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How to SPEED READ

2020-11-03 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 10:15 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books and reading · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: Sponsor segment present

Ali argues that reading fast is a useful skill for when you need it, such as blitzing through big-idea non-fiction once you have the main idea, and gives five tips: reduce subvocalization, read from a little in on each side of the page, follow a pointer, turn reading into a game, and write a summary of each book afterwards.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Why bother reading fast: the bike analogy, big-idea books, abandoning versus blitzing

  • ★★ Ali compares reading to riding a bike: sometimes you savour the journey, sometimes you just need to get from A to B; a really good book he reads slowly, taking loads of notes. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Ali says most non-fiction books these days are big-idea books: one central idea, then the rest of the book is example after example explaining it. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Ali is a big fan of treating books less like hallowed objects and more like blog posts: if a book stops holding your attention halfway or even 20% of the way through, it is okay to abandon it. — 00:01:24
  • ★★ Out of fear of missing some gold dust later in a book, Ali in practice prefers to read a book very fast rather than abandon it, even once he has its main idea. — 00:01:42
  • ★★ Ali says that once you know how to read faster, your default reading speed improves without sacrificing any comprehension. — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ Reading fast has cut the time and emotional investment a book needs for Ali: a recommended book takes him a few hours rather than six months, so he is far more likely to pick it up and read it. — 00:02:05

  • ★★★ Ali does not say you should speed read all the time: reading fast is a useful skill to have for when you need it. — 00:02:26

    “it is a useful skill to have in your pocket for when you need it”

00:02:39 — Tip one: reduce subvocalization

  • ★★ When Ali reads fast he reads visually without sounding the words out; when reading slowly, savouring a book or on a difficult topic he subvocalizes, which is slower but increases his comprehension. — 00:02:55
  • ★★ Ali cites functional MRI studies in which fast readers show less activation in the speech areas of the brain than slow readers, which may be some evidence that reducing subvocalization works. (hedged) — 00:03:18
  • ★★★ Ali's first tip for reading faster is to reduce subvocalization, the voice in your head that reads along: it feels uncomfortable at first, but with practice it becomes second nature. — 00:03:48

00:04:13 — Tip two: read the middle of the page

  • ★★★ Ali's second tip, picked up from Tim Ferriss's The 4-Hour Workweek: you do not have to read the whole line; start a little in from each side of the page and let peripheral vision catch the words at the edges. — 00:04:13 · Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek
  • ★★ Ali calls reading from a little in on each side somewhat controversial, since some studies find no such effect, but says it works for him, for Tim Ferriss and for Nelson Dellis, a fast reader he interviewed on his channel. — 00:05:12 · Tim Ferriss

00:05:34 — Tip three: use a pointer; saccades

  • ★★★ Ali's third tip is to scan a pointer, such as your finger, along each line and make your eyes follow it; this works better with a real book than on a screen or a touchscreen Kindle. — 00:05:34 · Kindle
  • ★★ Ali explains that eyes move in saccades and move smoothly only when tracking something, so readers jump back and forth along a line, which in theory wastes a lot of reading time. — 00:06:03
  • ★★ Ali has found no studies that look at reading with a pointer in depth, but says Howard Berg, a world record holder for speed reading, claims a pointer alone raises reading speed by 10 to 20%. — 00:06:47

00:07:03 — Tip four: gamify the experience

  • ★★★ Ali's fourth tip: when he loses interest in a book or wants to get through it, he turns reading into a game, seeing how fast he can read while still getting the gist of each chapter. — 00:07:14
  • ★★ Ali is a big fan of gamifying every part of his life: it makes life more interesting and makes learning new skills much more fun. — 00:07:38

00:07:53 — Tip five: write a summary or review of the book

  • ★★★ Ali's fifth tip, for taking in more of what you read, is to write a summary or review of each book after reading it; he now does this for all the fiction and non-fiction he reads. — 00:07:53

00:08:08 — Notion sponsor read and the book notes templates

00:08:46 — His book notes: the book in three sentences, testing understanding, the website

  • ★★ For every non-fiction book, such as Austin Kleon's Show Your Work!, Ali's minimum in his Notion book notes is the book in three sentences, his impressions, who should read it, how it changed him and his top three quotes. — 00:08:46 · Notion
  • ★★ Even the book in three sentences helps Ali engage with a book he has read fast: it forces him to check he understood it, and if not, he skims it again on Kindle for the key point. — 00:09:05 · Kindle
  • ★ Ali's template for fiction books records what the book is about, how he discovered it and some general thoughts on it. — 00:09:30
  • ★★ Ali is working on putting his book notes on his website, as a list of every book he has read with reviews, ratings, notes and summaries. — 00:09:37 · aliabdaal.com
  • ★★★ If you want to read faster, Ali highly recommends also taking notes and summaries of books afterwards, to test your understanding and do active recall and spaced repetition on them. — 00:09:40 · active recall, spaced repetition

00:09:52 — Pointer to How I Remember Everything I Read and sign-off

  • ★ Ali places writing a book summary at about level five of his seven levels of taking notes from books. — 00:09:52

Threads in this video

  • first on record · Should you speed read? — Ali does not say you should speed read all the time: reading fast is a useful skill to have for when you need it. (00:02:26)
  • refine · Should you speed read? — Ali's first tip for reading faster is to reduce subvocalization, the voice in your head that reads along: it feels uncomfortable at first, but with practice it becomes second nature. (00:03:48)
  • restate · How do you read more books? — Ali is a big fan of treating books less like hallowed objects and more like blog posts: if a book stops holding your attention halfway or even 20% of the way through, it is okay to abandon it. (00:01:24)
  • refine · How do you read more books? — Reading fast has cut the time and emotional investment a book needs for Ali: a recommended book takes him a few hours rather than six months, so he is far more likely to pick it up and read it. (00:02:05)
  • restate · How do you remember what you read? — For every non-fiction book, such as Austin Kleon's Show Your Work!, Ali's minimum in his Notion book notes is the book in three sentences, his impressions, who should read it, how it changed him and his top three quotes. (00:08:46)
  • refine · How do you remember what you read? — If you want to read faster, Ali highly recommends also taking notes and summaries of books afterwards, to test your understanding and do active recall and spaced repetition on them. (00:09:40)
  • refine · How do you learn a new skill quickly? — Ali is a big fan of gamifying every part of his life: it makes life more interesting and makes learning new skills much more fun. (00:07:38)
  • progress update · Ali promises to publish his notes online on his website, as Nat Eliason and Derek Sivers do (2019) — Ali is working on putting his book notes on his website, as a list of every book he has read with reviews, ratings, notes and summaries. (00:09:37)

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: subvocalization

Also: People: Austin Kleon · Howard Berg · Nelson Dellis · Tim Ferriss

Projects: aliabdaal.com

Works: Show Your Work! · The 4-Hour Workweek

Concepts: active recall · spaced repetition

Products: Kindle · Notion

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