How to Read Faster

Summary

In this engaging video, Mark Manson shares five effective tips to enhance reading efficiency and retention. He advises eliminating the inner monologue, using a finger to guide reading, being selective with book choices, scheduling dedicated reading time, and reading multiple books concurrently. Manson also challenges the traditional belief in note-taking, emphasizing that applying knowledge and discussing ideas are more effective for memory retention.

Takeaways

• 📚 Mark Manson read 81 books in 2020, a significant increase from 14 books in 2010.
• 📖 Reading makes you smarter, more empathetic, and self-aware, and it's an activity that many people wish they did more.
• 🗣️ Tip 1: Cut the inner monologue. This slows down reading. Practice reading without sounding out words in your head to speed up.
• 👆 Tip 2: Read with your finger. This stabilizes your eyes and can increase reading speed by 20-30%.
• 🚫 Tip 3: Stop reading books you don't like. If a book isn't engaging after 10%, move on to another one.
• 🕰️ Tip 4: Schedule reading time. Utilize commutes, lunch breaks, and even gym sessions to find time to read.
• 📚 Tip 5: Read more than one book at a time. Switch between books to maintain interest and excitement.
• 📝 Highlighting and note-taking are generally worthless for retention. We remember things we use and apply.
• 🗣️ Discussing what you've read with others can help reinforce and remember the information.
• 📚 Remember the arguments or ideas from books rather than every detail. Know where to find the information when needed.

Q & A

What are some benefits of reading, according to Mark Manson?

Reading makes you smarter, more empathetic, more self-aware, and entertains you.

What is Mark Manson's first tip for reading more efficiently?

Cut the inner monologue. Stop sounding out each word in your head as it slows you down.

How can using your finger help you read faster?

Using your finger to guide your reading stabilizes your eyes, helping them focus and move more smoothly across the text.

Why does Manson suggest stopping reading books you don't like?

Continuing to read books you don't enjoy wastes time and hinders you from finding and reading books that are more valuable and enjoyable.

What is Manson's approach to reading non-fiction books?

He suggests reading only the chapters that interest you and skipping the rest, as most non-fiction books repeat the same ideas.

How can scheduling your reading time help you read more books?

By consistently dedicating time each day to read, such as during commutes, lunch breaks, or gym sessions, you can easily read more books over time.

Why does Manson recommend reading more than one book at a time?

Reading multiple books at once can help sustain your interest and excitement as you can switch between books when you get bored with one.

What does Manson say about the effectiveness of highlighting and note-taking?

Highlighting and note-taking have little effect on retention. Instead, implementing and using the ideas you read in your life helps you remember them.

How can talking about the ideas you read help with retention?

Discussing the ideas with others makes your brain see the information as important and useful, which helps you remember it better.

What is the key to remembering what you read, according to Manson?

You don't need to remember every detail, just where to find the information when you need it, so you can refer back to the book.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Reading Habit Transformation & Tips

Mark Manson reflects on his reading habits, comparing the 14 books he read in 2010 to the impressive 81 books in 2020. He introduces five tips to enhance reading capacity and retention. Manson emphasizes the importance of reading for personal development and proposes practical methods to remember what one reads, without the need for traditional note-taking or highlighting.

05:03

🤯 Eliminating the Inner Monologue & Reading with a Finger

The speaker suggests eliminating the inner monologue that reads aloud in one's mind, which can slow down the reading process. He recommends training the mind to read faster by not sounding out words internally. Additionally, Manson advises using a finger to guide the eyes while reading, which helps maintain focus and can significantly increase reading speed.

10:03

🚫 Selective Reading & Embracing Non-Completion

Manson challenges the notion that one must finish every book they start. He encourages readers to skip books or chapters that do not hold their interest or repeat information. The speaker promotes a selective reading approach, focusing on chapters that seem most promising and discarding the rest, which can lead to more efficient reading and better retention.

15:03

⏰ Scheduling Reading Time & Multiple Book Strategy

The speaker addresses the common excuse of not having enough time to read by suggesting ways to integrate reading into daily routines, such as during commutes, lunch breaks, or even in the gym. Manson also recommends reading multiple books at once to maintain interest and engagement, dividing them into categories for a balanced reading experience.

🧠 Memory & Application of Read Concepts

Mark Manson discusses the ineffectiveness of traditional note-taking and highlighting for retaining information. He argues that true retention comes from applying the concepts read in one's life. Manson suggests that discussing ideas with others can enhance memory, as the brain prioritizes social interactions. He also emphasizes the importance of not needing to remember every detail but rather knowing where to find the information when needed.

🎯 Final Thoughts on Reading & Memory

In conclusion, Manson wraps up his video with a reminder to like and subscribe for more life tips. He encourages viewers to share their reading goals and the gap between their aspirations and achievements, suggesting that bridging this gap may be easier than they think. The speaker leaves the audience with a humorous remark about the futility of trying to impress others with random knowledge.

Keywords

💡Inner Monologue

The 'inner monologue' refers to the voice inside your head that reads out every word when you read. Mark Manson suggests that turning off this inner monologue can significantly speed up your reading. This concept is central to his first tip for reading more efficiently.

💡Reading with Your Finger

Using your finger to guide your reading stabilizes your eyes and prevents them from jumping around. This technique helps you read faster and maintain focus, as explained in Manson's second tip.

💡Skipping Content

Manson advises against forcing yourself to read books or chapters you don't enjoy. He highlights the importance of being selective and only reading parts that are valuable or interesting. This principle is key to his third tip.

💡Scheduling Reading Time

Scheduling specific times for reading helps ensure you make it a consistent habit. Manson emphasizes that even with a busy schedule, finding small pockets of time throughout the day can significantly increase your reading volume, as outlined in his fourth tip.

💡Reading Multiple Books

Reading more than one book at a time keeps your reading experience fresh and exciting. Manson explains that having different types of books to switch between can sustain your interest and prevent boredom, forming the basis of his fifth tip.

💡Retention

Retention refers to remembering what you've read. Manson argues that traditional methods like highlighting and note-taking are ineffective. Instead, he suggests implementing ideas from books into your life and discussing them with others to enhance memory.

💡Non-Fiction vs. Fiction

Manson distinguishes between non-fiction and fiction reading habits. For non-fiction, he advocates for selectively reading valuable content, while for fiction, he suggests reading every word if it's enjoyable or dropping it if it's not.

💡Practical Application

Practical application involves using what you read in your daily life to improve retention. Manson explains that applying concepts from books to real-life situations helps cement them in your memory.

💡Social Interaction

Discussing what you read with others is a form of social interaction that enhances memory retention. Manson highlights that explaining ideas to someone else signals to your brain that the information is important.

💡Mental Effort

Mental effort is the cognitive energy required to focus and comprehend reading material. Manson mentions this in relation to using your finger to guide reading and the practice of eliminating the inner monologue to read faster.

Highlights

The speaker read 14 books in 2010 and increased to 81 books in 2020.

Provides five tips on how to read more books each year and remember what you read.

Quotes Harry S. Truman to emphasize the importance of reading for personal development and leadership.

Reading makes you smarter, more empathetic, and self-aware.

Suggests that people often wish they read more, regardless of their current reading habits.

Tip 1: Cut the inner monologue to increase reading speed.

Tip 2: Read with your finger to stabilize your eyes and improve focus.

Tip 3: Stop reading books you don't like or that don't serve you.

Tip 4: Schedule your reading time to ensure consistency.

Tip 5: Read more than one book at a time to maintain interest and diversity.

Dispels the myth that highlighting and note-taking improve memory retention.

Argues that we remember what we use and apply in our lives.

Suggests talking about what you read to others as a way to remember it better.

States that you don't have to remember every idea from every book, but knowing where you read it is important.

Encourages using books as a resource to look up information when needed.

Ends with a call to action for viewers to share their reading goals and achievements.

Transcripts

- These are all the books that I read in 2010, 10 years ago.

That's 14 books, not too bad.

But these are the books I read in 2020.

(books bang)

Shit.

(books bang)

That's 81 books.

Watch this video and get five tips

on how to read more books each year

and how to remember what the fuck you read.

(upbeat music)

What's up, everybody, Mark Manson here.

You know, Harry S. Truman once said

that "Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders read."

There's a reason that reading has been around

for 5,000 years.

It fucking works.

It makes you smarter, makes you more empathetic,

makes you more self-aware, entertains the shit out of you.

I mean, what else could you want?

Reading is one of those things

that everybody seems to wish they did more.

If you don't read any books, you wish you read a few.

If you read a few books, you wish you read a lot.

And if you read a lot,

then you're really aware of all the cool stuff

that you don't have time to read.

Since my job is to just read stuff all day

and then regurgitate it to people with poop jokes

and F bombs, I figured that I would sit down

and go through some of the biggest things

that have helped me become a better reader over the years

and help you read more books and read better books.

And at the end of the video,

I'm gonna talk about how you can remember

more of what you read and you'll be surprised

it has nothing to do with a highlighter or taking notes.

All right, so tip number one, cut the inner monologue.

This is probably something you don't even realize

that you do.

Most people don't, but when you read

there's that little voice inside your head,

talking out each and every word to you.

For instance, you might read, the man turned

and deceptively smiled,

acknowledging the expectations upon him,

even though he had no intention of fulfilling them.

The reason you read these words aloud to yourself

in your own head is because that's how you learned to read.

When we were little snot nose kids,

we're taught to sound out each and every syllable

in each and every word.

And so we developed this mental habit

of enunciating every single sound in our minds as we read.

Now, there's a problem with this.

It's fucking slow and you don't need to do it.

I don't need to sound out deceptively

to know what deceptively means.

I'm fucking 36 years old, I know what deceptively means.

What's incredible is that you can quickly train yourself

to turn off your inner monologue.

Try it, try reading something without sounding out

the words in your head.

You'll find that your eyes can actually move much quicker

than the little voice in your head can move.

Now, this is weird at first,

then of course it takes practice,

but as you get better at it,

you will naturally find your reading ability to speed up.

Tip number two, read with your finger.

Now this one sounds weird

and you're gonna feel like a doofus

sitting there with your computer screen,

moving your finger back and forth,

but it's surprising how much it helps.

Now, the reason for this is that

our eyes are actually not completely stable.

Now, when we read texts that's in front of us,

our eyes kind of naturally jump around

and it takes mental effort

to keep our eyes focused on each line.

This is why a lot of times when you're reading,

you lose your spot.

You forget which line you're on.

You read the same line twice.

Sometimes you read a line

and your brain will insert the word from below

into the sentence that you're reading.

It's because our eyes do not move perfectly horizontally.

But if you put your finger below the words as you read,

it gives your eyes something to focus on and move with

and it stabilizes them.

And surprisingly, this makes you read quicker.

In fact, a lot of people just by using their finger

to scan the texts,

can improve their reading speed by up to, I don't know,

20, 30%.

I just made that number up, but it's a lot.

You'll notice when you try it.

Using your finger to scan as you read,

it works for everything.

You can use it with a book.

You can use it on an iPad.

You can use it on a computer screen.

Yeah, it feels weird, but it helps.

All right, tip number three.

And this one's just a little bit more meta and practical.

Stop reading shit you don't like.

It's amazing to me, I run across this all the time,

but people have this idea with books

that if you start a book,

you have to finish every single page

or else you're a fucking loser, an idiot and a failure.

I don't understand why people have this attitude.

You don't keep watching movies you don't like.

You don't keep watching TV shows you don't like.

You skip YouTube videos that are boring.

Why do you force yourself to read a book that's not good.

It makes no sense.

Again, I think some of this comes back to our schooling.

In school, you were graded

based on how much of the book you read.

To get a good grade, you have to read all the book.

Life does not work that way.

Take it from a non-fiction author,

most non-fiction books are full of crap.

The average non-fiction book has two,

maybe three useful chapters in it.

Most non-fiction books are glorified blog posts,

repeated over and over and over for 200 pages.

If I'm reading chapter one and I get the idea,

and then I get the chapter two,

and the author is basically just restating

the idea from chapter one in a different way,

I fucking skip chapter two, I go to chapter three.

And then if chapter three

is repeating the same idea in another way,

I skipped that one too.

In fact, most books, if I realized

that they aren't dense with valuable information,

I just go straight to the table of contents,

and I asked myself, which chapters look interesting?

Oh, chapter one, three, seven, and 14.

Okay, I'll read those.

I know that if I read those and they're great,

maybe I'll go back and look at another chapter

or find something else to read, but if not, that's fine.

I'd say half of the books that I end up reading,

I probably read half of the text in them, maybe less.

And you shouldn't feel bad about this.

The point of reading is to serve you,

not for you to serve the book.

Similarly, if a book is just bad, fucking put it down.

Move on to the next one.

I have a personal rule.

I always read at least 10% of a book before I decide

whether to put it down or not.

If it's a 200 page book, I give it 20 pages.

But if I hit 20 pages and I'm not into it,

I look at the table of contents, nothing looks interesting.

I put it away.

I'd take for every two books that I buy and I read,

there's one book that I buy and I ended up not reading

'cause I just don't really like it.

And I don't feel guilty about that.

Finally, what you'll find

when you start reading more and more,

is that a lot of non-fiction stuff repeats itself.

So at this point,

I've probably read like a hundred psychology books.

And what you discover is that there are maybe half a dozen

seminal studies in the field of psychology.

Major, major breakthroughs in the field

that get repeated all the time.

If I have to read about the fucking marshmallow test

one more time, done by Walter Mischel in 1972,

I'll fucking gag.

So when I'm reading a book and I come across,

oh, it's the marshmallow test,

skip five pages, go onto the next thing.

You'll find all the time that authors use similar anecdotes,

they use similar examples, they use similar stories,

and when you keep running into these things

over and over again, just skip them.

You already know what's in them, so why read it again?

For some reason out of these five tips that I always give

this one is the most surprising

and most difficult for people.

I don't understand

why people have so much emotional attachment or judgment

based on how many words in a book that they read.

For non-fiction, if you're reading every single word

of every single book, you're doing it wrong.

Now for fiction, it's a completely different story.

No pun intended.

If a fiction book's good, you read every word.

If a fiction book's bad, you fucking stop and put it away.

All right, tip number four.

Schedule your reading time.

Now, everybody I talked to who wants to read more,

they all say the same thing,

"But Mark, I'm so busy, I don't have enough time.

"You should see my schedule."

It's no excuse.

Reading is the easiest, most transportable hobby

or interest or activity that is there ever.

It's so fucking easy.

You can read on your commutes in the morning

or listen to an audio book.

You can read on your lunch breaks.

I always have an article or a book to read

while I'm eating lunch.

I often take a book to the gym and read in between sets

or even during sets.

Hell, if the books you're reading are big enough,

you can do sets with the books.

Hell, sometimes I keep a book in the bathroom

so I can read while I take a shit.

I play a little game with myself.

I try to read more pages than I have flushes.

I call it poop for pages.

(chuckles)

That might be the stupidest thing I've ever said on camera.

And this doesn't even get into scheduling time in your day.

Even without scheduling anything,

I can easily find at least 30 minutes a day to read.

And then if you schedule time on top of that,

it's an easy 60 minutes at least.

And this is what people don't understand.

Like people see that I read all these books

and they think I'm like superhuman or something.

I'm not superhuman.

My reading speed isn't that much

above the average reading speed.

The trick is consistency.

The average person can read a page

in roughly about two minutes.

So if you read 60 minutes per day,

that's 30 pages a day.

And if you figure the average book is about 300 pages

well, now you're reading a book every 10 days

or 37 books per year.

But if you're being smart

and you're putting away shitty books

and you're skipping shitty chapters,

then you're gonna end up reading way more than that.

You're gonna end up reading like 40 or 50 books a year.

And that's just by dedicating an hour a day.

All right, and tip number five,

read more than one book at a time.

This is another one that people have

a lot of weird beliefs about.

Like the idea that reading two books at the same time

is twice as mentally challenging

as reading one book at a time.

It's not, actually, it's easier than reading only one book.

Why?

Because when you get sick of that first book,

you just move to the second one

and it feels exciting and new again.

And then when you get sick of the second one,

you go back to the first one.

I actually find it much easier to sustain my attention

and excitement for both books

if I'm able to jump back and forth between them.

I generally try to read three books at any given time.

And I divide them up into three categories in my head.

I have kind of the philosophically

and technically challenging book.

I have just a general non-fiction educational book.

Then I have like a light fiction or a biography

or something like that.

I see it as like my fun book.

Sometimes if the philosophical book is very challenging

and requires a lot of mental effort,

I'll schedule time in my day to actually sit down

and read that philosophical book.

If I'm reading a novel and it's really fucking good,

sometimes I'll just screw the whole morning

and read my novel.

Sometimes I just get sick of one of my books

and I set it down for a week or two.

Then I come back when I'm more mentally refreshed.

All right, so we've got some basic tips

on how to read quicker and more efficiently.

We've got tips on how to be ruthless in your book selection,

and also how to be more practical in terms of finding time

during the day to read.

Now, let's talk about remembering what you read,

because one of the most common questions I get from people

is what is your note-taking system?

How do you remember all this stuff?

How do you know where you saw what study?

People like to assume that I've got this

like massive database of notes with like a super computer

linking like 800 different concepts

and ideas with sources and citations.

No.

No, I don't use any of that stuff.

In fact, I use almost nothing.

This actually, let's call this the harsh truth of the day.

(dramatic music)

The harsh truth of the day is that

highlighting and note-taking is basically worthless.

This upsets a lot of people.

And again, I don't fucking know why.

Why would you wanna highlight a book?

Like that's just, that sounds really annoying.

Again, this comes from school.

In school, the reason you thought highlighting is important

or note-taking is important

is because you were tested on what you read.

People mistake the highlighting for memory.

Studies have consistently shown highlighting, underlining,

notes in the margin, this has no effect in your retention.

The only point of doing it was so that when you went back

and studied for the test, you knew what to look at.

Now, some people say,

"Well, you can do the same thing with books

"you read for fun.

"You can highlight all the cool parts.

"And then a month later you go back

"and you check all the parts you highlighted.

"So you can remember."

(giggles)

Well, that sounds fucking awful,

'cause now you're just doing school in like real life.

Why would you do that?

Here's the thing about human memory.

We remember things that we use.

If I read a book on nutrition,

the way I'm gonna remember what I read

is by actually changing what I eat

and paying attention to what I eat.

If I just highlight the whole nutrition book

and then I eat the same garbage I always eat,

I'm not gonna remember anything.

Basically, we remember what's useful.

If you don't find ways to implement

the ideas you read into your life in some way,

you're not gonna remember them.

And you're gonna have this feeling of like,

"Wow, I read all these books

"and I have no idea what's in them."

Yeah, 'cause you didn't fucking do anything.

(upbeat music)

Ultimately, the only reason to read non-fiction

is to change your life in some way,

is to become smarter in some way,

to improve yourself in some way.

Now here's the thing, a lot of books,

it's kind of hard to use what you read.

I mean even in my own books,

it's about concepts and principles.

You know, it's not like,

"Oh, go out and do X, Y, Z,

"and then you'll make a million dollars."

Like there's none of that stuff in it.

So this idea of like using stuff that you read,

it's actually kind of a nebulous abstract thing.

I can read a principle and my using it

can simply be having a different perspective

on an area of my life than I had before.

For example, when I read Kant's moral philosophy,

I found his ethical principles to be very profound.

And I was able to see how they apply to a lot of my beliefs

about people and relationships and ethics in general.

And so a lot of times using something we've read,

it just happens in our mind,

but still we have to make that mental effort.

We have to go through that process of saying,

"Okay, I read this, how does this apply to my own life?"

(upbeat music)

Now, if you are really dead set on like having a hack

to remember the stuff you read,

there are ways to kind of trick your brain into thinking

that you were using the stuff you read

so that you remember it better.

One of them is to simply talk about the ideas

to somebody else.

So you read a really cool book about neuroscience,

go find a friend or somebody else

who's willing to be bored to tears,

and describe to them what you just read.

The human mind remembers what's useful,

and generally humans tend to see social interactions

as the most useful and important things

that happen in our lives.

So when you tell somebody else about an idea,

your brain is subconsciously saying,

"Oh, this must be really important."

Now the last thing I'm gonna say about remembering stuff

is that you don't have to remember every idea

from every book you've read.

You only have to remember what ideas are in every book

that you've read.

So speaking of neuroscience,

there's this famous neuroscientist named Antonio Damasio.

I've read two of his books.

I couldn't explain off the top of my head

exactly what's in his books.

I'm not a neuroscientist, it's not my area of expertise,

it's not a piece of knowledge I use frequently,

but I remember the arguments in those books.

And so I know where to look,

if I need to find those neuroscience arguments again.

So the importance is not necessarily remembering

everything you read,

it's remembering where you read it,

because when you need something,

you can just go grab the book off the shelf and find it.

Takes two minutes, I do it all the time.

90% of the stuff in my articles and books,

it's 'cause I grabbed shit off the shelf

and I went looking for it.

I'm like, "Oh yeah, there is that thing.

"There's that experiment.

"Lemme write about that."

The only reason to try to obsessively remember

every single thing you read

is if you wanna impress people at parties.

And let's be honest,

who the fuck wants to impress people at parties?

All right, that's a wrap.

Be sure to like this video, subscribe to the channel,

I'm gonna have a lot more practical life tips coming out.

And you know, if you're really ballsy, post in the comments,

how many books you have read this year

and how many you wish you could read?

I think you'd actually be surprised

how easy it is to bridge that gap.

Until next time, Manson out.

(upbeat music)