(Photo: Dustin Diaz)
How much more could you get done if you completed all of your required reading in 1/3 or 1/5 the time?
Increasing reading speed is a process of controlling fine motor movement—period.
This post is a condensed overview of principles I taught to undergraduates at Princeton University in 1998 at a seminar called the “PX Project.” The below was written several years ago, so it’s worded like Ivy Leaguer pompous-ass prose, but the results are substantial. In fact, while on an airplane in China two weeks ago, I helped Glenn McElhose increase his reading speed 34% in less than 5 minutes.
I have never seen the method fail. Here’s how it works…
The PX Project
The PX Project, a single 3-hour cognitive experiment, produced an average increase in reading speed of 386%.
It was tested with speakers of five languages, and even dyslexics were conditioned to read technical material at more than 3,000 words-per-minute (wpm), or 10 pages per minute. One page every 6 seconds. By comparison, the average reading speed in the US is 200-300 wpm (1/2 to 1 page per minute), with the top 1% of the population reading over 400 wpm…
If you understand several basic principles of the human visual system, you can eliminate inefficiencies and increase speed while improving retention.
To perform the exercises in this post and see the results, you will need: a book of 200+ pages that can lie flat when open, a pen, and a timer (a stop watch with alarm or kitchen timer is ideal). You should complete the 20 minutes of exercises in one session.
First, several definitions and distinctions specific to the reading process:
A) Synopsis: You must minimize the number and duration of fixations per line to increase speed.
You do not read in a straight line, but rather in a sequence of saccadic movements (jumps). Each of these saccades ends with a fixation, or a temporary snapshot of the text within you focus area (approx. the size of a quarter at 8 inches from reading surface). Each fixation will last ¼ to ½ seconds in the untrained subject. To demonstrate this, close one eye, place a fingertip on top of that eyelid, and then slowly scan a straight horizontal line with your other eye-you will feel distinct and separate movements and periods of fixation.
B) Synopsis: You must eliminate regression and back-skipping to increase speed.
The untrained subject engages in regression (conscious rereading) and back-skipping (subconscious rereading via misplacement of fixation) for up to 30% of total reading time.
C) Synopsis: You must use conditioning drills to increase horizontal peripheral vision span and the number of words registered per fixation.
Untrained subjects use central focus but not horizontal peripheral vision span during reading, foregoing up to 50% of their words per fixation (the number of words that can be perceived and “read” in each fixation).
The Protocol
You will 1) learn technique, 2) learn to apply techniques with speed through conditioning, then 3) learn to test yourself with reading for comprehension.
These are separate, and your adaptation to the sequencing depends on keeping them separate. Do not worry about comprehension if you are learning to apply a motor skill with speed, for example. The adaptive sequence is: technique ‘ technique with speed ‘ comprehensive reading testing.
As a general rule, you will need to practice technique at 3x the speed of your ultimate target reading speed. Thus, if you currently read at 300 wpm and your target reading speed is 900 wpm, you will need to practice technique at 2,700 words-per-minute, or 6 pages per minute (10 seconds per page).
We will cover two main techniques in this introduction:
1) Trackers and Pacers (to address A and B above)
2) Perceptual Expansion (to address C)
First – Determining Baseline
To determine your current reading speed, take your practice book (which should lay flat when open on a table) and count the number of words in 5 lines. Divide this number of words by 5, and you have your average number of words-per-line.
Example: 62 words/5 lines = 12.4, which you round to 12 words-per-line
Next, count the number of text lines on 5 pages and divide by 5 to arrive at the average number of lines per page. Multiply this by average number of words-per-line, and you have your average number of words per page.
Example: 154 lines/5 pages = 30.8, rounded to 31 lines per page x 12 words-per-line = 372 words per page
Mark your first line and read with a timer for 1 minute exactly-do not read faster than normal, and read for comprehension. After exactly one minute, multiply the number of lines by your average words-per-line to determine your current words-per-minute (wpm) rate.
Second – Trackers and Pacers
Regression, back-skipping, and the duration of fixations can be minimized by using a tracker and pacer. To illustrate the importance of a tracker-did you use a pen or finger when counting the number of words or lines in above baseline calculations? If you did, it was for the purpose of tracking-using a visual aid to guide fixation efficiency and accuracy. Nowhere is this more relevant than in conditioning reading speed by eliminating such inefficiencies.
For the purposes of this article, we will use a pen. Holding the pen in your dominant hand, you will underline each line (with the cap on), keeping your eye fixation above the tip of the pen. This will not only serve as a tracker, but it will also serve as a pacer for maintaining consistent speed and decreasing fixation duration. You may hold it as you would when writing, but it is recommended that you hold it under your hand, flat against the page.
1) Technique (2 minutes):
Practice using the pen as a tracker and pacer. Underline each line, focusing above the tip of the pen. DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF WITH COMPREHENSION. Keep each line to a maximum of 1 second, and increase the speed with each subsequent page. Read, but under no circumstances should you take longer than 1 second per line.
2) Speed (3 minutes):
Repeat the technique, keeping each line to no more than ½ second (2 lines for a single “one-one-thousand”). Some will comprehend nothing, which is to be expected. Maintain speed and technique-you are conditioning your perceptual reflexes, and this is a speed exercise designed to facilitate adaptations in your system. Do not decrease speed. ½ second per line for 3 minutes; focus above the pen and concentrate on technique with speed. Focus on the exercise, and do not daydream.
Third – Perceptual Expansion
If you focus on the center of your computer screen (focus relating to the focal area of the fovea in within the eye), you can still perceive and register the sides of the screen. Training peripheral vision to register more effectively can increase reading speed over 300%. Untrained readers use up to ½ of their peripheral field on margins by moving from 1st word to last, spending 25-50% of their time “reading” margins with no content.
To illustrate, let us take the hypothetical one line: “Once upon a time, students enjoyed reading four hours a day.” If you were able to begin your reading at “time” and finish the line at “four”, you would eliminate 6 of 11 words, more than doubling your reading speed. This concept is easy to implement and combine with the tracking and pacing you’ve already practiced.
1) Technique (1 minute):
Use the pen to track and pace at a consistent speed of one line per second. Begin 1 word in from the first word of each line, and end 1 word in from the last word.
DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF WITH COMPREHENSION. Keep each line to a maximum of 1 second, and increase the speed with each subsequent page. Read, but under no circumstances should you take longer than 1 second per line.
2) Technique (1 minute):
Use the pen to track and pace at a consistent speed of one line per second. Begin 2 words in from the first word of each line, and end 2 words in from the last word.
3) Speed (3 minutes):
Begin at least 3 words in from the first word of each line, and end 3 words in from the last word. Repeat the technique, keeping each line to no more than ½ second (2 lines for a single “one-one-thousand”).
Some will comprehend nothing, which is to be expected. Maintain speed and technique-you are conditioning your perceptual reflexes, and this is a speed exercise designed to facilitate adaptations in your system. Do not decrease speed. ½ second per line for 3 minutes; focus above the pen and concentrate on technique with speed. Focus on the exercise, and do not daydream.
Fourth – Calculate New WPM Reading Speed
Mark your first line and read with a timer for 1 minute exactly- Read at your fastest comprehension rate. Multiply the number of lines by your previously determined average words-per-line to get determine your new words-per-minute (wpm) rate.
Congratulations on completing your cursory overview of some of the techniques that can be used to accelerate human cognition (defined as the processing and use of information).
Final recommendations: If used for study, it is recommended that you not read 3 assignments in the time it would take you to read one, but rather, read the same assignment 3 times for exposure and recall improvement, depending on relevancy to testing.
Happy trails, page blazers.
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This is brilliant, I have about a bazillion things to read (trying to make sense of other bazillion things I already have). Will give this a try and report back!
I am an incredibly slow reader at just 106 words per minute! I physically can’t do that section where you need to get through 2 lines in 1/2 a second. Even when I am not reading for comprehension I physically can’t get through that much and still actually see the page or aim the pen! feeling very defeated…
Just read your comment today, so I know it is rather late to comment back. But, I bet after practicing the technique if you went back and read at your normal speed you would find that you were reading faster. Here are some tips that might help you. 1) It sounds like you are pronouncing every word in your head as you read, instead just follow your pen or your fingers and just see the words, 2) try using two fingers on one hand slightly spread apart as your tracker (it forces you to widen your eye span and see more words at once, similar to Mr. Ferriss’s technique of starting one then two words from the beginning and end of a sentence), 3) after going through the whole technique try practicing in smaller chunks like paragraphs, and 4) you’re not trying to memorize the text word for word just understand what you have read. Hence read a paragraph and see what you remember. Do you get the gist of it.
Hope this helps.
Remember he said not to concern yourself with comprehension
This sounds wonderful, and I will enjoy testing this technique. Does it effect your retention rates or level of comprehension? Even if it doesn’t, do you know of any methods that can be used with this one to improve both speed and long term retention?
NIce.. I increased 60% of my speed…Will practice to do even more better
There is also now a google chrome extension called “Spreed” that helps with speed reading any web page.
Hi Tim, this is a really useful post. Would you mind write the follow-up/sequel of this post as I think you point out that this just an introduction.
Thanks in advance.
By the way, would you be able to write a post about how to Not day dream?
It would be very much appreciated and helpful and useful as to most people I know today (including myself) tend to have problem of focusing.
Thanks
Question. How do I reach my goal? Do I continue to do all the techniques or do I continue to read?
I must be doing something wrong, because I have not really improved my speed at all…maybe by a couple of lines 🙁
Alternately, you could stop moving your eyes altogether and use something like squirt.io, a speed reading bookmarklet that you can use on any page. Enjoy!
I wonder will they ever build a device for speed reading someday? and you would just plug an usb with all the books you need into your head?
This is bull.
The experiment goes like this:
1. Read at your normal pase, don’t try and read fast
2. Do stuff
3. Read again, this time try to read fast!
4. See? the stuff in step 2 made you read faster!
There does seem to be a point in speedreading, but this page is complete bullshit.
Try actually doing the experiment rather than skimming through the steps and coming to a conclusion, look at all the positive feedback on this thing man. The author tells you to read at your normal pace to see how fast you are so you can compare your results. After you “do stuff” you retest yourself to see if you improved.
I can tell you personally that this more than doubled my original WPM, I had a base speed of 96 and now have 204, and that’s after just one practice, I plan to continue with this.
Just try it.
I tried this and also mindbulb speed reader which is pretty much the same and now I read 500+ words a minute. You are amazing!!
I can’t even scan my eyes over a whole line of text in one second, let alone say all the words to myself in my mind. When I try to practice that technique I can only register two or three words per line. Am I doing something wrong here?
The worst thing you can do is say the words in your mind. Practice not doing that, it will take a while though. After practice you should be able to read lines at a glance, instead of just words.
Yeah, remember the author says do NOT concern yourself with comprehension. That is the worst thing you can do until the end.
Thank you
I will keep practicing to better my reading and speed.
Wow Tim, this is a fantastic post…I just did the exercise using my kindle paperwhite and jumped from 234 wpm to 621 wpm WITH comprehension. Love it!
Thank you,
Jason
I think that reading more than one word per one eye move is impossible for majority of people. Understanding of text could easily go rapidly down. However using iOS app we developed is much more easy and you can read very fast without loosing context. http://www.textioapp.com/
You have no idea how useful this is for people reading mile thick novels and people doing an English major. Next up, Ulysses by James Joyce and Finnegan’s Wake!
This is so cool! After doing the exercise, I went from being able to read with comprehension at 300 wpm to nearly 800 wpm!
Want Better, Faster and More Productive Emailing? Very good points! Techcrunch actually wrote an interesting article about the newest speed reader for email too, which I really liked.See here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/21/mailbird-brings-speed-reading-technology-to-email/?ncid=rss. I spend a ton of time reading emails every day, so betting it will help me save me time every day 🙂
Wow this works so good. I didn’t expected passing from 220 wpm to 660 wpm in so short time. This is great considering the fact that I’m a native Spanish speaker and the material I read was in English. PROPS to this method.
Amazing! Thanks for your article I’m trying to improve my reading skills
You spend most of your daily reading time with emails. Why not speed read your emails instead?
More info…
http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/21/mailbird-brings-speed-reading-technology-to-email/
…aaaand thoughts?
It is sad that most people never learned “efficient reading” (would prefer that term to speed reading) at school. I believe that many people don’t like reading because they never learned how to do it right.
Just reading through this triggered my brain to read quicker. I used to have a photograpic memory, and never understood how it worked. With practice anyone can do this. Thanks
I have two questions. First when you say do not concern yourself with comprehension, is it hoping that you can pick out key words in a sentence and can find the basic meaning of that sentence with more practice? Will you be able to comprehend after more practice?
Second, in regards to the technique for perceptual expansion are you:
1) reading only some of the words hoping that those words will be enough to help you understand the gist of the entire sentence?
2) practicing using your peripherals to read?
I find that using the pen does help a lot but depending on the length of the line, it is hard to keep it under a second.
I don’t believe it works as comprehension is easily cluttered by too much information. As soon as you have a sentence that takes extra thought or holds a strong meaning or message, or contains numbers or detailed information, the time it takes one to decipher that information and put it into context is too long to carry an additional 10 sentences in ones mind thus compounding the problem.
We can only focus on a finite amount of things at one time, and not that many mind you, and to organize information takes mindfulness – not 1000 words per minute. This is also why a sentence itself can’t be overly long as the meaning is easily lost without an apparent conclusion or point made. Taking in 1000 words per minute is some serious clutter and I just don’t see that happening, and I have tried these exercises to no avail.
I was deeply skeptical but went form 230 to 440 the first try. I’m going to make the practice part of my daily routine. Thanks!
so i just have to do this exercise for 20 minutes just once? and im guessing that it has been successful for all or most of the people that commented?
I tried this once before and it didn’t work well. I tried it again today, followed all the steps and increased it from about 300wpm to 768wpm! awesome, thanks Tim!
190 to 560 WPM, thats a good 290% in 15 minutes of practice. That’ll become my new “before bed” routine right after Memrise and kicking Duobot’s ass. 😉 Thanks Tim, you’re the man.
This is brilliant! My words-per-minute increased from 341 to 627!
AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME. For me it was a far cry from a 20 minute exercise. I practiced for nearly five hours over the course of a week. My reading speed went from 269 to 546 wpm.
There is more to learning how to read faster than just actually reading faster. Comprehension and retention are vital as well. [Moderator: link removed]
What does it mean to “Begin at least 3 words in from the first word of each line, and end 3 words in from the last word.”
I just can’t get it!
Nicer article. But as I am not a native English speaker and tend to slow down to understand the meaning of the line with respect to the context, I feel like how to even read 500 wpm when I am lingering at 250 wpm .
Its really hard for me to stop sub-vocalization as it is ingrained within me when I started learning alphabets.
Please give me some pointers about how to cope with this problem . Should I continue reading at this pace and learn to speed read only when I fully understand comprehension like a native English speaker does or should I start learning it now ??
Thank You.
open your mouth and breath with your mouth. once you stop, you can then start closing your mouth again.
Great tips. There are a number of good speed reading courses available to assist you in learning to read faster. http://coachingwithnlp.co/speed-reading-course
What does it mean to “Begin at least 3 words in from the first word of each line, and end 3 words in from the last word?.”
What to do gor speed as well as retention?I just can’t get it!
I did this because I am a poor reader at (143) wpm. After the exercise I went up to (240). Excited, I went through the exersice a second time but my wpm went down to (227) wpm. Can you only do this once? I want to increase my reading speed way more. What happened?
I tried this. Increased my comprehension speed reading by over 50% the first two times practicing it. I’ll practice the techniques 15 mins a day and will keep you guys posted on my progress
My first wpm was 216, my new wmp after the first practice was 336! Gonna keep practicing everyday for a while until I reach my goal
This is epic
Love you guys
About to try this
I need to have one clarification. After doing this practice when we are re-testing our speed or doing reading i our daily routine, should we employ this technique or should we read as one normally do (with no tracker, skipping or read in few words from start and end of the line
Dear Tim.
Hello there! 🙂 Firstly, thank you very much for sharing this article; it was exactly what I have been looking for to get me started with this.
Secondly (and just out of curiosity), do you know if this is a technique you can use over and again to continually increase your wmp “count” (3,000 wpm as the first target, followed by say 9,000 wpm as the second target & so on) or is it simply a ‘one use only’ technique (i.e. should a person be aiming for the maximum wpm count they want to ever achieve)? I apologise if this sounds like a strange request. I just wanted to confirm which it is, so I can be prepared to find an alternative way for the future if it is necessary.
Thank you again for sharing.
Warm Regards,
Leanne Morris.
i read 150 pages in 90min…
hey tim I’m a longtime fan- I’m a musician and a writer and I really enjoy the sounds of words but I can’t increase the speed of my reading as a result of playing them in my head. I’ve tried reading with this technique but I keep hitting an upper limit to how much I can understand of what I’m reading when I read faster. How do you think reading speed affects comprehension? I’ve always thought that slower reading speeds made way for higher comprehension rates. Is the key repetition? Read fast but several times?
My mom reads fiction so fast she skips words….but I never got the point of it since you’re reading for pleasure right:? Dunno… Do you read fiction as fast as possible, or is this just for reading instructions/articles that are probably full of word fluff anyways:?
thank you thank you thank you!!!! amazing
I’m finding it really difficult…How does one keep track of when a second or 1/2 a second is over while trying to speed read?
Wow, it really works haha I started this at a speed of 210 wpm and I’m at 520 wpm now haha
I must have done something wrong. Speed did increase by about 37% (not anywhere near the improvements some other people in these comments reported) with a little loss in comprehension. . .
It helped me improve my reading speed from being slow to 340wpm. Thanks.
Great great piece… You’ve been of real help to me, thank you Tim
i like the advice given tnx and next year i’m going to take a national exam in my country and in the english seccion paragraph examination is the heavy one and time consuming and generally please help how can i prepared for my exam please??!
Hey Tim!
Love reading your work and love listening to how you think about life even more! You even encouraged my recent study of Seneca and I’m loving it!
I have a question about speed reading though, the first time I did your exercises I doubled from about 200 wpm to 400 wpm! And while I’ve seemed to retain that speed, repeating the exercise the following days has still kept me at about 400 wpm.
Any tips to continue my improvement?
I know you’re busy but a response would be incredible, not to mention incredibly helpful 🙂
Thanks,
Cam
Thanks for sharing this highly valuable speed reading training script.
Before: 162 words/min (I knew I was slow…but this really explains something;) After: 486 words/min.
@Tim Ferriss: trying to apply DiSSS (or maybe more MED) here. How much improvement can be expected from repeating the exercise + applying the technique on regular basis? Is the result sustainable and are there any other learnable units you would recommend to achieve 80% of my maximum comprehensive reading speed?
I have read you take a lot of notes while you read, annotations, highlights, quotes and such. How did you used to take notes, and how do you now? What mistakes do people make when they take notes? Thanks for reading and possibly answering my question. -Max
Hi Tim, consuming the whole lot information and techniques on speed reading. I still have about 100 pages to read from your book 4 Hour Work Week! So, it’s worth reading this post and learning about speed reading.
Great stuff, thanks 🙂
its impressed me so much, the moment i saw these well organised ideals with a step on how someone can increased their reading ability.
I’m an underduate student Nigeria, looking forward to seat for an english exam, from which i will be texted in the four aspects of english, such as, how fast i read, speak(also in writting), listen and understand english.
But, with the ideals, derived from what i read here, i was able to figured out the problem of my low reading speed. So, i did appreciate for that.
Also, i will love to know some of the secret behind the difficulties of understanding a complicated comprehensional passages.
And i will be happy again, if my request is being concidered with a due respond.
Thanks.
“As a general rule, you will need to practice technique at 3x the speed of your ultimate target reading speed. Thus, if you currently read at 300 wpm and your target reading speed is 900 wpm, you will need to practice technique at 1,800 words-per-minute, or 6 pages per minute (10 seconds per page).”
I’m no math expert but 1,800 is not 900 x 3. Am I missing something? If it’s a typo, which is the typo, the 3x or the 1,800. Assuming a target of 900 wpm should I be practicing at 1,800 or 2,700?
Tim,
Thank you very much for the creation of this website. When I took my moch ACT the other week, I was absolutely devastated when they called time and I wasn’t wven halfway through the reading section. It took my score down jurassicly. I am now happy to say that I am able to read a printed paper with an average of 15-20 seconds per page and get adequate comprehension, and 25-35 seconds gets me full comprehension. Again, I thank you for this article. Had I not come upon it, I would still have a the slowest reading pace in my class. I am now among the top 15% of the fastest readers in the school. I am sincerely endowed to you. I would love to follow anything that you have to request-to a certain extent.
Thankful Highschooler,
Patrick
Should you apply the same speed to the different learning techniques even if English isn’t your native language, and you feel the two lines per second is too fast (that it’s hard to actually read the entire words), or do you use that speed mainly to learn to “sweep” the lines rather than read them? Or is it better to practice in your native language and apply your new skills on whatever language?
The exercises stressed me out and got me from 169 to 198 wpm. The speed increase may even have cost some comprehension. I read a lot of books, but this makes me feel stupid.
Can one truly capture the depth of a philosophical text @ hundreds of wpm? Is quantity that important when it comes to reading? I don’t feel so.
Thank you Tim. Very helpful.
Sounds interesting.
Does it matter if one practices reading on computer screen rather than a book?
Will definitely give it a try soon.
IT IS VERY GOOD ……..THANK.YOU VERYYYYYYYYYMUCH
Hello Tim , i appreciate your work very much and this one was no diferent.
Since your are one of those people who are in search of methods to get better everyday and you share your dicoveries with everyone, wich in my opinion is: Awsome !
Good job ! 🙂
Pedro Galego
Dayum, from tortoise 180wpm to 410wpm! Thank you Tim! Will keep practicing more to retain this new speed and go beyond 🙂
I’d be very interested to learn more about your strategies for studying a book? Being able to read and comprehend faster is clearly part of the puzzle but as I personally fight against snacking/breadth and value dept not just in understanding but even more so in skill. Knowledge is great and there is a place for knowing a lot but what I’m really interested in is turning that knowledge into skill and ability to use it as a skill. Having a good balance between how much you know and how much skill you have I find Important in today’s instant gratification world.
Would be curious to hear your take on that 😉
Keep up the bad ass work Tim
hey this was an awesome article; my only question is this:
when do you use this technique? i’m in med school, and it’s hard for me to always use this technique because i actrually need to understand. but the pointer trick works fantastically regardless. thanks so much.
maybe i will use this if i am trying to just get through a quick assignment or busy work which is half of medical school.
Hello,
Should this drill be practiced complete from beginning to end each time I want to practice? Or do should I just practice the last section (Third – Perceptual Expansion)?
Thanks
Totally agree about the, “DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF WITH COMPREHENSION”, I have found this to be the biggest stumbling block – most of the techniques were really helpful, I also a took a course in the past
that helped me a lot as well – rev it up reading by abby beale .. wonder if anyone has heard of her?
Anyway thanks for the tips!
Bumped my reading up from 280wpm to 592 wpm in just 20min. Excellent practical article.
Is there a good followup on this to learn more?
Ok I am on it. A good resolution to help me read more and something fun to track.
Are you able to maintain your new found reading speed?
I always fall back to my old slow reading.
Did not follow this, but I just forget about comprehension and just focused on passing lines and reading fast (Book: Smartcuts) after 2 paragraphs I was not only reading faster (3x to 5x), but I was comprehending and following the logic, 40p in 25 minutes more or less, not impressive but very useful for me. feels great to know I can at least read a book in two days with couple a hours in each.
Hi!
Somehow, I can’t get to the 300% increase. I’ve spent about an hour applying and re-applying all of the techniques and re-reading this post, but the best result I got was a 69% increase (which is still an improvement) and my gut feel is that comprehension is below the comprehension I acheive after reading normally.
If this makes any difference, I’m reading a fiction book in Latvian (my native tongue) and my initial wpm was 141
Alsi, I noticed that when applying the techinques, I tend to not only move my eyes but also to turn my whole head slightly, which decreases the rotation my eyeballs have to make to ensure that my eyes track the pen.
I scanned through the comments and failed to find someone with a similar experiance. Would be grateful for suggestions.
Does anybody know of a successfull way to copy text from kindle cloud reader into a speed reading software?
Hi Tim, I just wanted to let you know that I did this earlier in the week and after the experiment I could read 247% faster – I am SUCH a slow reader ordinarily. My NYs resolution was to read more, and you’ve helped me make it possible in much less time (I read half of the checklist manifesto in just over an hour this afternoon and I totally understood it too). Thanks love xx
cool! now my reading speed increase 34% in less than 5 minutes. 🙂
Thank You for your kind information. I always have problem with my reading ability and pace, want to read more and more books,and I hope it well help if I attempt.
Hey Tim,
Loved the 4HB & Cheff, they are a great references I go to often. I’m and avid shooter and reloaded of my own ammo. I’m very interested to know if you completed your research on marksmanship.
Thx,
Dave
Thanku…It really hepled my reading speed…
You know what would be interesting, a book about how to activate more than 10% of your brain. Because Interestingly enough I was reading a book and came across the fact that “pshycologists have estimated that the average individual uses only 10% of his or her mental abilities”. Well Tim it would be pretty awesome and I am sure many can agree, if you can cook up a book about that topic or similar it would be extraordinary. And if there’s a someone out there that can it’s you, no doubt about it. Well Tim let me know what you think and hope to hear from you soon!
The book you were reading is not based on facts. The 10% myth is fake and it has been debunked many times.
+290%… wowza (244 w/m to 708 w/m). Thanks Tim!
Are the eyes supposed to rapidly move back like a pendulim as they follow the pen? Or should I be attempting to condition the eyes to be more fixed to allow peripheral vision training? I can’t wait to try!! Thank you for the info!
uh, sorry, I intended to type back and forth like a pendulim, I plan to use a metronome as well for accuracy.
from 272 wpm to 528 wpm.
I am so glad i found this link in your book 4 hour chef. i went from 160 wpm to 680 in 1st timing session after following your instructions! Progress will be made! Thanks Tim
Great article !
Hey Tim,
I am a fan from Bulgaria.
This is my first comment ever. Hopefully, you are going to read it.
Unfortunately, this did not work for me. I wonder if it because is I am not a native speaker. However, this should not be the reason, since I am a University student in UK so my level of English is pretty good.
I also tried Occam’s Protocol and it did not really work for me either. To be honest I was not very strict since I could not afford natural almond butter and good protein powder, but rather than that my diet was very strict I even had cheat days less the once a week(I did not feel like I need them.) So I am doing Back Carb-loading and IF + Full body workouts 3 times a week. And it works pretty well.
Back to the topic:
What do you think about Super Reading Secrets by Howard Stephen Berg (a.k.a. “The World’s Fastest Reader” as published in The Guinness Book of World Records ) ?
Regard,
Hristov
P.S
This summer I am planing on trying your language learning system hope it works this time.
Does anyone know of any apps that are good for speed reading?
I am a very slow reader, 220 wpm and after this I got to 260 wpm, but I think it was just me forcing myself. It is really hard to study with this kind of speed and I am trying everything to speed it up. I can’t make it as a student with this kind of speed. It really bothers me.
typo under PROTOCOL it states “practice at 3X your TARGET speed” Target speed being 900, practice speed being 1800.
Been practicing this like a year after seeing it finally and I noticed it while taking notes.
hope this helps or maybe i’m just completely missing something here
HOLY COW IT WORKS!
I just went from 175 WPM to 700 WPM!
Thank you so much, this article is awesome!
This was very interesting and I definitely saw a nearly 300% increase at the end of the 20 minutes. Any recommendations on applying the concepts to a computer screen where it’s harder to have a guide like a pen?
Sir i am learing now 8th std .I wil be bayating the answer but it will not get all the answer in exams how to read the answer please inform to me sir
3x the speed of your ultimate target
your target reading speed is 900 wpm, you will need to practice technique at 1,800
Not Really!
Damn I’m terrible, but it still helped, I started with 140 wpm and now after this, I can read at 280 wpm which is at least around the average of normal readers
hellow how I incease my reading speed.
But what’s the point if you read fast and can’t understand everything? Wouldn’t be better to read slow or normal but understand everything?
I really don’t understand it … how to “read” one line per minute or 1/2 of minute for 1/2 I am unable to find stop at the beginning and then roll the pen to the end of it in 1/2 second !!!
This, Sir, is rather an effective method; by far one of the more useful pieces of advice on studying I have received. Thank you.