Accidentally Increased My Reading Speed
Lazy Person Edition
Remember that kid in your classroom who was reading more than 50 books per year. Unfortunately, that kid was never ME. I used to read at most 1 book per year and it took me months to finish it. I was mostly staying on my phone and simply reading any ‘interesting’ article that was pushed on my feed. My reading habits were mostly reactive rather than proactive, as I was making 0 effort to read a book.
Generally speaking, there are plenty of well-written articles on the internet but some of them are either misleading or spreading false information. According to Statica 67% of the population in the U.S believes in fake news and articles. This is more than half of the population who are scrolling down on social media and are reactively reading articles with the most interesting headlines. On the other hand, it is true that those articles have the most clicks so the writer is focusing on quantity rather than quality, especially in those occasions where the article is not evaluated.
Often, the articles that are written and posted on social media are not evaluated at all. If an article posted somewhere and advertised on social media was compared with a scientific book where the researchers have spent years on experiments and data analyses, the quality on the second one would sky-rock a random mediocre article. There are certain stages for any book to be published: research, writing, editing, publishing. From a learning perspective, it is a better use of time to read books than scan some online articles.
Unfortunately, while I was trying to spend my time wisely and read more books, I encountered that I get distracted and lose interest very quickly. As a developer, I always watch tutorials at 2x speed because I can’t stay focused when people talk slowly. I usually get bored and fast-forward straight to the point. This helps me concentrate on the essential part.
At this point, you might be wondering how on earth is all this related to fast reading? That’s how my bulb lighted up. I was looking at my 2020 yearly goal of reading 12 books while thinking of how much of a lazy person I am and I came up with a brilliant idea:
Audio Book + Physical Book = Fast Reading
Ingredients
Audible/Youtube
Ebook/Paper book
Pen
Preparation
Get your book on Audible or find an audiobook on Youtube.
Once you purchase the audio book, you will be able to listen to it. Make sure you put the speed 2.0x or 2.5x (if a beginner start off with 1.5x).
Once you press play on audiobook, follow with a pen throught the ebook/book.
Figure 3. Following through ebook while listening to Audiobook.
You will be able to hear and see the words and sentences at the same time. This method will keep you focused and will increase your reading speed. After a while you might want to get rid of the pen and follow only with your eyes and ears.
I surpassed my Goal of 2020 and I finished 26 books through this method. Some of the benefits I have seen after applying this method:
I read faster everything, including my school slides, books, scientific articles.
I am more focused on what I am reading.
Memory improved — I remember most of the details of each book I have read.
Save time
I am enjoying reading more.
I carried this method in 2021 and in 6 months I managed to read 22 books, while being a full time research student, working part time and doing an internship.
Nowadays I’ve already created the habit of reading fast, so it is not strange to finish 3 books in one weekend or the “The count of Monte Cristo’ in 3 days.