Speed-Reading Your Way to Personal and Financial Freedom

January 15th, 2008

In my zeal to learn everything I can about personal finance, business building, consulting, computer languages, etc, I have purchased many books and checked out even more from the library. I have found myself getting bogged down and even being forced to return books to the library before I’ve even opened them. It’s turned into a great waste of time, money, and gas to drive across town to pick up the books I reserved that I know I will not have time to read. This has been going on for long enough and I decided to take control of the situation.

I began studying how to speed read. Going against my better sensibilities, I purchased yet another book… But I view this purchase as a tool to help me burn through my pile of other books. I picked Speed-Reading for Professionals to start me on this process in part due to its price ($8.99 at the time I picked it up) and part because it was published by Barron’s. I have to admit, I haven’t made it all the way through the book, because I’m spending time after each chapter making sure I have the new skills down before moving on. But even without fully implementing the suggestions from the book, I’m already noticing an improvement in my speed.

Now that I’ve covered the what and how, I must touch on the “why.” With all the information flying at us today, in the form of blogs, articles, newspapers, magazines, and emails, you are likely to end up spending all your time reading and never have a chance to implement anything. At this moment, I have no less than 32 different feeds that I’m actively tracking and reading daily. At my present reading speed, just to keep up, I spend at least an hour or two every day if I read everything closely. Even skimming that many resources takes a decent chunk of time. All the time I spend reading, I could spend doing other things.

It all boils down to opportunity cost. Every minute I have my nose buried in a book is another moment I don’t get to spend with my wife and daughter. Every hour I am stuck reading a resource about a new programming language I’m trying to pick up is an hour I’m not doing billable work for my customers. And every book I buy that sits collecting dust on my shelf because I haven’t gotten a chance to read it is money and space wasted.

Speed reading is one tool of many to help reduce the cost of learning and something I definitely wish I had picked up earlier. In the back of Speed-Reading for Professionals, there is a list of internet resources that you can visit to improve your skills. A few of their links have died in the 2 years since publication, but many still remain. I’ll share a few that I liked with you:

Speed Reading Self-Pacing Methods

Speed Reading Test Online

Speed Reading Tactics - A for-pay site with a few freebies

If you’re a speed reader or have tried it, what do you think of various methods? What has or hasn’t worked for you? I’d love to hear another’s success stores!