The Hindu Business Line : How to speed-read

ISAAC Asimov once said: "I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander." Effective speed reading allows you to understand more in less time. Here are a few tips:

Prepare: If you know why you are reading something you'll know what to look for. Ask yourself the following questions: Why am I reading this? What do I already know? What do I need to know? Then note down the answers.

Preview: Read the back cover, inside flaps, chapter titles, headings, subheadings and bold print. Look at illustrations, charts or graphs. Highlight parts you need and cross out parts you don't.

Scan: Quickly look over each page and make a note of where the key ideas are. Next, read the first and last paragraph of every chapter and the first and last sentence of every paragraph. Cross out, underline, circle and take notes as you read.

Selective reading: Do you have what you need? By now you should know where everything is in the book and should be able to find detailed information on a certain area much faster than if you had not followed the previous stages. Being familiar with the basic idea behind the text you read will help you remember the information.

Read with your eyes, not ears: Vocalising (moving your lips while you read) and subvocalising (talking to yourself in your head while you read) slow you down to reading only as fast as you can speak. As you learn to read faster this should disappear.

Use a pacer: Contrary to what you might think, using your finger or a pen to run over the text as you read speeds up your reading rate. It focuses your eyes on more than one word at a time (stopping subvocalisation) as well as preventing you from losing your place. Hold the text a little further away from your eyes than usual, and try to expand the number of words you read at a time. Keep practising. Make sure you take regular breaks to avoid eye strain.

Interruptions

How can I stop people constantly interrupting me when I'm trying to get work finished?

There are two sorts of interruption. Those other people impose on you and those you choose to distract yourself with. The latter should be the easiest to deal with but can be the hardest to eliminate because they are usually activities you enjoy, providing reassurance that you are important, busy or loved.

Things like checking your e-mail over-regularly and answering phone calls which could just as easily have been diverted or dealt with later. If you really want to focus on a task, make yourself unavailable to outside communications temporarily. Set aside one or two short periods in the day for reading and replying to e-mails and answering calls and stick to it. Once it becomes known that this is the way you operate, those who need to contact you will adapt quickly.

Interruptions by those who share your office space are harder to control. It is not a good idea to develop a reputation for being unapproachable, otherwise people will eventually stop bringing you ideas or asking for your opinion. That is too high a price to pay for a bit more efficiency.

The best approach is to express your interest in the issue, then arrange a specific time to discuss it in more detail.

(Edited extracts from student accountant, a journal of ACCA, London. www.accaglobal.com)

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