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Ask HN: How can I read faster?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I read faster?

#51

Post by cinntaile »

vishnugupta wrote: post #21

FWIW I noticed about myself that whenever I fast read either the core concepts don’t register or I can’t recall them. So I deliberately slow read, at times I go back a page or two to re-read to let the knowledge sink in. Another change is I’ve stopped worrying about “completing” books. I now take a “subject” and read about 2-3 books (along with several articles) on it. It gives me multiple perspectives, sort of climb…

It's not just you, it's how people learn things. You have to make an effort to remember or understand concepts, if it's easy (which it by definition has to be if you're reading fast) you're not learning much.

Re: Ask HN: How can I read faster?

#52

Post by Phithagoras »

I'm sure you know the speed of reading depends on the 'density' of the material in the book.

If you were (or want to become) a pianist good at reading sheet music it would likely help your language reading. Instead of reading one line of text at a time your brain can read an inch or two of lines at a time. Many of my musical colleagues and I saw this anecdotally in our lives. It only works for material below a certain density though, Its not possible for me to read more than one line of a math textbook at a time, but I can do it easily with say, fantasy fiction.

If your goal is to save time in the total course of your life though this may not help you. Reading sheet music quickly takes some time to learn!

Re: Ask HN: How can I read faster?

#53

Post by lcall »

bwh2 wrote: post #50

I read +50 non-fiction books per year. Here's my advice for reading more and faster: * Always have 2-3 books going that span multiple topics, matching books to mood. This will increase your consistency. * Separate data collection from data processing. When reading with book in hand, you're doing data collection - preferably with a highlighter and/or pen for margin notes. * Read more. On the surface this sounds circul…

Yes, that is what I came to say, especially about skimming. I don't normally advocate "speed reading", but the "Skimming" section of this page seems helpful to me (I wrote part of the little section): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_reading#Skimming_and_sca...

Others have written about how to apply it more specifically to different kinds of writing, which can be structured differently, like in academic papers, vs. news articles, vs. essays, etc.

Though there are times when one reads to relax, or to learn deeply, and then I don't care much about how long it takes. Longer can even be better, sometimes. :)

Edit: I think Mitt Romney said he likes to be reading 2 books at any given time: a serious one and a fun one. Maybe the fun helps us think about the serious things we read & consolidate memories?--but either way that makes sense to me.

Re: Ask HN: How can I read faster?

#55

Post by seaworthiness »

PeterBarrett wrote: post #4

If the end goal is to increase your knowledge then reading faster won't necessarily get you there. You won't process the information faster or retain it any better. Instead, learning to put down a book when it's not good rather than forcing yourself to finish it and taking good notes or writing a book review are better approaches (for the goal of processing and retaining information for longer).

Thank you. From your's and most of the other comments I understand that speed automatically develops with familiarity with the topic and does not need to (and should not) be worked on consciously. We can grow familiar with a topic only by reading more about it from different sources. This is why probably the people who are able to read faster are the ones who read a lot.

Re: Ask HN: How can I read faster?

#57

Post by soramimo »

I recommend the book "How to read a book" on the very subject (summary in [1]).

In a nutshell the author argues that the goal of reading is to increase one's understanding. For this the writer needs to have a better understanding than the reader. The reader must be able to overcome that inequality in understanding to some degree.

A critical first step is deciding whether the book deserves a detailed reading in the first place. Clearly, this is critical for time efficiency.

Once deemed worthwhile, you can move on to a thorough analytical reading where I think note taking trumps speed. The process of actively reading the book will help digest the author's main points and help you remember them.

Finally, if you're trying to grow your expertise in a particular area, consider reading and contrasting multiple books on the subject (comparative reading).

[1] https://lifeclub.org/books/how-to-read-a-book-mortimer-j-adl...

Re: Ask HN: How can I read faster?

#59

Post by gnicholas »

dyeje wrote: post #54

https://www.beelinereader.com/ claims to make you read faster using color gradients.

BeeLine founder here! We actually launched on Hacker News back in the day, and we're now integrated into various other platforms. Most recent is Insight Browser (YC W19), which is building an extensible mobile web browser.

You can check it out here, [1] and here's a video [2] that shows how to activate the BeeLine feature. The app and BeeLine functionality are free!

Feel free to contact me through my profile if you have other questions — wish I'd seen this thread sooner!

1: https://www.insightbrowser.com

2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRDpItbCCXg

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