READ A BOOK IN A DAY (how to speed-read and remember it all)

READ A BOOK IN A DAY (how to speed-read and remember it all)

Borrowed from:

1. Intent (have a strong intent and motivation to read)

Tip number one: Intent you gotta want to do this right. I’m not forcing you to read any books. But if you do want to, then just do it. Just do it seriously. Just do it. I wanted to read a book in a day. I said, tomorrow on the train ride home I have three hours allotted to sit down do whatever I want. I’m gonna dedicate that to reading a book. Now, obviously you have so many hours in a day. If I’m telling you: you can read a book like this in four hours if you learn how to read a little bit quicker. That’s still four hours of your day. Right where are you getting four hours from. Well you can make time for that, right. Think about. It’s really only eight thirty minute blocks. If you really wanted to, and this is what it comes down to you could not look at your phone you could not swipe through Instagram or post on Facebook or whatever that’s probably gonna save you those four hours in a day. Make sure that you also choose a book that you’re interested in. Don’t make it something that you’re forcing yourself to read. And then, also ask yourself the question: why am i doing this? If you don’t have an answer, then maybe you shouldn’t do it. Find that reason to, kind of, build into your intent. So that it makes the process of reading this book a lot more enjoyable. And you’re naturally gonna be reading it a little bit faster. Because you’re devouring it. Because of that reason that makes you want to do it. Okay that’s enough of that. Alright it goes without saying that.

2. Block out distractions

Tip number two or step number two, is to turn off any distractions. Right, so it’s very easy to get distracted obviously in this day and age. So anything that you think will distract you from keeping focused on your book turn it off. Put it away. Get it out of sight.

For me, on my train ride, I turned my phone on silent. I actually, turned it off and put it in my back pocket. Was not gonna be a problem. It was not gonna distract me one goal in mind. I was gonna do it.

3. Don’t read all the words — read from your peripheral vision

The next tip is to work on increasing your peripheral vision. So if you think about it, when you read, you know obviously you’re reading a line. It’s very tempting to think that you read from the left side of the page to the right side of the page. Literally from end to end. But we don’t actually do that. Our eyes jump around and we actually can see things that are not directly in our slide of sight. If you look directly at my finger you can actually see what’s here and here. Maybe not perfectly, but you can get the sense of it. And if we can do that when we read, you’re gonna cut out words that you actually need to look at in process. And that’s obviously gonna cut down on your reading time. Because there’s less words you need to read.

So a tip to do that I didn’t come up with this, but I’ve seen this in numerous places: Start with the first few pages, take a ruler and draw a line a vertical line on either sides of the margin. About one or two words in. Okay, see that, and then what you’re gonna try to do is read for a few pages. Maybe for five to six pages by only reading in between those margins. Okay so technically I’m cutting out two to three words on either side and focusing only on the middle part. Not to say that you’re ignoring those words, you can still read them. But you don’t have to actually read them. And what you’ll find is, after a few pages, you don’t have to do that for every single page. But you’ll naturally find yourself, just limiting yourself to that specific range, you can even narrow that range to. And get better at literally looking at a very small portion of the page. Sounds crazy, but it actually works all right.

4. Don’t backtrack — point with index finger to guide yourself

This tip is to eliminate going back. So when I used to read or sometimes when I do when I’m really tired I’ll read something. But I find myself going back to that same line or even in that same paragraph, because my eyes are all over the place. That is wasting time, and I’m not gonna get through this book as fast as I want if I keep on doing that. So you want to eliminate as much as you can any backtracking. That means your eyes need to be focused on what you’re looking for and constantly progressing moving forward in the book. No going back. No going back. So one technique that I used to do that is basically pointing, take my index finger. You can use a pen or any kind of sharp singular device. Fingers good. And literally, I just guide myself along with in. That little range that we talked about in the previous tip. And I make myself follow the line down the page no going back now it takes a bit of getting used to. It’s a bit weird to stand there pointing at your book, but you get the hang of it. And, actually, you rely on that finger to guide you through the book. And this can almost dictate how fast you’re pushing yourself.

At first it’s gonna be not so fast. With practice, as you get through the book, you’re gonna find yourself just kind of zipping through the page it looks kind of ridiculous. If anybody is watching you doing that don’t think you’re not even reading. You actually can follow along much better than you think you can.

5. Visualise everything you’re reading

This step is more up my alley in terms of memory. Is, if you want, to remember what you’re reading. Especially when you’re doing those kind of techniques that I just previously mentioned. You got to visualize. So what I like to do as I’m letting these words, kind of, fill my mind as I zip through them with my guided finger with my narrowed margins. With my intent I try to imagine I’m watching a movie, so everything as I read it kind of plays in my mind. It’s not always perfect. Doesn’t always kind of keep up because I’m going pretty fast, but I try to really imagine what I’m seeing or reading plastered on some kind of cinema screen. Like a movie playing in my mind that makes everything happen almost in real time. As if I were there experiencing it we’re seeing it on a screen which has pictures and color and sound and all that stuff. And you guys all know from watching dozens of my videos, that visualization pictures in the mind is key to remembering anything. Simple as that.

Alright those first five tips are really the majority of what you need to increase your speed and your retention of what you read.

6. Read for longer

These next five tips are really quick little tips that will help set you up for success to remember better to read faster as well the first one and I found this one really helpful I listen I’d never memorize the book so fast in one session but obviously I had a limit that train ride so

So I was kind of stuck to reading for a long period of time in one sitting. It was actually kind of cool because I was invested in the story I was in it. And you know, I didn’t want to step out and then come back in and revisit everything I wanted everything to be fresh as I read it. So I actually read for an hour non-stop, took a break for a second, then went back for another hour and a bit took a break. And then finished off the rest of the train ride in another session. And I think that’s a great tip to really kind of carry you through the book and to stay motivated and to stay interested is to try longer reading sessions.

7. Take breaks

This tip is kind of contradictory but a little bit necessary. Is to take breaks. This is a tiresome process you’ll find your mind becoming a bit tired as you do this and your eyes you’re probably not used to that moving so fast but, take a break. I took a break every hour. Seemed to be enough just for a few minutes. Then I got back and I continued on top of that.

8. Switch locations

You also should try to switch up locations. So I was on the train, so I had my seat, but I actually got up a couple times. I read standing up. I read actually in the back of the train, in between cars. And the reason I did that is because when you’re reading a book a physical book, why am i reading a physical book? Well, because it’s tangible right. I’m somewhere holding this book there’s a memory of that that will help me remember the book reading experience for that book double. The whole point of this I wanted to read a book that I could remember. And that I could remember when I read it. So vary your location when you read it’ll help you remember what you’re actually reading.

9. Practice — do it

I mean this doing this in itself is practiced right. If you continue reading at this pace with those techniques you’re essentially practicing for the entirety of a book you’re gonna get better by the end of the book and I found that you know first a few like 20 to 30 pages it was a bit uncomfortable.

I felt myself really pushing and I was like: Man, I don’t know if I can carry on with this for the next 2 and 1/2 hours, but turned out after hour one it felt really natural. I felt really good at it, and I felt like I wasn’t missing anything. I felt like I was able to read all this stuff quickly. Absorb it, visualize it all that stuff and it would felt really natural.

10. Write about it (retrieval / recap)

And finally, you know, this is kind of an after-the-fact kind of tip, but it’ll help you remember what you read for longer: Write it down. Write down a synopsis of what you read. It doesn’t have to be super detailed. You can do it on your phone and Google Drive or literally by hand, or even tell someone about it. Is to just, kind of, recap. What you read just, kind of, the general idea of what you remembered from this book. All those things will help you, kind of, solidify that entire speed reading session of you reading this book from start to finish really quickly in a day.