- How to read a book in a day,
is it even possible to read a book in a day?
Should that be your goal?
I actually did this,
in 2017 I created this video right here
with my friend Chris, on how to read a book a day.
And since then there's been more videos
popping up on this topic.
And it's been a topic that's been around for a while.
Clearly, even before my video.
How to read a book in a day.
Well, this isn't just something that I created a video on,
this is something that I actually tried.
After this video, I read a book a day and that was my goal.
And I did it for about two or three weeks
and then I'll be honest with you, I just burned out.
It was no longer sustainable for me.
Bill Gates, it's been said
that he reads about 50 books a year, about one a week.
That is much more sustainable for me,
but let's also think about it.
Something that I learned in that process
of reading one book a day, it hit me, you know,
about week two or 20 days in,
why am I doing this?
What's the point?
Reading should never be an achievement badge
that you get to pin on your chest that says,
I read a book a day.
I can't wait to tell everybody that I read a book a day.
The goal should never be the number of books
that we read a day, the goal should be learning,
understanding, increased wisdom,
learning about the world around us.
That should be the goal in reading.
Now, is it possible to read a book a day?
Yeah.
I did it for about two or three weeks
and then it no longer became sustainable,
but how can you read faster?
We've all experienced the situation,
where we have a bookshelf full of books
and we just don't have the time to get through them all.
If you're going to do a book a day,
I think you're gonna have to abandon the idea
that you need to read a book from cover to cover,
to get value from it.
My friend Chris shared with me back in 2017,
when we did that video, that he will read a book a day,
but he just reads parts of the book
or he reads the main ideas
or what he feels is the main ideas of the book
and that's certainly a good way.
Let me give you some ideas on how to read faster,
how to speed read.
I've done some extensive training on this
and I'll put those links down in the description,
but also how to remember more of what you read.
The first thing that I think you're gonna have to do
is build your attention span.
You know, a lot of us will start reading
and then our mind will drift
when we are thinking about other things.
What are ways we can build our attention span?
We can learn to quiet our mind
by spending less time on social media
cause that kind of has our brain all worked up
and it's bouncing around.
We need to calm our mind down and turn off social media
and maybe meditate.
The longer you can meditate and focus on absolutely nothing
and just breathe, just focus on your breathing.
That's gonna increase your ability to focus
and your mind will wander less.
And that's a great way to train your brain
to wander and focus better.
So after you have practiced a little bit of meditation,
practiced a little bit of breathing,
you've pushed the social media to the side,
let's get into the nuts and bolts
of what slows you down about reading.
One of the first thing that slows you down about reading
is something called visual regression,
where your eye bounces around the page.
You see the sentence, the boy ran to the store
and while you're looking at that, your eye bounces around
and it reads the sentence, the boy ran, the boy ran to,
the boy ran to the store,
your eyes bouncing around around the page.
One of the best things that you can do
to speed up your reading speed
is to read with your finger or a pen
and push your eye across the page
and you push your eye across the page by forcing your eye
to follow your finger, that tip right there is so golden,
don't overlook that.
The next thing about speeding up your reading speed
is you don't want to say the words out loud.
In other words, you don't wanna say
the boy ran to the store,
keep your mouth silent because that's gonna slow you down.
You're still gonna hear it in your brain
and that's totally okay,
it probably helps with the learning process.
Another thing that you can do to speed up your reading speed
is before you read the book, watch a documentary on it,
or watch a Ted talk or a YouTube video on it
that might give you a better understanding of the subject.
And when you understand the subject better,
you're gonna read it faster
because you're gonna know when it makes sense.
So do a little bit of research that's fun,
watching a video or a documentary on the topic.
Another thing that you could do
is who says reading has to be reading?
If the goal is knowledge, if the goal is really,
really knowledge and it's not to read a book a day,
why don't you listen to the audio version of that book
and listen to it at (mumbles) slowing it down
whenever you get to a more complicated area of the book
and speed it back up.
Listening to an audio book is still a great way
to get the knowledge from the book
without actually having to read it.
And remember, isn't knowledge the point anyways?
And since knowledge is the point,
I'm gonna encourage you to do this.
Don't try to just through the book
and then move onto the next book.
I'm gonna encourage you,
after you read the chapter or you read the book to sit back,
relax, and think about the book.
Think about what it means, make connections.
I recently memorized the United States constitution
word for word.
One thing that sped up my memory process is I sat back
and I thought, huh, what are they trying to say here?
Let me think about that.
And making those connections
helped me memorize it faster
because I understood what the document was saying.
Another thing that's gonna increase the reading speed
of a book is to read the back of the book,
read the table of contents, read the chapter summaries,
because these are gonna tell you the main points in the book
and what to look for.
Another thing that you wanna do
is always read the introduction to the book.
I know it sounds boring
and I know you just wanna skip it.
And if it's just them thanking people,
maybe you can skip it.
But oftentimes, the author will tell you,
this is what's important in the book.
This is how to read the book
and that can really increase your reading speed.
Sometimes when you're reading the book
and you're using that finger,
you might wanna focus on the first line
or two of a paragraph then speed read the middle of it
then slow down at the end of the paragraph
because sometimes the beginning and the end of the paragraph
tell you, summarize what's in the paragraph
and the same thing works for chapters.
Always read the first chapter of a book
because that's gonna tell you what is coming,
what this book is about
and it's really gonna let you know, hey,
is this worth reading?
And then sometimes you can read the middle chapters
a little bit faster using your finger, not vocalizing.
How do you remember what you read?
Now, this is all gonna come down to visualization.
I like to read with a pen or a highlighter
and as I read with a pen or a highlighter,
I highlight or underline the key words
and when I get to something that's really important,
I'll underline it, highlight it,
I'll put a check mark by it.
And then later on, I create a picture for it.
And I placed that picture in a room in my brain,
I might tell myself that my living room and kitchen,
everything I learn about this book,
I'm gonna visualize there.
So the first thing that I underline,
I created it as a picture and I imagine it on my couch.
The next thing I see it as a picture
and I imagine it on my table.
The next thing I see it as a picture
and I imagine it on my window
and maybe I got 20 pieces of furniture number
to my house right there.
And I take the 20 things that I learned from that book
that are highlighted or underlined
and I see them around the room.
This technique is known as the mind in a palace.
I have some really more in depth videos on that
and I'll put those in the description.
And finally, I'll say if maybe
it's just you want to remember
the overall point of the book,
maybe you read the Shakespearian play "Macbeth"
and you just want to remember
some of the key characters in it,
create a picture for the book
and that might be a bath tub for "Macbeth",
Macbeth, Macbath.
And then you wanna remember some of the key elements
in that book.
Well, King Duncan was a key person in that play.
So you imagine Dunkin donuts for King Duncan
and you place them in the bathtub
and this will help you remember
more of what you read through visualization.
So in conclusion, is it possible to read a book in a day?
Yes, I think it's possible.
Do I think and it's sustainable?
No, I do not.
Do I think it should be your goal to read a book in a day?
I do not.
I think it might be a good goal to read
a little bit every day,
but to read one book a day, at that point,
you're really just gonna have to be skimming the book.
You're never gonna read a book cover to cover in a day.
And if you do,
it might be the only thing you get to do that day
for 365 days a year.
So I have a lot of videos on more in-depth speed reading,
more in-depth on memory
and I even have a memory course, black belt memory.
I'll put all these down in the description,
if you like this video, give me a thumbs up.
I appreciate all of the subscribes
and I'll see you on some more videos
with more memory and speed reading tips.
Thanks guys.