You listen to them at 3-3.5x while doing other things?
Yes, I find that that's about the current limit for me catching every word. I think it used to be a bit slower a year or two ago (~2.5x), but I'm not sure if maybe I just pushed less then. Mostly I have no trouble doing other non-group things while listening, except I can't do anything involving words (including daydream level thought chains) or anything overly mentally challenging (e.g. non-trivial math). (If I concentrate really really hard I can listen to something and read something at the same time while understanding both, especially at lower playback speeds, but I find myself unable to maintain this level of concentration for more than a few sentences.)
How do you increase the speed, do you only increase the tempo? Do you change the pitch at all?
Not sure I understand what you mean by "tempo" (as opposed to speed). On the computer, I use VLC, which increases playback speed without shifting pitch. Walking around, I use a Sansa Fuze (not +, and v2) with Rockbox firmware installed. Rockbox lets me go up to 250% playback speed without pitch shifting, and then requires +1% pitch for every additional 2.5% speed thereafter. I actually find VLC less clear than my mp3 player at high speeds, although not sure if that's because pitch increases helps comprehension or because my sound card is worse than the player or something (I guess I should test it some time).
This is an extension of a comment I made that I can't find and also a request for examples. It seems plausible that, when giving advice, many people optimize for deepness or punchiness of the advice rather than for actual practical value. There may be good reasons to do this - e.g. advice that sounds deep or punchy might be more likely to be listened to - but as a corollary, there could be valuable advice that people generally don't give because it doesn't sound deep or punchy. Let's call this boring advice.
An example that's been discussed on LW several times is "make checklists." Checklists are great. We should totally make checklists. But "make checklists" is not a deep or punchy thing to say. Other examples include "google things" and "exercise."
I would like people to use this thread to post other examples of boring advice. If you can, provide evidence and/or a plausible argument that your boring advice actually is useful, but I would prefer that you err on the side of boring but not necessarily useful in the name of more thoroughly searching a plausibly under-searched part of advicespace.
Upvotes on advice posted in this thread should be based on your estimate of the usefulness of the advice; in particular, please do not vote up advice just because it sounds deep or punchy.