The art of reading: how to read fast and remember better?

“I just sit in my office and read books,” Warren Buffett, one of the most successful and influential businessmen, describes his everyday life in exactly this way and in no other way. He just sits and reads. And he advises everyone to stick to this simple and uncomplicated routine.

Agree, this is a pretty useful habit. But not everyone knows how to instill this habit and not just read books, but extract everything useful and valuable from them. If you manage to read several books a month and are content with short-term insights, but do not apply anything you read, consider that you are just wasting your time.

How to read more and have time to comprehend everything read, remember and apply in life - this is the subject of dispute for many researchers. Each of them considers it his duty to offer his own unique methodology that will help you become more perfect in this matter. However, they all agree on one thing - reading books opens up many opportunities for people to grow and achieve success.

We will tell you about the most interesting methods of reading books in this article. But first we want to pay attention to some basics.

How fast are you reading?

One of the most obvious answers to the question “How can I read more?” - Learn to read faster. The topic of speed reading is so popular that some companies (such as Staples, for example) use it in their marketing campaign. By the way, the aforementioned Staples has developed and implemented a technology to promote e-books that allows you to determine your reading speed. Unfortunately, there are no texts for the Russian-speaking audience.

But Staples doesn't just provide website visitors with such a widget: the company collects and analyzes the data it receives. According to these data, 300 words per minute is the average for an adult. You can see other results below:

Average reading speed by group: elementary school students, 8-9 years old (Third-grade students) - 150 words per minute; high school students, 13-14 years old (Eight grade students) - 250 lines; students of colleges and universities - 450 cl; top managers — 575 words; university professor - 675 words; master of speed reading - 1500 sl.

However, will speed reading help you read more? Is this the right way and is it justified? Not always. In the process of reading books, the most important thing is reading comprehension. It's no secret that people who deftly manage with one and a half thousand words a minute, in fact, remember little from the text, practically comprehending nothing. Therefore, if your reading speed is at an average level, do not be sad. Gradually build up speed, but without sacrificing understanding. Only in this case you will be able to find the right way to have time to read more.

How much do you read?

Some people read fast and some people read a lot. You will be surprised, but not all people try to save time on their favorite pastime. In this case, speed reading is not an option at all. In fact, in this situation, the question “How to read a lot?” disappears by itself: if a person likes to read, he will devote a lot of time to this.

According to a study by The Pew Research Center, adults in the United States read an average of 17 books a year. How many books do you usually read in a year?

The key word here is "average". There are people who read much more than 17 books a year. There are also those who do not read them at all (of those, 19%, and according to the latest data for 2013, 28% of Americans). What does it mean? This means that if you start reading more, you will be head and shoulders above one-third of the US population.

5 techniques that will allow you to read more books, blogs, articles

1. Speed ​​Reading: The Amazing Technique of Tim Ferriss.

His method consists of 2 steps:

1. Run your pen or pencil along each line you read, as children do when they learn to read.
2. Start reading each new line at least from the third word, and try to catch the first two words with peripheral vision. Move to the next line at least three words before the end of the line itself.

Ferriss calls this technique perceptual extension:

“Untrained readers spend up to half of their peripheral vision reading… fields. If you read lines from beginning to end, you will waste about 25-50% of your time.”

How do our eyes see?

You may have already heard that in order to improve your reading speed, you need to use your peripheral vision. Rapid eye movements, the so-called saccades (fast, strictly coordinated eye movements that occur simultaneously and in the same direction), occur constantly while we are reading (from the field to the beginning of a new line, for example). Minimizing these jumps is a sure way to increase your reading speed.

Conclusion: Using your peripheral vision will help you improve your reading speed. You will not achieve record changes in speed, but you will definitely start reading faster.

2. New methods Spritz and Blinkist

Spritz and Blinkist are two completely new, unique techniques that will help you read not only faster, but also less.

As mentioned above, while reading, a lot of time is spent on moving the eyes. Spritz technology completely eliminates this.

How it works? You just look at a small rectangle on the screen of your laptop or smartphone, which alternately, one after another, displays words from the text. In each word, one letter is highlighted in red: this makes it easier for the eyes to concentrate on the center of the word.

There is a special bookmarklet called OpenSpritz that allows you to read any text you find on the Internet in this way. Below is an example of one of these texts, which is read at a speed of 600 words per minute.

On the main page of the Spzirtz application, you can try this technology at different speeds and in different languages ​​(including Russian).

In addition to the revolutionary, in our opinion, Spritz technology, there is another one called Blankist. Instead of helping you read faster, Blankist suggests reading only the most important. The program splits texts into digestible parts. Each of which contains a key idea that you can read in just a couple of minutes.

3. Don't watch TV or go shopping

Shane says there are no secrets to this success. The time he devotes to reading, the average American spends on watching TV (35 hours a week), some kind of interactive entertainment and shopping (at least an hour a week). Shane eliminated all these unnecessary activities from his life and devoted the saved time to reading. In total, he reads 43 more hours a week than the average American.

4. Buy a reader

According to a study by The Pew Research Center, those people who use e-books, on average, read about 24 books per year, while people without this device manage only 15. The question is: do you want to read 9 more books a year, than usual? If yes, then buy a reader. It is light and comfortable, and you can devote any free minute to reading. Needless to say, in this scenario, you will read much more?

5. Read more, but don't read everything.

For some, this advice may seem completely illogical, but it is taken from an equally illogical book.

How to talk about books you haven't read?

This book was written by Pierre Bayard, a professor at the University of Paris. In it, he says that people usually divide all books into those that they have read and those that they have not read:

• the books we have read;
• books we reviewed;
• books we heard about;
• books we forgot about;
• books that have never been opened.

Who knows: maybe in order to be able to read more, you just need to look at the process of reading a little differently. Obviously, those books that fall into the first 3 categories, the professor refers to read. Will it help you? Try it. But to be honest, we have some doubts.

3 effective ways to remember what you read

To learn how to better absorb what you read and retain information for many years, you need to understand the specifics of how our memory works. To do this, remember 3 keywords:

• impression;
• associations;
• repetition.

Let's say you read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. You liked the book incredibly, and you want to remember as much as possible.

What should be done? Work on three levels.

Impression. You will remember much more if you emotionally work through the book. For example, you can play some chapters in your imagination, try to feel the emotions that the author is trying to convey or that he is talking about. Imagine yourself as the main character of the chapters you read. You must create and manage your experiences. Thanks to them, you will be able to save most of the information in your memory. If visuals don't help, try reading your favorite chapters aloud. Make sure that the book evokes a rush of feelings in you.

Associations. The association method is known to many, but it cannot be left out of our list, since it is distinguished by record efficiency. Its essence is simple: you connect the meaning of what you read with something that is already familiar to you, correlate with each other. In addition to the fact that this method will allow you to remember texts better and more clearly, you will also understand them better. The rule works: it is easier to explain something new if you compare it with something familiar.

Repetition. Repetition is the mother of learning. And that's it. The more often you return to the books you liked most, the better you will keep them in your memory.

4 reading levels

Mortimer Adler, philosopher and author of How to Read a Book, identifies 4 levels of reading:

1. Elementary.
2. Inspection.
3. Analytical.
4. Thematic.

Each level builds on the previous one. The elementary level is taught to you at school. The inspection level is, in fact, a superficial acquaintance with a book or article, the same as “going over the eyes”.

The most painstaking work takes place on the last two levels. The analytical level involves a more thorough acquaintance with the material. You literally read the book from cover to cover. In the course of analytical reading, you will have to go through 4 stages:

1. Classify the book by subject.
2. Briefly state what the book is about.
3. List the main chapters and make connections between them. Describe each of these parts. Expand her role throughout the book.
4. Identify the problem or problems the author is addressing in the book. Describe them.

Finally, topical reading obliges you to read several books on one topic and analyze each of them in relation to the other: compare, contrast, evaluate.

As you master these 4 levels of reading, you will also develop the 3 ways of memorization discussed above. By taking the book apart (at the analytical and thematic levels), you will fix in your memory the impressions that you received from it. A thoughtful analysis of works similar in subject matter will help you better understand the material and remember it for many years.

Take notes!

Here's a little tip for you: take notes.

Write in the margins. Leave bookmarks. After reading the book, write a short review. Then you can go back to your notes and notes and brush up on the most important points from what you read.

The importance of notes and bookmarks is emphasized by Shane Parrish, already mentioned by us:

“After I finish a book, I put it aside for a few weeks. Then I go back to it, go through all the bookmarks and notes I've made, and reread the chapters I've marked as important. I do this with all books without exception.

Conclusion

Remember the main rule: books cannot be read, books must be studied. Books should be seen as an investment in one's own education, and therefore in one's own success. The craze for techniques that allow us to increase the speed of reading, which we can observe today, at first glance, seems to be saving, but there will be no sense from them if what is read is not comprehended and used. Learn to read correctly, and you will definitely achieve excellent results.

Good luck and high conversions!