There is too much to read and only a short amount of time, you have tried everything you know, but somehow you think that you can increase the speed of your reading, but at the same time you do not want to compromise on the quality. It is a reader’s dilemma, how do you do it, what are fast, effective and efficient ways to do this?Well, we come up with 10 simple effective steps to read better and faster and more efficiently.
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| 10 Simple Tips To Increase Efficiency |
1) THE PURPOSE OF THE ARTICLE
What is the article trying to convey, what is the message it if focusing on? Every passage or article is a story and it is trying to convey a message to you. Identify what the author is trying to say, if you would give a heading to that passage, what would that heading be? That will be the theme of the passage, hunt for it.
2) YOUR PURPOSE OF READING IT
What is your purpose of reading the article? Are you going for the facts or the opinion? If you are looking for the opinion, there will be a lot of details you can skim or even skip to save some time for yourself. If you are looking for the facts, just make a note of them, don’t try to remember them right away, just highlight them or use shorthand and write a couple of points per paragraph
3) DON’ READ IT OUT LOUD!
Our eyes and brain work faster than the mouth and voice. The more we try to vocalize and read it out load, it just means that we are using more time to complete a single sentence. Instead of looking at the comprehension like a passage, look at it like a picture, a part or a fragment of the story and how each part adds together – like bones of a skeletal structure.
4) READ THE PICTURE NOT THE WORDS
We are usually trained to assimilate the words and then make a picture of them. Even while reading this post, how are you reading it? Are you reading the words first and then associating a picture to it? If you are doing that, you are going through the traditional way. Skip that, just look at the picture, just look at what image the line or the sentence creates in your mind.
5) READ WITH YOUR EYES AND NOT THE LIPS
What is the span of your eye. Do you move your eyelids word to word or do you read it sentence by sentence or line by line. Instead of reading one word at once, look at one sentence at a time or a couple of them at a time. This way you are looking for the meaning than the individual word
6) DON’T BE LOST IN THE DETAILS
It is very easy to be stuck in the details and interesting facts. In order to avoid that trap, identify the purpose of the passage, if it is leisure or a novel, take your time, savor it. But if it is an academic article, then skip that, just look at what you want out of it than what all is in there. For all you know you may be looking at one or two points in the article and the rest can just be a landing to that. Be clever, move to that. Be a treasure hunter, someone who looks for clues at each step to go to the bigger picture instead of being lost in the details.
7) KNOW YOUR SPEED
It pays to know where you stand, time yourself, identify the word per minute speed you are generating. Knowing where you are helps to know where you can be. Do it every 3 days, see how you improve. It is very easy to increase your speed from 250 words per minute to 500 words per minute and you can do that without much effort. All you have to do is train yourself a little better, avoid the regular traps and mistakes.
8) IF YOU DON’T KNOW THE MEANING OF A WORD
Well, skip it. Don’t worry about the exact meaning of a word, you will be able to derive it from the context. There is no point in being stuck in the details, one word cannot harm the entire theme of the passage or the theme of the sentence. You have to be clever, you have to be smart, just feel free to neglect it, you can come back to it later
9) DISTRACTIONS
Although we all know that it is best to be in a quiet place, we sometimes feel that an additional resource can amplify your speed. Steer away from these traps, do not try to multi task, esp while you are reading, make this the only task you do. If you are training yourself to increase the speed and accuracy, then stop treating it like leisure, it is not, it is more of a work in the initial days and it will pay you off very well.
10) BE CURIOS
No matter what purpose you are reading it for, it is something which you are not going to do again, atleast not in the same state of mind. Be curios about it, know that there is something to learn, an opportunity to understand something and realize something new and if possible even integrate in your life. Make the best out of it, enjoy it and don’t lose that creative spirit in you. It is going to pay off exceedingly well.
If these suggestions helped, there is one book which made a huge difference in both my speed and comprehension and I would love to suggest the same : It is How To Read Better & Faster
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