Efficient Reading
We’ve covered one method of increasing your book intake with How To Read Fast in November. What about How To Read and Digest A Book and digesting a book properly while learning how to Speed Read.
This little gem comes from Matt’s Idea Blog almost a year ago and helps me get through educational reading, particularly when I want to read a lot of books in a short time.
Naturally, because my goal is to learn, the reading involves work. But the question is: How can one read efficiently, capture relevant ideas in a usable way, and keep the process sustainable and enjoyable? The rest of my post summarizes the best solutions I’ve found, but the most useful technique comes from Jason Womack, and synthesizes nicely the most common ideas. In a nutshell, he says he reads the book four times:
1. Table of contents, glossary, index.
2. Anything in bold, titles, and subtitles.
3. First line of every paragraph.
4. Entire book
It’s a simple process. The first 3 steps should take around ten minutes [not much extra, hey?] and prepares your brain to take in the information. Because you’ve, essentially, already read the book three times, when you do finally read it in it’s entirety the information becomes much easier to sink in.
Warning: Does not work for fiction.
How To Read A Lot Of Books In A Short Time - [MattsIdeaBlog]
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Comments
Matthew Cornell says on February 7th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Thanks for your post, Craig, and for the great pointers.
jdan says on February 7th, 2007 at 10:49 am
This is almost exactly the concept behind PhotoReading, except they teach you to go further and faster, and they help you practice. You are preparing your brain to suck up the information as efficiently and quickly as possible.
Note, I am not associated with PhotoReading or their parent company in any way, I’m just a satisfied customer. I first learned of PhotoReading from Steve Pavlina (http://www.stevepavlina.com/photoreading/)
http://www.photoreading.com/
–jdan
John Wesley says on February 7th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I like the idea. Priming your brain with the structure and terminology of the book before diving right in will allow you to retain a lot more of what you read.
Ivan says on February 7th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Good points on effective reading, BUT don’t believe everything on speed-reading. Reputable researchers have shown that it doesn’t help your comprehension and understanding of the material.
jason says on February 8th, 2007 at 12:40 am
I stumbled across this while “cramming” for an exam in college. I found, in that evening, that I knew “more” about the topic I was studying (California History) than I did a day, week or even month before.
Maybe it wasn’t “know” more, but more seemed familiar. From that moment on, I’ve read every non-fiction book this way, and I tell ya it works!
On occasion, I find out I’m going to meet an author next week (or tomorrow, or this evening!). One thing I do is a websearch. Another, I “read” their book. Now, I might not get all the way through the fourth reading…but, the first three times gives me a pretty good sense of what I’m in for…
Crawdaddy says on February 8th, 2007 at 6:47 am
It may not speed things up during the first reading, but I always read with a pen in my hand, to underline or write notes in the margins. Why? I revisit the books I read, and having all those pen marks allows me to “re-read” the book in about 15-30 minutes and retrieve all the stuff that resonated with me first time around.
no says on May 17th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Anyone who thinks that speed reading is real is a retarded. You may be able to increase your reading speed A TINY BIT, but you’re not going to make much of a change and it sure won’t be “speed reading”. Do a little research into the topic. It’s generally known that it’s a complete scam.