I do not know a faster reader than my friend Vivek who goes through books like a hot knife goes through a block of butter. These days this guy reads at least a book a day and one of the first interactions I had with him was an online argument over how many books he read in one year.
He said a big number and it ticked me in the wrong way because at that time, I was reading a lot of books too and I was nowhere near that number. But, as I found out to my dismay, Vivek was right. He did read all those books and the guy is legit a fast reader. I was wrong and he was right. And there is no shame in admitting you are wrong sometimes. So how did he do it? How did he read almost a book every 2-3 days for a year?
I do not know the answer. Vivek is just exceptional, but while mere mortals like you and I can't read so many books, we can still improve our reading and retention speeds. How to do it? Let's take a look at some of the tricks and tips for reading faster and reading more.
1. Choose Interesting Books - If there is one truth that I know, it's that you can never read them all. Writers are pushing more books than ever in the history of humanity and if you want to read it all, you will need more than one lifetime.
So, choose the right books to read. Books that are in your reading ability, in your comprehension ballpark, and still push you just a little more to explore and understand. If you are into reading fiction, maybe pick up a travel book, or maybe something that covers a different topic with a dash of fiction.
2. Set Aside Time for Reading - You need to carve some time out of your schedule to read. Simple as that. It can be an hour in the morning or an hour before bedtime.
Or set up pages to read. Tell yourself that you are going to read a certain number of pages every day. It can be any book. But be religious about it.
3. Keep Track - Goodreads is a good way to keep track of your reading. Update it when you read a book some way through and it will keep you on track to read the book properly. Hell, keep a book journal to jot down interesting words or phrases from the books you are reading.
4. Limit Your Books - This is a mistake that many of us make when we take on more than we can chew and then we can't eat at all. If you have too many books on your Now Reading pile, work to whittle them to a manageable size.
It can be tempting to read many books at the same time because you can switch from one to another when you lose a little bit of interest in one book, but it works against you. You don't finish any book at all and you can't fully immerse yourself in one book. Single task your reading.
5. Don't Speed Read - What? you say, NOT to speed read? Yup, that's what I'd recommend. If you can speed read, more power to you. But you are not running a race to read more books, there is no medal at the end of reading 100-200-300 books in a year.
Enjoy your books.
Read the beautiful lines again.
Find out interesting words and speak them to hear how they sound in your mouth. Relax and immerse yourself into what you are reading.
So yeah, that's about it for now. Like this article? Let me know and I will write more like this one! Leave a comment if you have a tip or two for reading books faster!
