How To Read More Stuff

I have tried to teach myself speed reading a couple of times.  I have never really got the hang of it as a whole.  I can't look at a whole page of text and take it in in the way you are supposed to.  But I think I picked up a few things from it.  It does help to keep your distance from the paper and you can increase your speed by running your finger down the page to draw your eye more quickly than it would go at its own speed.


But if the objective is to get the information off the paper into your brain rapidly then formal speed reading isn't the only tactic open to you.  Skim reading is a skill in itself and one that you can practise easily, particularly with magazine articles.  The first and last paragraphs will often be enough to get the gist of the whole thing.  Magazines also have the advantage over books that they are intrinsically disposable, so you can remove the article of interest and pop it in your pocket for consumption at times you wouldn't otherwise be able to read.

Prescanning a book can help you identify the bits that are worthy of your attention and skip the bits you can live without.  As Napoleon said, time spent in reconnaissance is rarely if ever wasted.  This can be taken to the logical conclusion whereby you can choose not to actually read the book at all. Reading reviews of the book can also be a valuable guide to getting to the important bits quickly.

Reading books on an e-reader limits some of your ability to speed up the reading process, but does have the marvellous text to speech facility that enables you to carry on reading while you are doing things like the washing up.  I find that on-screen reading is a tad slower than reading on paper.  This may be a generational thing as I have decades of paper reading behind me.  But I have a feeling that the limited viewing area prevents you unconsciously using your peripheral vision to pre-absorb text.  But the great advantage is that e-readers are light so you can carry them for longer and small so you use them to read in places where you'd never be able to take a book.

But the biggest way to increase the amount you read is simply to devote more time to it.  Reading is a much more satisfying way to use your time than watching television or surfing the internet.  Make sure you have a book handy and know where the off button is on your other eyeball grabbing devices.

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