How to Speed Read | Tim Ferriss
Summary
TLDRIn this informative video, Tim Ferriss discusses proven techniques to enhance reading speed without compromising comprehension. He demonstrates how to calculate words per page, establish a baseline reading speed, and use methods like narrowing reading lines, utilizing peripheral vision, and employing a pacer to reduce fixation points. He also suggests pushing the reading pace slightly beyond comfort to reset the reading speed set point. Ferriss promises that following these steps could significantly increase one's reading speed, allowing for a more efficient exploration of the vast world of literature.
Takeaways
- 📚 Tim Ferriss discusses techniques for improving reading speed without sacrificing comprehension.
- 📈 To measure reading speed, count the words per page and establish a baseline by reading for one minute at your normal pace.
- 🔍 Use the peripheral vision to your advantage by drawing lines on the page to focus on the middle third of the text, which can potentially double reading speed.
- 👀 Understand that the eye jumps from fixation point to fixation point while reading, and use this knowledge to minimize regression and back skipping.
- 👆 Use a pacer, like your finger, to track and move through the text, which can help in maintaining a forward reading path and reducing fixation points.
- ⏫ Experiment with reading slightly faster than your normal comprehension allows to reset your comfort set point for reading speed.
- 🔄 After practicing the techniques, retest your reading speed to measure the improvement.
- 🚀 Tim suggests that following these instructions could improve reading speed by at least 50%, and some may even triple or quadruple their speed.
- 📘 The script uses 'How to Get Filthy Rich' and 'Vagabonding' as examples to demonstrate the reading speed techniques.
- 🎓 Tim Ferriss emphasizes the importance of understanding the mechanics of the eye and optical perception for optimizing reading on the printed page.
- 🎙️ The video also promotes the Tim Ferriss Show, highlighting its success and the value it provides by interviewing world-class performers across various fields.
Q & A
Who is the speaker in the video script?
-The speaker in the video script is Tim Ferriss, an author known for his books such as 'The 4-Hour Workweek' and 'Tools of Titans'.
What is the main topic discussed in the video script?
-The main topic discussed in the video script is how to improve reading speed without sacrificing comprehension, debunking pseudoscience around speed reading.
What are the two books used by Tim Ferriss to demonstrate reading techniques?
-The two books used for demonstration are 'How to Get Filthy Rich and Rising' and 'Vagabonding'.
What is the first step suggested by Tim Ferriss to measure reading speed?
-The first step suggested is to figure out the average number of words per page in the book by counting the words in ten lines and then dividing the total by ten.
How does Tim Ferriss recommend establishing a baseline reading speed?
-He recommends establishing a baseline by reading for one minute at your normal speed and then calculating the words per minute (WPM) rate.
What technique does Tim Ferriss suggest to utilize peripheral vision for reading?
-He suggests drawing lines on the pages, indenting one word from either side, to train the eyes to focus on the middle third of the page and read in a zigzag pattern.
How can minimizing fixation points help with reading speed according to the script?
-Minimizing fixation points helps by reducing the time spent on each page, as the eyes do not need to bounce back or bounce up, maintaining a forward reading path.
What is the purpose of using a pacer while reading according to Tim Ferriss?
-Using a pacer helps to maintain a consistent reading pace, prevents back skipping, and keeps the eyes from bouncing up to previously read material.
What does Tim Ferriss suggest to do to temporarily increase reading speed?
-He suggests reading slightly faster than your comprehension allows for a short period to reset your comfort set point in reading speed.
How does Tim Ferriss propose to retest reading speed after applying the new techniques?
-He proposes to retest by using the techniques of indenting from either side and using a pacer while ensuring full comprehension, to measure the new words per minute rate.
What are the potential outcomes of following Tim Ferriss's reading techniques?
-The potential outcomes include improving reading speed by at least fifty percent for most people, with some possibly doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling their reading speed without sacrificing comprehension.
Outlines
📚 Improving Reading Speed with Comprehension
In this paragraph, Tim Ferriss discusses techniques to enhance reading speed without compromising understanding. He emphasizes the importance of measuring words per page and establishing a baseline reading speed. Tim introduces the concept of using peripheral vision to read more efficiently by drawing lines on the page to limit the reading area, which encourages a more focused and faster reading path. He also touches on the mechanics of eye movement, suggesting that reducing regression and fixation points can improve reading speed. The paragraph concludes with a demonstration of how to use a pacer to maintain a steady reading pace and prevent re-reading.
🚀 Doubling Reading Speed Through Practice and Adaptation
The second paragraph continues Tim Ferriss's exploration of reading speed enhancement. He explains the eye's natural tendency to jump from fixation point to fixation point and how using a pacer can help maintain a forward reading path, reducing unnecessary eye movements. Tim suggests an exercise where readers push their speed to the point of slight comprehension loss to reset their reading comfort zone, akin to adapting to a higher driving speed. He concludes by encouraging retesting the word per minute rate after practicing the new techniques, predicting a significant increase in reading speed for most individuals by understanding and applying the mechanics of eye movement and optical perception.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Information Ingestion
💡Speed Reading
💡Comprehension
💡Baseline
💡Peripheral Vision
💡Zigzag Reading
💡Fixation Points
💡Pacer
💡Regression
💡Optical Perception
💡Reading Speed
Highlights
Tim Ferriss discusses methods to improve reading speed without sacrificing comprehension.
Identifies the need to avoid pseudoscience in speed reading techniques.
Suggests a method to calculate words per page for standardized formatting books.
Advises counting words in ten lines to find the average words per line and then per page.
Recommends establishing a baseline reading speed by reading for one minute and calculating words per minute (WPM).
Proposes using peripheral vision to read by drawing lines on the page and indenting the start and end of each line.
Describes how to train the eyes to focus on the middle third of the page to increase reading speed.
Explains the mechanics of eye movement and the concept of fixation points in reading.
Advocates using a pacer, like a finger, to trace lines and minimize eye regression.
Suggests reading slightly faster than comprehension allows to reset the comfort set point for reading speed.
Encourages retesting reading speed after applying the new techniques to measure improvement.
Predicts that following the instructions should improve reading speed by at least 50%, and possibly more.
Assures that no voodoo or magic is involved, just an understanding of optical perception and eye mechanics.
Recommends applying these techniques to non-fiction and using slower speeds for fiction and poetry.
Endorses the idea of having a 'Ferrari' of reading speeds to choose from a wider range.
Promotes Tim Ferriss's podcast, highlighting its success and the value it provides to listeners.
Transcripts
greetings folks tim ferriss here author
of 4-hour workweek tools of titans etc I
think a lot about ingesting information
and it sounds so sexy doesn't it
learning how do you speed up the
consumption of say text if you want to
read faster how do you do that without
succumbing to some pseudoscience
nonsense about speed reading there's a
lot of garbage out there but how can you
improve your ability to absorb written
information without sacrificing
comprehension there are some very
straightforward ways to do it I'm going
to show you that right now and I will
use these two books to demonstrate so
these are fiction and nonfiction
respectively how to get filthy rich and
rising aja one of my favorites recent
fiction books which I generally don't
try to read super quickly but these
books are the same size so I'll show and
then vagabonding which is one of my favs
has been since 2004 alright so let's
take just for the sake of simplicity and
I would recommend you do the same a book
that has fairly standardized formatting
in other words there aren't a lot of
bullet lists there aren't a lot of
graphs it's mostly text and since we can
only manage what we can measure step
number one is figuring out roughly how
many words per page are on this
particular say spread right and then
throughout the book so you're going to
go through and you're going to count say
on a page like this the number of words
in ten lines okay so you come up with
total divide it by ten that's your
average number of words per line and
then you can see here most books have a
consistent number of lines per page you
multiply that let's just say it's 30
okay you have an average of 10 words per
line that's 300 words per page great
easy enough all right what we want to do
next is establish your baseline so
you're gonna read for one minute you're
going to be focusing on reading at your
normal speed of course now you have an
experimental or observer effect so it
might be slightly off but that's alright
you're gonna read for one minute and
then you're going to do the math and
multiply it out and figure out how many
words roughly have I read that is your
words per minute rate wpm and what we do
should help double or triple that
without too much trouble right now I'll
do demo before we go into how to mess
with your book if you look at say my
nose alright in this video can you still
see my finger of course you can can you
still see my finger over here yes you
can
that is your peripheral vision even if
your fixation point if your primary
point of focus is right here when we
read most of us when we were taught to
read we read word by word so we go from
the furthermost left word to the
furthermost right word and so on seems
logical the problem with that is is
you're not using any of this space or
the margins and the way that you then
remedy that is by drawing lines on some
pages and I would suggest you indent one
word from either side okay and so what
that might look like is something like
this so now you have lines going down
either side of the page and instead of
starting all the way to the left you're
gonna start at this line and then you're
going to end at that line so much like a
say typewriter with a return carriage
going down you're now going to be
zigzagging just as you would normally
but the parameters or the boundaries
have been moved in by a word you will
you will not have any trouble reading
and you should still have full
comprehension and if you do this for say
5 to 10 pages then if you're not having
any trouble whatsoever you can indent by
another word and you can either use
lines or you can spit ball you can
estimate it and by doing this alone just
that you can train yourself to get to
the point where effectively you are very
much focusing on the middle
third of the page and you're just
dotting down the page left to right and
that in and of itself could easily
double your reading speed without
sacrificing comprehension the next
observation just mechanically that can
be very helpful is that the eye doesn't
track in a clean smooth line when you
are say glancing from left to right
right so if you want to do a test close
one eye you put a finger on that eye and
then slowly track across the wall on the
opposite side and what you'll notice is
that the eye jumps and these are I
believe owner actually heard this set
I've only read it a million times
cicada commence the I will jump from
fixation point to fixation point and you
can see this with retina scanning and
eye tracking which I've seen a fair
amount of just in Psychological studies
I've been an experimenter and the
subject both at Princeton where I did
stuff actually in the lab of Danny
Kahneman who wrote Thinking Fast and
Slow incredible incredible scientists
but I was just clicking space bars
looking at stuff on the screen and then
at UCSF in other places how do we
utilize that what that means is when
you're looking at a given page your eye
isn't moving smoothly across each line
its fixation fixation fixation so the
less that we can regress meaning bounce
back or bounce up you want to stay on
that reliable forward path and the fewer
fixation points we have it's just a math
problem the less time we're gonna spend
reading each page what does this mean
this means that thus far we've just been
looking at the page and reading what
we're gonna do now is use a pacer so you
could use your finger and now you are
actually going to track with your finger
trace underneath the line like so and
try to think of two fixation points per
line for your eye but this will keep you
from bouncing up to previously red
material we've all had the experience of
being really sleepy say and feeling like
you've read the same two lines five or
six times this is partially because your
eyes are tired
and you end up back skipping and jumping
all over the place all right so then you
use your your marker your pacer to move
down the page and the last test I would
have you run or experiment prior to re
measurement so let's say you do that for
10 minutes and you can see you've you've
moved in the in the boundaries the the
edges of the page so to speak where you
stop and go to the next line and then
you're minimizing the number of
fixations and you're preventing back
skipping by using pacer
the next thing you're gonna do is say
for five minutes is to read slightly
faster than your comprehension allows so
you want to get to the point where
you're losing maybe 10% and the effect
that we're looking for is resetting your
comfort set point in reading at full
comprehension in other words if you're
used to always driving at 30 miles an
hour and then you get to the point where
you're on a highway say I was just in
Texas and it was speed limit 80 miles an
hour oh my god does that feel fast and
suddenly you feel like you're operating
at very high speed you then dial back
when you go into say a 55 zone it feels
like 30 all right you've adapted to the
faster speed so for five minutes just
practice reading with slight
comprehension loss so a little bit
faster than it's comfortable and then
what I want you to do is retest your
word per minute rate so now you're going
to use the bumping in from either side
you're going to use the pacer and I want
you to make sure that you have full
comprehension and in doing that I would
wager that the vast majority of you
probably close to 100% if you followed
all these instructions will have at
least improved your reading speed by
fifty percent some of you will double
triple quadruple your reading speed
without sacrificing comprehension no
voodoo no magic involved it's just
understanding the mechanics of the eye a
little bit about the about optical
perception and then recognizing how you
can optimize that for the printed page
and that's it so congratulations you've
probably double or triple your reading
speed and for poetry for fiction you can
always read slower but now that you have
a Ferrari instead of a Yugo you can
choose from a wider range of speeds
so there you have it have fun reading I
recommend both how to get filthy rich
and rising Asia and vagabonding among
many many others there's a world out
there to explore so let you get to it if
you enjoyed this video I want to propose
you check out the podcast the Tim
Ferriss show why is it been number one
on iTunes across all categories in some
cases number one in business why does it
have 70 million plus downloads because I
interview world-class performers from
athletics business that includes
billionaires from everything imaginable
entertainment to tease out the routines
the habits the tools that you can use so
checking out the Tim Ferriss show
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