Effective Ways to Optimise Your Reading Technique
By: Daniel A
Tags: Life Lessons, Inspiration, Books, Creativity, Life

Start on weekends

As readers, we often think we’ll just start a book when we feel like it: we believe we’ll just start it when we feel like it and that’s normal! We want to think of reading as a positive and fulfilling activity, we want to feel like the book is calling for us. But there’s sometimes a gap between idea and execution, right?

As I talked with my Literature teacher as well as with friends about this gap, one of the main recurring ideas was that the time you start a book is crucial to making sure you actually continue reading it. After some time, we all realised the best time to do so was on weekends.

Starting a book on a weekend helps ensure you actually resonate with that call. Indeed, it offers the possibility to sit down for 1 or 2 hours to start a book and fully immerse oneself in its atmosphere.

Throughout my experience as a reader, I can say it also facilitates finding the motivation to read after as it makes us more acquainted with the plot/narrative and thus, more inclined to continue discovering it.

Not only that but starting on weekends also allows for the reader to find a sense of comfort through literature. It is the perfect way to wind down after a hectic week while stimulating one’s imagination and escaping from reality, just for a moment.

“Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.” — C. S. Lewis:

Accept that it will take time

Paradoxically, one of the main reasons why we can’t seem to be able to optimise our reading experience is our inherent will to read faster. We want to read as many books as possible and, sometimes without realising it, we fall into speed-reading and we fail to understand the essence of the book we’re reading.

On the other hand, some may be so ambitious about their reading plans that they just don’t know where to start. I remember at the beginning of this year, I had such a long list of books I had to read I just didn't know where to start: it is kind of scary because it requires acknowledging the fact that reading takes time, and also that you can’t read everything.

I find this statement helps with a shift of perspective. In fact, as it humbles our ambition, it also acts as a catalyst for more focused reading. It motivates you to get started and discover as much as you can, even if it means not read all of what Literature has to offer.

More generally, we can, as readers, use this to refine our reading, both in terms of speed and quality of comprehension. Remember it’s okay not to read everything: recognising we can’t know everything is a very beautiful and inspiring attitude.

Keep track of your reads

One of any reader’s worst fears is spending so much time reading a book just to completely forget about its thesis or plot a week later. Sometimes, this makes us feel the need to overcompensate with excessive note-taking or highlighting.

However, many studies have shown that not only is highlighting ineffective but it can also damage your ability to retain information for long periods of time. In fact, it makes you skip a very important part of reading: recollection. You are not actually processing the information but merely making sure you can identify the main concepts in a paragraph.

Through my experience as a reader, I have realised that there better ways to keep track of your reads. All you need if a notebook dedicated to referencing all of your recent reads.

On each page, write the title and author of your book as well as how long it took you to read it. This will help you figure out your reading flow to optimise it and, as time goes by, become an even more effective reader.

Then, write a short summary of the book (after reading it): if it is non-fiction, try to spell cut its sections, if it is fiction, try writing down all of the main characters’ names. Finally, pick your favourite quote and write it down. It doesn’t have to be a very complex and profound sentence, its main purpose is to enable recollection and also provide you with a list of useful quotes.

I started doing this at the beginning of this year and I wish I started doing this sooner as I find this is the best way of fully enjoying the activity of reading while also ensuring sustainable and durable memory.

Another great feature of this technique is it can be used for any genre: poetry, fiction, commentary…In any case, it will help you remember and capture the essence of your most recent read.