For most of my adult life, I have believed fervently in the idea that reading should be a gradual process. I thought that you should take your time with a book and systematically absorb all the insights. Why shouldn’t you? After all, reading is not a competition but a pursuit of knowledge. Why rush it? This does make sense at the surface; however, I have realized that not all reading should be treated the same.

Firstly, there is not enough time in the world to read all of the books on your reading list. Life gets in the way many times, and that book you wanted to read ends up collecting dust. Secondly, if you read a book that revolves around a central idea, you don’t need to read it word by word as long as you decipher the book’s central thesis.

In my opinion, it is vastly better to read a book fast and derive the main idea than not to read it at all. There are some exceptions, such as if the book I am reading is dense with different ideas, I will take my time with it. Moreover, if I am reading a fiction book with a riveting plot, I will read it slowly because I want to enjoy the story.

That being said, most of the books today are centered around a single idea. Once you understand that idea, you don’t need to slowly read the 400 pages that come after it. The subsequent pages often contain the author’s examples and justifications. Even if you speed read that portion of the book, you won’t be losing any meaningful insights.

So then you are wondering how does one read quickly and effectively? I will share some tips below that you can incorporate in your reading to pace up your speed.

The Voice In Your Head is Slowing You Down

This will sound very odd at first but hear me out. When you read a book, you must have noticed that you voice every single word in your mind. This is called subvocalization, and most of us read by vocalizing words in our minds. However, in my experience, this reading method slows you down considerably, whereas if you only scan the text without voicing it, you can speed up your reading substantially.

But you may be asking yourself, how is that even possible? Isn’t subvocalization the only way to read books without reading them out loud? Well, not necessarily. The truth of the matter is that most people have never actively tried reading this way. When we first start to read as kids, subvocalization comes naturally to us, and we stick with it for the rest of our lives. This consolidates it over time, and you never read without it.

However, you can read without voicing every word, and it may take some getting used to, but it is possible. Try it out right now, grab a nearby book, and instead of reading word by word, hover your gaze over the terms and only take in the meaning without actively reading them.

You may not be able to do it well on your first try but keep experimenting, and you will see how good you get at it. This method of reading can save you a lot of time. However, I am not saying to do it with every book you come across. It is best used when a book is relatively simple and only explores the main idea.

Focus Your Eyes On The Middle

This method can be quite useful for speed reading, and professional speed readers swear by it. The idea is that usually when you read, you start from the edge of the page and then read to the right. However, as you do this, you waste your peripheral vision, which can pick out words to either side of the area you are focusing on. Instead, if you focus on the middle of the line, you won’t have to move your eyes from left to right, as your peripheral vision can make out words on either side. This way, you read through lines quickly and only have to move your eyes vertically from line to line. Don’t feel bad if you can’t do it effectively at first. This is more of a skill that comes with practice. Keep experimenting with it.

Use a Pointer

This tip is one of the easiest to apply and very useful. Remember when you were a kid, you would use your finger to read word by word? Somewhere along the line, we stop doing this, but In my experience, I tend to read quickly and with better concentration when I use my finger as a pointer. You don’t even have to use your finger. It can be anything, such as a pencil or pen.

The idea here is that our eyes are not that good at tracking text laterally. Try it out right now, stand in front of a mirror and move your eyes from side to side, notice how your eyes move in increments? This is the problem. Your eyes don’t move in smooth lateral motion.

However, if you do the same but use your finger for tracking, you will see that your eyes move smoothly. Try this too in front of a mirror. Extend your finger and move it from side to side while keeping your eyes on it. You will notice that your eyes move in one smooth swinging motion.

The same principle applies when you are reading. If you use a pointer for the text, you are reading. Your eye movement will be much more efficient.

Read a Summary Instead

If you are short on time and can’t finish a book in time, say, for an assignment. You can look up the summary of individual chapters that you haven’t finished yet. I don’t recommend doing this for the whole book because a summary often leaves out many important insights. However, if you have read most of the book and want to breeze through the rest, you can read a chapter by chapter summary.

One of my favorite resources for this is “Sparknotes.” It is entirely free and offers a detailed summary of individual chapters of thousands of books. You can also use it as a reading companion for more challenging books. I use it when I am reading philosophically dense books, especially from the Greek era. Sometimes a text is just too complicated, and you need to understand the idea in simpler words.