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Hullo!
@siggy47 has been so kind to us all, so I thought I would organise a bounty here.
How do you increase your reading rate?
As in, carve out more time to read, read at a faster pace, consume audio books. My question can be interpreted as you see fit.
However, I would like your authentic lived experiences though. Rather than those generic ones like find a book club or get an accountability buddy. Not that these tips don’t apply, but I would like you to freshen up your context.
For example, I find that I have been reading more since I formed the habit of typing favourite lines on Obsidian. This allows me to read several books faster simultaneously because I don’t have to wait for the ideal headspace to continue with one book. I can just browse through my notes and pick up from where I left.
The best comment as voted by the "top" filter ~24 hours later (27 August) - coinciding with the opening of the Saloon - gets 1000 sats.
Looking forward to reading about your reading tips!
1,000 sats paid 3 times
cryotosensei's bounties
I don't believe in increasing my actual reading pace. I need time to process what I'm reading.
I do believe in increasing my reading frequency. I know how much time i spend reading online pointless news articles, so i try to consciously reduce it by replacing it with book reading time.
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24 sats \ 1 reply \ @flat24 26 Aug
News on the internet or articles on social media are a trap 🪤 without realizing it, sometimes we get caught spending many minutes like this. It has happened to me!
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Doomscrolling is real
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Does random surfing lead you to interesting Science articles that you would have missed if you have been more disciplined with your online habits?
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Likely. So it's not fully wasted time, but i try to be more conscious so that i still have enough time for more productive stuff ;)
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As you keep reading, your pace of digesting books automatically becomes faster. At least that's what I observed in my reading.
I alsk believe that reading speed should not be increased forcefully. Let reading be like a stream so that the thoughts can flow spontaneously into the mind.
Yes, you need to always keep in mind that which book or content is just here to read. Like when upu read news and z story, you can read them rapidly. But the same can't be done for opinions and ideas.
I follow Francis Bacon's Famous quote from Of Studies
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
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Thank you for reminding me of Francis Bacon’s quote! It makes feel less guilty when I speed read through a book that I just want to get done and dusted with
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71 sats \ 1 reply \ @drlh 26 Aug
There's a book called How to read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren. Really cool book for tackling the comprehend rate.
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Indeed a good book on this topic. Another intriguing book by Adler, The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto outlines education based on the foundational classic books.
It is not only important to read. But to read good books. And if one is to read good books, then use the precious time to read the very best books. And a good test of a great book is that it stood the test of time. Centuries or even millennia.
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1681 sats \ 3 replies \ @tolot 26 Aug
As for programming, garbage in-garbage out. Garbage is not only content, but also form. If you hurry through books, you tend to process nothing and from nothing can only come out...nothing. Best case scenario, you get out with a very fragmented knowledge of the topic.
Throughout the years I started accepting the idea that reading books is my little rest time interval in the day, my hole during the sandstorm. I only commit to x minutes every day, generally half an hour. That can be at home, in the bus, during a queque. I started buying "pocket-sized" books if available...they're way better than flipping social media profiles.
Then, commit to writing down what you understood, something new you learned, crazy thoughts you formulated during the day. I usually do it at night, before bed, in a paper notebook. That's better than looking at a computer screen late at night and a good old pen in my hand makes me feel more productive.
Pliny the Elder used to say Nulla dies sine linea, which litterally means "no day without a line". The line is what you write down, what you extracted from your day. Being it happy news or bad news, a complex reasoning or simply the day reporting. The compounded effect of this approach is faboulous, at least in my opinion and experience.
I didn't actually answer you question probably because I suggested more writing as a solution to not sufficient reading. My experience is that when you sit in front of an empty sheet of paper, your brain is forced to find something to write. If you don't have any, you're better off going out and read some useful stuff. Also, nowadays reading tends to consumption, which makes it as listening to music on Spotify or watching YT videos: just an another way to go through time and get dopamine pumps.
I don't want that, I'm running away from it. Thus, I try to embrace slowness.
Sadly, a lot of content is online and a lot of brilliant content is in online blogs...with these I try to: a) print them out and read them in paper form b) send them to my remarkable and read them there
Both techniques lead to same result, but I tend to separate pleasure reading (novels/essays etc) and work-related readings (like papers). My remarkable is increasingly useful with regards to papers reading, thus I try to avoid it for pleasure readings. I understood that routines are also made of tools, If I read a novel with my remarkable, I tend to then associate the research and work time with the pleasure time, and that is not productive.
Audiobooks are brilliant, I just happen to have not so many hours a week of driving or otherwise wasted time I would use for reading. Therefore, I don'tuse them, also because I associate them with digital devices, that are a source of distraction for my brain.
I want to close this with a suggestion a friend of mine gave me ages ago:
If you don't read enough, go out there and find a girl that loves reading and learning. Sometimes love is the best engine to get stuff done.
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I love how you dissect my question from so many angles. Pls accept my bounty, albeit delayed.
If you write a line about what you learnt from the book, do you also journal about your day at the same time? If yes, is that too much writing for you?
I like writing and am always interested to know others’ writing habits
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Glad to hear that you liked the answer!!
I tend to have periods in which I do journal-only writings and some others during which I tend to write more abstact stuff. Overall, that's not more than 15/20 minutes of writing session. I don't considef it too much, although sometimes I stop way before the 15 minutes (particularly if the day was a boring day). Unfortunately I understood too late the importance of writing routines, thus I now simply try to keep up with the "action" of writing, the content often flows as a consequence. I'm now going through a particularly dense period with regards to feelings, emotions and understanding of myself: that habit helps me writing down what otherwise would be simply random noise in my brain. That's terapeutic more than anything else.
The balance journaling-thoughts is often associated with the kind of books I'm reading during that specific period. Novels trigger my journaling tendency more than essays, whereas essays tend to trigger some reasonings related to the essay topic. Overall I always try to put in some journaling words anyways...I like the idea of being able to retrieve feelings that I had in the past. To me it's like having a shelf full of freezed timestamps, like insects in amber.
I don't have a standardized way in which I organize my writings...they're sort of "lines lakes" where I throw stuff. When I feel that a specific topic is taking too much room in my journaling notebook, I move to markdown files and I try to form an organic and more organized short article about that topic.
As of now I don't publish stuff I wrote because I see that as too personal, I may change idea in the future. Writing only for myself makes writing a rest activity, If I where to publish stuff I would have to edit and rewrite most of the things I wrote.
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Your mate's suggestion is pretty much something I felt once, but never committed to it. Anyways, good post I'm bookmarking it!
having read Atomic Habits, I realized I read a lot per week but I wasn't organized in order to make a daily habit. So, without spoilers, the author suggest that the habit of read can happen if we place the book in a strategic location where you have fully concentration of the activity.
So, I knew I had a time of ~45 minutes before start my day. I found the time, so what about place? My desk was empty and my bookshelf was 15 meters away from me. I made a small change: I made a place between the docs and the library stuff, put the book there. The first thing I see when I get there are my to-do tasks and my book.
Since June, I read everyday almost 20 pages before my routine starts. In the afternoon, before I go to bed, I write what I found interesting in the book. Why not in the morning? Maybe I was emotional in that time because I see something interesting, so during the day I think often what I read and when the dawn comes my brain ask, was it worthy to write that?, sometimes is a hell yeah! but otherwise, just...don't apply.
Also, I took another challenge and is to read all my books that bought some time ago but never actually finished. Currently, I'm reading Edward Gibbon's masterpiece about the Roman Empire and with my new habit, it's just amazing how I made progress.
So, that's for me. It works and you can check my progress in Goodreads.
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Allow me the pleasure of paying you the bounty. You paint a vivid picture of your routine; I can visualise it in my mind. I also like your practice of letting some time lapse before you write down your takeaway
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Study speed reading. Yes, it is painful but you will notice your speed will increase. The bad habit of using your mouth and tongue while reading will slow you down. Speed reading will teach you to read with your mind. I tried it with Oliver Twist and I was able to reach page 400 in just a few days although the story is full of melodrama and I don't like it.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @suraz 26 Aug
I just skip the unnecessary sentences and focus on only one key word and ignore details that aren't essential to understand. Many details inside the book are not necessary to read. We can skip that at all.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 26 Aug
In this pod this guy is treating reading like an Olympic sport. I think he listens to audio at around 3x whilst following on a reading app.
I don't buy it though. Speeding up your reading obviously gets you through faster. But how much do you comprehend? And what's more important?
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48 sats \ 1 reply \ @AD_ 26 Aug
Something that I’m currently trying to do is instead of focusing my eyes of every word, focus on a point every few words kind of like in a Z shape line by line. It’s tough to break out of the habit of reading word by word but when I do that it flows more smoothly and at the speed of my thoughts, without sacrificing comprehension. Hope I’m explaining myself
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You did!
I’m gonna try that for books that I’m gonna read again n recycle ♻️
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My reading rate has increased over the past few years, just by making a point of reading fiction again and reading a little bit before bed.
Something that has also helped me pick up the pace is that my mom and I are reading the same box set of The Wheel of Time, so I have to finish each book before she gets to read it.
I tried to practice speed reading when I was younger, and it sort of worked, but it sucked all the joy out of reading.
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Kudos to you. Just the size of the Wheel of Time books daunts me haha
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Slow is smooth and smooth is fast
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I must admit that I have been without learning for years. It was my favourite hobbie as a teenager. Though once I got into the University, I lost some interest. In the last 18 months, I have recovered my interest and my reading rate.
I have found that reading books that I am interested in, it speeds up my reading rate. If I have got bored, slows it down tremendously.
So, find what you are interested in and keep reading. If you get bored, just leave that book aside.
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So what are you most interested in? xP
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As a kid , I loved Jules Verne then Tolkien. These days I have developed an interest in stoicism and entrepreneurship. In the latter category, “company of one” has been one of the books that I liked just lately.
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Every day I propose to read one more page, one more chapter, and every day I grow more in love with reading and also with writing, I have been writing lately.
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24 sats \ 1 reply \ @flat24 26 Aug
Something similar has happened to me, I never thought I would be good at writing, but since I've been on SN I've discovered that I can easily express ideas on the text when I let myself go.
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Some sats are in order xP
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That’s a good guideline. The power of just one more
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I think the focus should be increasing the enjoyment during the time spent reading. If I like what I'm reading and eager to consume the rest of the content, I end up increasing my reading rate.
On the other hand, if what I'm reading is too heavy or a dread, my pace slows to a crawl.
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I agree with you. It’s just that sometimes I enjoy reading a book so much that I wish I can drop everything else on my plate n just read haha
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I have not increased my reading yet. I still improveing my reading rate since previous year
I do read 1 hour daily a day weather it's a holiday or work day Just read for 1 hours daily ❤️😊🍫
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Do you read for one continuous hour or break it up into small pockets of time?
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💁‍♂️ Speed Reading App
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I read 30 minutes each day, but I also try to consume content that I enjoy. For summary I always read the first and last sentence of each paragraph and I have found that useful for getting a nice gist of what is being discussed in each paragraph. As for reading word for word, I think being alert, present, interested in whats being read and don't forget the caffeine!
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Spend proportionally less time on social media and the internet in general. People read books before all of that because that's what there was to read.
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I literally read only 2 books in my adult life before bitcoin. Now I'm on my 22nd book.
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In my case reading has been always as a challenge for me. I took fat book and asked myself a question: am I able to read it? And started to read after that. It helped me accomplished a lot (I think it a lot) of books. Lately I started to read just for pleasure
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I think there's a point at which "reading rate" conflicts with "reading enjoyment" and/or "reading comprehension." When looking for a example of doing life wrong, as always, Elon Musk provides: He recently tweeted a much-mocked picture of The Odyssey in a tweet talking about how everyone should read The Iliad. While that was what most folks focused on, he also suggested an audiobook of The Iliad at 1.25 speed. Any anyone suggesting a book of poetry, of all things, be read at 1.25 speed is someone who clearly thinks the only goal is to say that they've finished a book, not to actually enjoy it.
Obviously, practice does improve one's rate, but in the end, it's carving aside more time to read that's really what's needed. I read when I wake up, before I go to bed, when I'm commuting to work (hopefully will be something that happens again soon), at meals, and also carve out time to read during days and evenings (having a wife who also likes to read helps). In most cases, all I'm sacrificing is time I'd have spent playing phone games or the like.
I also do what you do and have multiple books going on at once -- sometimes, I'm just not engaging with nonfiction or sci-fi, so a mystery is good to have on hand, etc.
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  1. Scan the book before reading it.
Going through glossary and reading subheadings is often good enough as reading the book. Summarize the book before in like 10 sentences before you read it.
  1. DO NOT read to understand EVERYTHING .
Only 20% of a books material is worth your time. Some content in books is almost common sense you'd have figured out by yourself.
  1. Use a pen/finger/cursor pointer to track where you reading.
Place it at beginning or end of the line you're reading, makes it easy for your eyes to track where you're reading.
  1. Read books on similar topics together.
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I like to listen to audio books while doing chores. Doing this provides more bandwidth for reading/listening.
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I spend more time on SN.
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Hello, I hope my information is useful to you in some way. A while ago I read on a forum that reading at least one hour a day leads you to read 1 or 2 books a month. After that, I wanted to test the technique and I read one of my first books in full.
Since then, I have been working on my reading habit.
I try to dedicate at least one hour a day to reading, and I apply it in the following way.
In the morning, before starting my more complex tasks, I meditate for 5 minutes and then read for 30 minutes. (I use a stopwatch ⏱️) In the morning, I read something related to bitcoin or economics, since when we wake up our minds are clearer and fresher for more complex topics. During the day, while I do my daily tasks, I read secondary things, articles on SN, comments, some news on Twitter or the Internet, etc.
And at night 🌃 the second batch. Before going to sleep, I read 30 more minutes. And here I read a different book than in the morning, and in this way I can read two books 📚 at the same time. And without the need to jump from one content to another immediately and have everything mix up in my head before assimilating it, in this way I can distinguish one reading from the other - I must mention that I focus my reading at night on other topics - for example, self-improvement, fantasy, philosophy, among others, that is, a totally different theme than the one used during the mornings.
Another action that, in my opinion, I consider necessary for the best absorption of the information we get from books, is to keep a record of notes on what is read, in my "Logseq" after a reading session, I drop down what I consider most outstanding, some paragraph, phrase or fragment of the text. Which helps me to later review that book 📕 without the need to read it again, I began to apply it after reading "The Richest Man in Babylon" for the third time, that book changed my life forever, with respect to my first signs of awakening about money, so I was reading it once a year practically from the first time until today, now the next time I need strength from that knowledge I just have to go to the notes in "Logseq" and do a review without having to reread the entire book.
I hope it can help in some way to whoever reads this text, thank you very much for creating the space where I can download these letters.
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There are some speed reading tricks but after years of reading I have found that reading more than one book at a time actually helps more than reading faster. I overlap my readings. Either one book during the day and one during the night or I start a new book when I am half way through the first one. That way I'm always reading, I'm always interested. Reading faster doesn't mean you absorb information faster, at least for me.
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I always read five books about the same topic.
I decide on a topic, research what are considered to be the best books about that field and then read them in order of publication date.
The amazing thing about this is, after book #2, you are essentially already an expert on that topic, so you will have a very good understanding of the vocabulary, key terms, key phrases, arguments and counter arguments that the authors of the remaining three books will likely use.
While the first two books will be slow and tedious, as you are building up your understanding of the topic, you will be able to blast through the remaining three books at lightning speed - and the reading experience will be incredibly rewarding because when an author cites one of the earlier authors, you will be like "yes, I have read that, this is a good fitting citation here" or when an author makes a new claim that might contradict what an earlier author had written, it really gets your inner monologue going, as you will be able to weigh the pros and cons of the claim and decide for yourself who is right or wrong.
stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.