Fist-thick work files?

The simple trick to learn to read four times faster

I don't believe I'm a fast reader. Letting something sink in for a moment, putting myself in the situation the writer just described, a novel doesn't have to be finished in a day for me. But a dry work briefing, I can't process that quickly enough. Well, there's a trick for that. You can actually speed up your reading pace to four times faster than normal.

On average, we read 250 words per minute, but you can upgrade that to as much as 1800 words per minute, according to speed reading trainer Inez Zondag in De Volkskrant.

How do you do that? By letting the tip of your pencil determine the reading pace and having your eyes follow the pencil. We tend to jump back with our eyes in a text. Words that we don't fully understand or words that resemble another word, or words that don't occur often, cause our eyes to linger longer. By keeping the pace with the pencil, your eyes have to keep moving. Of course, you might miss a word here and there, but that happens in a conversation too, and you still manage to keep up.

Furthermore, you can work on choices. Some files and official documents are also filled with page-filling content, as I call it. A lot of blah-blah sentences just to show that accurate work has been done. If you have a bit of experience in the structure of such documents, you also know what you can skip or where you can really speed through and what you need to go through with attention and concentration.

But the pencil tip trick, I think that's a golden find. I always feel like I don't remember what I've read when I read very quickly. But according to speed reading experts, it seems to just be a matter of continuing to practice. At some point, your brain will keep up with the pace.