What I'm Reading: "Work Smarter with Speed Reading"

Welcome to a new corner of the blog: What I'm Reading.

As I mentioned in my last post about upgrading my foundational skills, I’ve been actively looking for ways to process information faster. Between industry news, technical documentation, and everyday learning, the sheer volume of text we have to consume can be overwhelming.

To kick things off, I picked up Work Smarter with Speed Reading - Teach Yourself.

It’s an interesting read that challenges a lot of the habits we picked up in elementary school. Here are my major takeaways, a few "common sense" epiphanies, and where I actually disagree with the author.

1. The Strategic Reading Framework

We usually treat reading as a single action: you open the cover and start at page one. This book breaks it down into a much more strategic, five-step process to maximize efficiency:

• Prepare: Before diving in, look at the cover imagery, research the author, and read the back blurb. Determine right away if the book is actually of interest to you. Will it deepen your understanding of a subject, or does it present a valuable alternative perspective?
• Preview: Flip through the index, the table of contents, the summary, and the foreword. Ask yourself: does the core material actually seem interesting?
• Passive Reading: Do a quick visual sweep through the chapters. Look for acronyms, check the general sentence structure, and scan the pictures, tables, and graphs to see if the content grabs your attention.
• Active Reading: Zero in on the chapters you've decided are worth your time. Read only the first and last paragraphs of those specific chapters to grasp the core arguments and conclusions.
• Selective Reading: Finally, go back and read the specific blocks of text that genuinely interest you or hold the data you need.

A Quick Caveat: This method is an absolute lifesaver for dense technical books—like plowing through manuals on data architecture or cloud infrastructure—as well as thick biographies. However, if you are reading fiction for pleasure, you'll probably want to stick to the traditional page-by-page method so you don't ruin the story!

2. The Mechanics: Getting from 250 to 450 WPM

Once you know what to read, you need to know how to read it faster. The book touches on a few mechanical strategies that actually helped me nearly double my reading speed from about 250 words per minute (WPM) to 450 WPM:

• Using a Pacer: Running a pen or your finger under the text keeps your eyes moving forward and prevents you from losing your place.
• Removing Sub-vocalization: That little voice in your head reading every word out loud is your biggest speed bump. You silence it by reading multiple words in chunks rather than one by one.
• Engaging Peripheral Vision: Instead of starting your pacer on the very first word of a line and ending on the last, you start 2-3 words in and stop 2-3 words before the end. Your peripheral vision "reads" the edges for you, saving your eyes precious milliseconds of travel time.

3. Permission to Quit (and Skip)

This sounds like common sense, but as someone who is stubbornly determined to finish things, it was incredibly liberating to read: Just because you start a book doesn't mean you need to finish it.

You don't have to read the whole book; you can just read the chapters you're actually interested in. Furthermore, if you are already familiar with a subject, use the index. Find the new concepts and avoid wasting time re-reading material you already know.

4. Break the Echo Chamber

Another great nugget: don't just read material that you agree with. If you want to actually grow, you need to expose your brain to contrasting viewpoints and friction. It keeps your critical thinking sharp.

The Verdict (And My Next Goal)

Overall, Work Smarter with Speed Reading is a great primer for breaking bad habits and getting your speed up to a respectable level.

But here is where I push back a little.

While the techniques in this book got me to 450 WPM, they aren't going to get me to my ultimate goal of 1,000+ WPM. The book leans heavily on the idea that speed reading is just practice, interest, and using a pacer.

To cross that 1,000 WPM threshold, I need to learn how to read multiple lines simultaneously—something this book doesn't really cover. I've had to look outside this text and start practicing with Schulte tables and advanced peripheral vision drills to get to that next level.

It’s a great first step on the journey, but if you want to read at computer-like speeds, you'll need to look beyond the basics.

Have you ever tried to learn speed reading? What techniques actually worked for you?