Breakthrough Rapid Reading by Peter Kump was a great read. Reading is a skill that if you invest in and learn well, will pay you back many times over. What I have found most beneficial from investing in my reading is that my massive list of articles and books I'd like to read no longer feel insurmountable. I now have the skills to get through that list in a reasonable time. And as experience from the last few months has proven to me, it has really helped.
This book wasn't read in the hopes of becoming a 100 page a minute speed reader but instead to increase my reading pace to allow me to healthily get through my reading list and to generally be more comfortable reading through large bodies of information at a good pace.
Within the book there are several great tips - some of my key takeaways were:
- For more technical books, reading fast may not be desirable, you need to take the time to digest and understand the material and information being presented, while you may be able to consume information to really comprehend you may have to slow down and allow your mind to digest what you are reading.
- Turn of your inner voice trying to read out aloud what you are reading, this will hold you back and prevent you from reaching higher speeds.
- Practice passing your eyes over sentences, reading each word but practice moving fast - ensuring you are comprehending what you are seeing. After a short period of time it is worth stopping and reflecting back about what you just read - did you remember it? Quiz yourself, try draw a mind map of what you have just seen. For me it helps to think that I am "seeing" the text and not "reading" it, however when I am seeing it, I am comprehending it.
Apart from those above take always, the book had a lot of exercises that are worth working through and internalizing. Rapid reading doesn't happen over night but with quality practice can get a lot faster over time.
