10 Days to Faster Reading, Day 8

This is part eight of my time with 10 Days to Faster Reading, a book on the Personal MBA Quick Start reading list. To read all posts related to this book, see 10 Days to Faster Reading on JustAJot.

Day 8, Fine-Tuning Your Reading Speed

Knowing your purpose (Day 3) and applying pre-viewing (Day 5) are the key factors for determining your overdrive speeds: skimming, scanning, or skipping.

What factors affect your reading speed? There are several, all explained in Day 8 of 10 Days to Faster Reading:

• purpose and responsibility
• pre-viewing
• background knowledge
• noise level
• distractions and interruptions
• time factor
• time of day
• physical condition
• using a speed technique
• location
• temperature and lighting
• interest
• column width and print size
• author’s style

The idea is to “take as much control over your reading material, reading time, and physical environment as possible to make your reading experience as efficient and as effective as possible.” Basically, if you really want to learn something, it’s probably not smart to read while the kids are fighting over who gets to play what video game, while the dogs are barking at the kids acting all kinds of crazy, and while your significant other is in the room not doing anything about it. Or if your single without all of the above wonderfulness, don’t read and expect to learn much while the TV is on your favorite show and you’re about to fall asleep.

Read in the best conditions and your experience will be as efficient and as effective as possible.

Three reading techniques (or “not reading” techniques) will help speed you along: skimming, scanning, and skipping. Day 8 describes each of these techniques in detail and provides exercises for the skimming and scanning techniques. Abby Marks-Beale could have included an exercise for skipping, but chances are you’ll skip it.

Use skimming when you’re looking for the main idea. Use scanning when you’re looking for something specific. Use skipping when the material is familiar or irrelevant.

The absolute best part of this chapter is the following:

1. Always identify your purpose for reading. Remember that without knowing why you are on the road, you waste time, get lost, and become frustrated.
2. Pre-view everything you read. Pre-viewing gives you the background knowledge to decide whether the reading is worth your time and helps you refine your purpose.
3. Overcome your fear of missing material. There is more than enough reading material to last a lifetime and your job is to q-u-i-c-k-l-y find what is mot valuable to you.

I have a good reason for constantly referring to the ideas of defining a purpose and pre-viewing everything you read: it helps! Since I began to seriously study this book, I’ve recognized the good things and bad things about my reading technique. I’ve always been good at skimming, scanning, and skipping, but as for defining a purpose and pre-viewing? Nope!

I’ve been making a conscious effort to define a purpose and pre-view everything I read. It helps tremendously. I still haven’t fully overcome my fear of missing material, but I’m working on it.

The tool of the day is referred to as the “finger snake.” This one works best on narrow-columned material sitting on a flat surface. Place your index finger (either one) in the center of the column under the first line of text. Move your finger down the column like a snake, in a smooth, continuous motion. The goal is to learn to see and read more than one line at a time.