Social Media Marketing

Why Speed Reading?

Information, today, is pure POWER in our hands.

With so much of data out there, both online and offline we have reached a point in our lives what we can term as “information overload“.

Speed reading technique helps one to read with discipline a lot faster with good retention.

For whom?

This is very helpful for both children and adults.

It’s thus a great resource and technique for school goers, college students or working students.

How did I come across this technique?

It was purely a desperate need for me.

There was a time when I had to keep up with my studies in my management school, had to establish understanding simultaneously of the company product policies and guidelines where I was also doing my internship, plus I was habituated to reading a novel just to keep my head from spinning and to soothe my brain, with a good book at the end of the day.

I just wanted it all!

Simply put, the idea in my head was not just to clear the exams and get the job for the day done, but to understand and implement what I had learned in my class and put it to practical use at work.

This needed a good understanding of what I was reading & also good retention. This was something that most of us would face or would have faced at times.

What happened?

I cracked and I just couldn’t, it was……… It was well, pure “information overload” for me.

That’s when I came across this technique of “Speed ‘Quality’ Reading” and it helped me a lot.

So, I thought I would share some simple techniques that you may find useful even in your routine.

What does speed reading do?

Many a things; “TIME is Money”

• To start with, you can learn to read specific & important part of information more quickly.
• You may also get a better understanding of it with a disciplined practice.
• It helps one to even learn foreign languages quickly
• Today for anything and everything we just Google it online for work, fun & for learning, this technique will help us get the information quicker and only that which is practically useful.

There are lots of methods:

I am giving below few simple steps that you can follow and scan through all that Social media sites, search engines and digital content available that would add value to you & assist you in making your lives richer, more interactive and resourceful.

7 Simple steps that could help you in “Speed Quality reading”:

Use this technique in quiet places to start with. Eventually with practice you will be able to quality speed read even amidst noise around

1. Skim through your book / content / text (Skimming is visually searching the sentences of a page for clues to meaning) – You can also look for Headlines, Titles, Sub titles, text with bold, italics, underlines etc in the page first and put them together. It helps you to get a gist of the text or content immediately.
2. Use the Meta guiding technique. Use your index finger or mouse pointer or a pen, in order for the eye to move faster along the length of a passage of text. This reading dynamics system centers     on moving one’s hand across the page in order to maintain eye focus on the words. It helps to read      without getting distracted.
3. Do not Read out aloud or sub-vocalize the words, instead associate with visuals. US Air force research shows you can recognize words in less than 5/100th of second while sounding it will consume more than twice that time.
4. Slowly, increase speed in which you move your hands / finger pen etc and adapt to the speed
5. Do not repeat and slowly learn to skip words like “as, and, it, then, if” etc
6. If you are reading online or on a computer, try highlighting the text and reading it as reading white text on a dark background is easier than the reverse.
7. Start with books / magazines where there are variations in fonts and types and then you can enter into textbook & other material reading slowly.

These are some really simple techniques that have helped me, hope you find it useful too.

Link to Test Speed Reading: Try it out, its fun! CLICK HERE

Do give us your comments, suggestions & views.

You can also write to us at:

techdivine@gmail.com or admin@techdivine.com

(Do not try this if you are reading a legal document )

Enjoy!

Happy reading.

Free Resource & Steps for Speed Reading Practice

speed reading

2Sides of Life

My mother was a homemaker (to use a modern terminology). I do not recall a time in my childhood when Ireturned to an empty home and made my own snacks or lunch/dinner. I grew up taking for granted that mothers are always at home to receive their children. The outside reality slowly sunk in and I realized that women who went to work also were mothers whose children bid them good bye each morning and waited for them to come back to relate the days adventures.

I recall one blog written by a TV Newsreader which is particularly fascinating. This is two years old blog, but timeless in terms of contents and I am giving below a link to it.

Working Mothers: On IBN

The comments in response mostly from women are equally interesting. They are worth reading.

In today’s context when female education is emphasized and they are equal or should be equal to male in terms of opportunities and abilities , it is not fair or correct to tell a woman that her main job is to be a “homemaker” rather than fulfill her personal and professional aspirations. At the same time, children in the early and formative years require close attention from at least one of the parent. This need not be on a 24/7 basis, but ideally should cover a significant portion of the children’s waking hours and their time spent in the house. As the children grow up, the degree and span of attention could vary and reduce.

I am seeing in some cases grand parents being substitute parents. Some grand parents are frequent flyers to gulf and USA to care the grand children. I always wonder whether the parents bond well with children brought up by others? Do grand parents have the same energy they had as parents? Is’nt it a a bit tiresome for grandparents to do once more what they had done over three decades back? Would they not be looking thru the prism of values and mores which may not be relevant three decades later when the children become adults?

“Quality time” seems to cover the nature of attention needed, but at the same time indicates cliché or an overused word. I tried to imagine myself to be a parent with two children of varying ages between 5 and 10, tending to them after a full day at office and traveling for nearly 3 hours a day. Besides this there would be domestic chores to attend. How much energy would a person have – whether the parent is a mother or father- is hard to estimate? Would they tell stories from Ramayana or Mahabharata or read Tintin comics before the children go to sleep? How much of their day at school would interest them? I realized that I would do much less than what a working parent does today.

Perhaps the issue is not working vs non working mothers. The real issue could be how much of a bonding exists between the children and parents. I have seen fathers substituting for mothers who are sometimes more busy due to the nature of their jobs.

Children need and demand attention. Some times the attention they seek disturb others who see some distortion in relationship without identifying what could be the cause. Whenever I see such distortion, I wonder what would they grow up to be as adults. Do children of working parents demand more attention and carry some level of unfulfilled emotional needs? I don’t know. But I have certainly seen some children seeking more than needed attention.

The bottom line could be that when we bring another human being into this world, as parents we have a responsibility and duty to ensure that the child grows up to be a good human being and be able to contribute to the society in a positive manner. So when our children become adults, we should be perhaps be able meet this standard, at least in our own hearts.

Anjeneyan

Image Source: ANVClicks