you are interested in the guest.  No more 8 minutes of chatter surrounded by a plug for some movie and commercials.  A 2 hourish sit down with a multitude of celebrities.  Kevin and his team do their homework, and tons of cool stories come from these interviews.

Health & Fitness

• Jillian Michaels. Sometimes preachy and sometimes more directed at chicks. But if you’re into health and fitness, you can mine a lot of gold from her podcasts.  I swear you won’t lose any man points.

Educational

• Ted Talks. (Video)  Experts in their field given 18 minutes to put on the talk of their lives.  The theme of Ted Talks is “Ideas worth spreading” and let me tell you they don’t disappoint.  Sometimes you find a topic that feels to technical and above your head. But often it is a very well thought out presentation that gets you inspired and thinking at the same time.  I share them with my kids!
• NPR: Ted Radio Hour. Individual interviews and discussion about specific Ted Talk presentations.  Again, a great listen for you and the kids and you can really find some jump off topics to chat with your kids about!

So there you have it, my favorite Podcasts that help the day go that much faster. If you’ve got any Podcasts that you think I should be listening to, be sure to leave a comment below.