Whether you’re the CEO of a multinational, or the department intern, you qualify as a business professional. Needless to say, that title entails the possession of a broad set of skills that includes leadership, communication, practical knowledge, and yes–reading. Reading may not seem like a significant part of your day-to-day work. You may have abandoned the notion of reading with the concluding chapter of your college textbooks. Quite the contrary, in fact. If you are a serious player in the competitive job market of today, you already know that simple tasks that may not seem to take up much of your time actually eat up more of it than you’d think. But you already knew that. You’re a clever professional. You know that cutting down on time spent doing menial labor–like reading–means more time doing work that relates directly to your job. (more…)
Growing up, people like Aesop, Big Bird, and our parents gave us life lessons we lived by till this very day. “Choose a career you enjoy”, “You don’t have to get along with everyone”, and “Slow and steady wins the race” may all sound eerily familiar to you. However, it’s time to realize that while these aphorisms struck gold during childhood, adulthood is all about being productive. And being productive follows a whole other set of golden rules. So it’s time to forget what you learned about success all those years ago and relearn the fundamentals of productivity as they apply to you now. (more…)
Why are some books more quotable than others? Why is it that we can never remember those useful bits of information that we read? What exactly is selective memory and how does it affect our reading? Good questions. You’d be surprised to know that memory, like a mental bank account, is virtually limitless.Read on explore the mystery of the human mind and how your memory ties in with reading.
So what’s the best way to memorize reading material? Honestly, it’s not about how you read. It’s about what you read. The most important tactic is to have in your hands material that appeals to you. When I say “appeals to you”, I do mean reading material with words, not pictures. Having said that, you can probably think back to a really good book that you read and realize that you know most of it by heart. That’s because you weren’t just interested in finishing the book, but also because you received true enjoyment in reading it. Maybe you’re a fiction reader. Perhaps you like historical books. It all comes down to one factor: in order to stimulate your memory while reading, it is first and foremost important to find a real interest in the material. I can guarantee that you’ll have an easier time memorizing the Kama Sutra than Webster’s Dictionary for one very good reason. This, my dear reader, is known as the phenomenon of selective memory. (more…)
For all of us avid readers out there the outside world poses a great threat in the form of distractions. Whether they are pleasant or annoying, distractions will always get one simple goal accomplished – they will make your job of finishing whatever it is you are reading a daunting task.
Distractions may vary in shape, size and form, but rest assured, they will follow you even to the North Pole if you decide to make it a reading retreat. Some distractions are easy to spot, while others hide under an impenetrable disguise, so that you don’t even recognize them as such. We decided to list the most dangerous of them for you, so that if you ever become victims to these ugly creatures, at least you do so very well informed.
If you do a lot of reading online and use Firefox as your browser, this application is a must. The RSVP Reader is an add-on to the Firefox browser and makes reading on the computer much faster.
You simply highlight what you want to read, set your reading speed and press play. The words are then blinked in groups on the screen at the speed you set.
RSVP stands for “Rapid Serial Visual Presentation” and the methodology behind it was originally developed by the U.S. Air Force to train pilots in recognizing enemy planes at the blink of an eye.
Although the technology is still fairly new, initial research at Wichita State University is showing the technology to be pretty promising in helping people not only read faster, but also comprehend better.
Here’s a webinar I did demonstrating the RSVP Reader Add-on for Firefox. Know of any other RSVP Readers? Feel free to add them to the comments.
This post will be part of a series I will try to do every day on cool websites and applications that I find. Most of these will be reading or productivity related with an occasional divergence to something completely random.
Earlier this week I came across, ReadBag.com. This is a great website if you do a lot of reading online. If you’re like me, and do a lot of reading online, sometimes you don’t have the time to read everything in one sitting. You might resort to bookmarking the link in your browser, emailing it to yourself or adding it to some social bookmarking site.
Readbag.com puts nifty spin on bookmarking while making it ridiculously easy. Below is a quick demo I did to show you some of the cool features.
Know of any other cool websites for readers? Let us all know by commenting on this post.
-Paul-
So what is speed reading? I teach speed reading workshops to college students and business professionals and the most common question I get is: “What’s the trick?” Everyone wants to know what’s the secret to speed reading. The truth is, there are no tricks and it takes practice, just like anything else.
My goal in writing this blog is offer useful tips to those interested in learning speed reading without all the ridiculous hype. And since speed reading is a productivity tool, I also plan to sharing various websites that I find to be helpful in boosting my productivity and efficiency.
There are a ton of interesting websites out there (Web2.0 is the new buzz word of the year) and I hope to separate for you the ones that can actually make you more productive in your everyday life.
This blog will be geared mostly toward college students and business professionals, but I welcome any other readers that are interested in learning more about speed reading. Especially those with a passion for reading.
