This post could equally be called, “How a random comment on Facebook help me increase my reading productivity by 100%”
At the beginning of January I realised that a disproportionate amount of my Christmas break had been spent catching up on work reading – and the pile of books was still quite daunting.
Now to be fair, this is partly my own doing. I am a book-junkie. Amazon just loves customers like me. I can’t resist buying new books and I order them at a pace that, at times, is significantly faster than my ability to read them.
So, I’m left with a choice – stop getting new books to read, or find a way to get the information into my brain faster. Hmmm, breaking the book habit is a tough one – and one I’m not sure I want to do away with, to be frank. I’m one of those people who thinks that books are treasures and everyone should have access to them as much as possible.
My comment on Facebook was a random thought that I might have to learn speed reading just to get through the material I had piled up. As if by magic, Noel Gray popped a comment on my wall saying that he could show me how it’s done.
And he did.
In a remarkably short space of time (only a couple of hours in fact), Noel taught me the technique that took my reading from a very average 330 words a minute to 520 words a minute. With diligent practice of only 5 – 10 minutes a day, that increased quite soon to just over 600 words a minutes.
Noel’s approach is to get you started straight away. This is a great approach – real benefits in real-time. What makes him different is that he also approaches the subject from a strategic angle; looking at why you’re reading and what you want to get out of it. It doesn’t really make sense to deal with all reading the same way, and yet we do. Reading for pleasure has a different purpose to reading for work. So, why not handle them differently?
If you want all the bells and whistles, Noel can also provide some valuable insights into report writing that will make the process faster, more effective and easier for the recipient to absorb.
So in terms of immediate practical results, what did I gain? A book I was finding a bit hard going had stalled on my desk. I chose to use that as my practice text and in short order, it was finished, summarised and the next one started. Speed reading through it did the job.
I’m far more positive about getting through piles of reading now, given that I know I can do it in half the time. Of course, that will be dependent on my not giving in and buying even more from Amazon…
Noel Gray speeds his way through reading material at kNOELedge.com
Photo credit
Article by Vandy Massey
If you liked this post why not subscribe to the 'Consultants' feed via RSS, email or follow us on Twitter.