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Like a Pro, Learnin g Anything, and Living the Good Life by Tim Ferriss Home About Tim Ferriss Bio Causes Media Kit and Samples Disclosure The Full Monty Privacy Policy 4HWW Overview Buzz and Reviews Tools and Gear Table of Contents Chapter Sample: Introduction My Story Chapter Sample: Outsourcing Life FAQ 1,000+ Reviews 4HB Overview and Video Trailer Tools and Gear Success Stories and Buzz 1,000+ Reviews 4HC Overview and Video Trailer Tools and Gear Success Stories and Buzz 1,000+ Reviews Gear The Best of The 4-Hour Books My Quarterly Shipments Resources Apps The 4-Hour Workweek Bonus Chapters Forum (Read-Only) What s Your Lifestyle Quotient? Ideal Lifestyle Costing Expense Calculator The Truth Stats and Research Contact Contacts Jobs 7 Reasons to Subscribe Subscribe via: ( Email / RSS ) Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes 562 CommentsWritten by Tim Ferriss Topics: Mental Performance (Photo: Dustin Diaz) How much more could you get done if you completed all of your required reading i n 1/3 or 1/5 the time? Increasing reading speed is a process of controlling fine motor movement period. This post is a condensed overview of principles I taught to undergraduates at Pr inceton University in 1998 at a seminar called the PX Project . The below was writt en several years ago, so it s worded like Ivy-Leaguer pompous-ass prose, but the r esults are substantial. In fact, while on an airplane in China two weeks ago, I helped Glenn McElhose increase his reading speed 34% in less than 5 minutes.

I have never seen the method fail. Here s how it works The PX Project The PX Project, a single 3-hour cognitive experiment, produced an average increa se in reading speed of 386%. It was tested with speakers of five languages, and even dyslexics were condition ed to read technical material at more than 3,000 words-per-minute (wpm), or 10 p ages per minute. One page every 6 seconds. By comparison, the average reading sp eed in the US is 200-300 wpm (1/2 to 1 page per minute), with the top 1% of the population reading over 400 wpm If you understand several basic principles of the human visual system, you can e liminate inefficiencies and increase speed while improving retention. To perform the exercises in this post and see the results, you will need: a book of 200+ pages that can lay flat when open, a pen, and a timer (a stop watch wit h alarm or kitchen timer is ideal). You should complete the 20 minutes of exerci ses in one session. First, several definitions and distinctions specific to the reading process: A) Synopsis: You must minimize the number and duration of fixations per line to increase speed. You do not read in a straight line, but rather in a sequence of saccadic movemen ts (jumps). Each of these saccades ends with a fixation, or a temporary snapshot of the text within you focus area (approx. the size of a quarter at 8 inches fr om reading surface). Each fixation will last to seconds in the untrained subject . To demonstrate this, close one eye, place a fingertip on top of that eyelid, a nd then slowly scan a straight horizontal line with your other eye-you will feel distinct and separate movements and periods of fixation. B) Synopsis: You must eliminate regression and back-skipping to increase speed. The untrained subject engages in regression (conscious rereading) and back-skipp ing (subconscious rereading via misplacement of fixation) for up to 30% of total reading time. C) Synopsis: You must use conditioning drills to increase horizontal peripheral vision span and the number of words registered per fixation. Untrained subjects use central focus but not horizontal peripheral vision span d uring reading, foregoing up to 50% of their words per fixation (the number of wo rds that can be perceived and read in each fixation). The Protocol You will 1) learn technique, 2) learn to apply techniques with speed through con ditioning, then 3) learn to test yourself with reading for comprehension. These are separate, and your adaptation to the sequencing depends on keeping the m separate. Do not worry about comprehension if you are learning to apply a moto r skill with speed, for example. The adaptive sequence is: technique technique w ith speed comprehensive reading testing. As a general rule, you will need to practice technique at 3x the speed of your u ltimate target reading speed. Thus, if you currently read at 300 wpm and your ta

rget reading speed is 900 wpm, you will need to practice technique at 1,800 word s-per-minute, or 6 pages per minute (10 seconds per page). We will cover two main techniques in this introduction: 1) Trackers and Pacers (to address A and B above) 2) Perceptual Expansion (to address C) First Determining Baseline

To determine your current reading speed, take your practice book (which should l ay flat when open on a table) and count the number of words in 5 lines. Divide t his number of words by 5, and you have your average number of words-per-line. Example: 62 words/5 lines = 12.4, which you round to 12 words-per-line Next, count the number of text lines on 5 pages and divide by 5 to arrive at the average number of lines per page. Multiply this by average number of words-perline, and you have your average number of words per page. Example: 154 lines/5 pages = 30.8, rounded to 31 lines per page x 12 words-per-l ine = 372 words per page Mark your first line and read with a timer for 1 minute exactly-do not read fast er than normal, and read for comprehension. After exactly one minute, multiply t he number of lines by your average words-per-line to determine your current word s-per-minute (wpm) rate. Second Trackers and Pacers

Regression, back-skipping, and the duration of fixations can be minimized by usi ng a tracker and pacer. To illustrate the importance of a tracker-did you use a pen or finger when counting the number of words or lines in above baseline calcu lations? If you did, it was for the purpose of tracking-using a visual aid to gu ide fixation efficiency and accuracy. Nowhere is this more relevant than in cond itioning reading speed by eliminating such inefficiencies. For the purposes of this article, we will use a pen. Holding the pen in your dom inant hand, you will underline each line (with the cap on), keeping your eye fix ation above the tip of the pen. This will not only serve as a tracker, but it wi ll also serve as a pacer for maintaining consistent speed and decreasing fixatio n duration. You may hold it as you would when writing, but it is recommended tha t you hold it under your hand, flat against the page. 1) Technique (2 minutes): Practice using the pen as a tracker and pacer. Underline each line, focusing abo ve the tip of the pen. DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF WITH COMPREHENSION. Keep each lin e to a maximum of 1 second, and increase the speed with each subsequent page. Re ad, but under no circumstances should you take longer than 1 second per line. 2) Speed (3 minutes): Repeat the technique, keeping each line to no more than second (2 lines for a si ngle one-one-thousand ). Some will comprehend nothing, which is to be expected. Mai ntain speed and technique-you are conditioning your perceptual reflexes, and thi s is a speed exercise designed to facilitate adaptations in your system. Do not decrease speed. second per line for 3 minutes; focus above the pen and concentra te on technique with speed. Focus on the exercise, and do not daydream.

Third

Perceptual Expansion

If you focus on the center of your computer screen (focus relating to the focal area of the fovea in within the eye), you can still perceive and register the si des of the screen. Training peripheral vision to register more effectively can i ncrease reading speed over 300%. Untrained readers use up to of their peripheral field on margins by moving from 1st word to last, spending 25-50% of their time reading margins with no content. To illustrate, let us take the hypothetical one line: Once upon a time, students enjoyed reading four hours a day. If you were able to begin your reading at time an d finish the line at four , you would eliminate 6 of 11 words, more than doubling y our reading speed. This concept is easy to implement and combine with the tracki ng and pacing you ve already practiced. 1) Technique (1 minute): Use the pen to track and pace at a consistent speed of one line per second. Begi n 1 word in from the first word of each line, and end 1 word in from the last wo rd. DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF WITH COMPREHENSION. Keep each line to a maximum of 1 sec ond, and increase the speed with each subsequent page. Read, but under no circum stances should you take longer than 1 second per line. 2) Technique (1 minute): Use the pen to track and pace at a consistent speed of one line per second. Begi n 2 words in from the first word of each line, and end 2 words in from the last word. 3) Speed (3 minutes): Begin at least 3 words in from the first word of each line, and end 3 words in f rom the last word. Repeat the technique, keeping each line to no more than secon d (2 lines for a single one-one-thousand ). Some will comprehend nothing, which is to be expected. Maintain speed and techni que-you are conditioning your perceptual reflexes, and this is a speed exercise designed to facilitate adaptations in your system. Do not decrease speed. second per line for 3 minutes; focus above the pen and concentrate on technique with s peed. Focus on the exercise, and do not daydream. Fourth Calculate New WPM Reading Speed

Mark your first line and read with a timer for 1 minute exactly- Read at your fa stest comprehension rate. Multiply the number of lines by your previously determ ined average words-per-line to get determine your new words-per-minute (wpm) rat e. Congratulations on completing your cursory overview of some of the techniques th at can be used to accelerate human cognition (defined as the processing and use of information). Final recommendations: If used for study, it is recommended that you not read 3 assignments in the time it would take you to read one, but rather, read the same assignment 3 times for exposure and recall improvement, depending on relevancy to testing. Happy trails, page blazers.

### Get the brand-new Expanded and Updated 4-Hour Workweek, which includes more than 50 new case studies of luxury lifestyle design, business building, reducing hou rs 80%+, and world travel. Related and Recommended Posts: Tim Ferriss interviewed by Derek Sivers Tim Ferriss articles on Huffington Post How to Tim Ferriss Your Love Life Share this: Email Facebook Twitter StumbleUpon Posted on July 30th, 2009 Related & Recommended Posts Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes A How-To Guide: Accelerated Learning for Accelerated Times Lucid Dreaming: A Beginner s Guide Public Speaking How I Prepare Every Time The 4-Hour Everything: How Tim Ferriss Tracks His Life s Data (Interview with Wire d s Clive Thompson) Leave a Comment or Question Comment Rules: Remember what Fonzie was like? Cool. That s how we re gonna be cool. Critical is fine, but if you re rude, we ll delete your stuff. Please do not put you r URL in the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name, as the latter comes off like spam. Have fun and thanks for a dding to the conversation! (Thanks to Brian Oberkirch for the inspiration) Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Comment

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail Notify me of new posts by email. 562 Comments NSW Okay July 30th, 2009, 6:33 pm it s official you are amazing.

Thank you for the inspiration you provide in SO MANY areas! I look forward to testing this out! Regards, NSW Reply k June 27th, 2012, 12:48 pm

this is great i already read at 400 plus words a minute but with this technique I read at 800 plus wpm which is astonishing. Reply Carole October 5th, 2012, 2:37 pm

this is absolutely amazing. i went from 390 wpm to 1027 wpm:) Reply Keith Brown January 5th, 2013, 11:43 pm

Most of the how to articles don t actually explain how to do anything. This one actu ally helped me increase my speed after just ten minutes. Yup it s that good. Reply Eric April 21st, 2013, 11:19 pm

Wow I felt like such a slow reader @ 156 wpm. However this helped me reach 300 w pm in just 20 minutes! I guess I still have some work to do but at least I can understand a book much f aster! Thanks for the guide! Reply Clytie M, October 6th, 2013, 9:39 pm

I know right! Sounds too good to be true! Wish I could do it tonight, but it s 12: 30am, and I ve got school tomorrow!!! ._. Reply John July 30th, 2009, 6:40 pm

Interesting tactics here, Tim. I ve got two months left of summer before I go back to college, so I have plenty of time to practice my visual page scanning. I ve re ad the speed-reading tactics in the four hour work week book and this is a big i mprovement. Reply Steve Place July 30th, 2009, 6:40 pm

Good stuff. It seems that when I read speadreading articles, I start reading fas ter just because I m forcing myself to be conscious of it. Thanks for the tips Reply Gowtham August 30th, 2012, 4:20 am

Haha, that s very true in my case. I find myself reading faster after i have read any article about speed reading or scanning. Reply Tyler July 30th, 2009, 7:01 pm

This is fantastic! Now I must ask you, have you ever heard of photoreading? It basically is at the same speed, but it uses your subconcious to read while yo u are in a prepared brain state, and then you later activate the information wit hin your subconcious by asking questions dealing with the purpose of reading the book, while you go back to speed read and dip into information spots that your in tuition has to told you to check. This is all interesting information. Reply vikalp October 27th, 2011, 10:13 pm

hey would u please inform me about the photoreading more..!!! i just want to lea rn and better if u suggest me the link of speed reading software as well.! Reply mitch May 26th, 2012, 12:10 pm

Photoreading never heard of that I shall investigate, thanks.. Reply noocyte January 5th, 2013, 11:51 am

This is essentially how I made it through highschool without paying attention. Reply Galib Anwar November 5th, 2013, 7:16 am

Author Paul Scheele, co-founder of Learning Strategies Claims to train to PhotoRead at 25,000 wpm. Mostly unsupported. NASA states after a study named Preliminary Analysis of PhotoReading , The extremely rapid reading rates claimed by PhotoReaders were not observed . Avelin Wood is said to have pioneered the science(if you will) of speed reading.

Reply Peter Vo July 30th, 2009, 7:03 pm

Just thought I d share a related method for rapidly digesting books (reading for s tudy as Tim discusses in his final recommendations) in this PDF published by the University of Michigan. http://www.si.umich.edu/~pne/PDF/howtoread.pdf Appropriately titled How To Read A Book , it highlights the concept of reading a bo ok 3 times, each time with a different purpose: a) Overview: discovery (5?10 percent of total time) b) Detail: understanding (60?70 percent of total time) c) Notes: recall and note?taking (20?30 percent of total time) P.S. Tim, we met in Sydney last year and you signed my book with Learn before you earn, and the rest will follow . You are a great inspiration. Looking forward to your next book! Reply business logo July 5th, 2011, 4:58 pm

we understand and fulfill the exact requirements for your organization to have a business logo that will recreate and establish your Brand Identity and distingu ish your company as superior from your current competitors. Reply Jordan Laubaugh Awesome Tim! I have been waiting for this post for a long time. Since I read about your semin ar in the book. Really sweet man. Jordan Reply Eric July 30th, 2009, 7:11 pm July 30th, 2009, 7:10 pm

ok, making your tweets link to stumbleupon sucks for the same reason frames suck ed 10 years ago http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9612.html Reply miltownkid July 30th, 2009, 7:12 pm

I m off to work and will have to try the techniques listed above later, but for on line speed reading I love this free web app: http://zapreader.com/ Reply Sotto March 12th, 2011, 11:48 pm

Thanks brotha! Reply Robb August 19th, 2012, 3:08 pm

Thanks for pointing out Zap Reader. I just tried it with an article and it works great. Reply CJ September 16th, 2012, 9:03 am

I was looking for something to help my wife increase her reading speed for an up coming English exam. I tried the site you linked, and in the process of testing it for her, my reading speed went from 750wpm to 900! I wasn t even trying to increase my speed, but it was just so effective. Reply David October 19th, 2012, 10:04 pm

CJ, which site/link are you referring to? Thx. Reply James M. November 6th, 2012, 8:13 pm

Wow, that s a cool site for online speed reading practice. Thanks for the tip. I ve read about something similar as Tim s techniques in this post. I also remember having purchased a speed reading book back in high school. It does take time to practice but the rewards are great I suppose. Now, I think I ll have to take speed reading seriously. :) Reply Victor Thanks Reply Jet Set Life Hey Tim, I brought a bunch of books you recommended to St Tropez this summer and could ha ve really used these strategies :) All the best, Rob Reply tropicalismo360@gmail.com July 30th, 2009, 7:19 pm July 30th, 2009, 7:14 pm December 26th, 2012, 11:30 am

This for me is the efficiency equivalent of the invention of OCR in scanning esp ecially when it is so easy to have wish lists on services like shelfari, but so

little time to actually read them. Importance value = right up there. Reply Michael Vanderdonk July 30th, 2009, 7:22 pm

Yeah that just the tip of the iceberg Tim (as I m sure you know). Very simply just using a pointing device to help the eye track increases reading speeds. Every (and I mean every) fast reader I ve ever met users a finger, or oth er marker to pull they eye along the line(s). My personal preference to training increased reading is to go far faster than po ssible, not just 3x. 2 to 3 seconds per PAGE. In the beginning they eyes might g et only one or two words. Yet after 30-60 seconds, the brain starts to learn and expand that. With everyone I ve taught, within minutes they are seeing much more than a single word. Then, on returning to their regular speed, they find it much e asier to see more of the sentence. Other tools for training the peripheral vision are some of the games on lumosity and other similar web sites. Then we go the other side and train how to read the page in one second, although that takes a bit more effort, training and experience. Reply Sotto March 12th, 2011, 11:51 pm

amazing thank u for sharing! Reply Otabek Nurmatov September 7th, 2013, 8:36 pm

first of all Thank you Tim Mr. Vanderdonk i m really astonished by your words and do want to have a skill like that. If you don t mind, please can you write how can i connect with you. If there isn t the way to connect with you please write more in structions.. Reply Julio July 30th, 2009, 7:31 pm

Nice Tim, I ve been following your work for a while and you are one interesting dude. At fir st (to be honest) I thought you where all about shameless self-promotion. And now, after reading your blog for the past year all I can say is that your content is superb, smart and just plain cool. I will put this technique to practice and keep reading your posts, it took a whi le for me to post a comment but I think you are the real thing. Keep cool Tim, Julio Reply

Tim Ferriss Dear Julio,

July 30th, 2009, 7:41 pm

Thanks very much for the kind words. I hope the best is yet to come :) Pura vida, Tim Reply Samir October 29th, 2011, 10:11 pm (2 lines for a single one-one-thousand ). plz help . .

what is the meaning of this Reply tim

August 26th, 2012, 12:51 pm

Hi Samir, Say the statement one-one-thousand out loud. thats it. it is jus a simple way of c ounting a second without looking at a clock. two-one-thousand would be two seconds three-one-thousand would be three and so on so forth so the meaning is 2 lines rea d per second. Agnel Boss, People are asking whether given target speed of 900 wpm, one must practice for 2 ,700 wpm (i.e. 3x as mentioned) and not 1,800 wpm as mentioned. Or else, you sho uld say 2x. Pray, tell us. Or correct the article. We are desperate. Reply steve July 30th, 2009, 7:34 pm January 9th, 2013, 9:31 am

oh can not wait to use this Reply Noah Fleming July 30th, 2009, 7:35 pm

Great post Tim. Do you still speed read and at what speed? Do you retain things and are the skills lost if you stop practicing? I guess I m a sking if you constany have to retrain yourself? Cheers! Reply Tyler July 30th, 2009, 7:35 pm

I ve got some time blocked off to experiment with this. The potential for increase d productivity and effectiveness is enormous. Keep leading us to the promised la nd, Tim. Reply Vale July 30th, 2009, 7:41 pm

This is pretty old information. What I mean by that is it has had time for debun king. While it s great for skimming, it isn t the best way to read for deep understa nding. That s why there is emphasis on DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF WITH COMPREHENSION. W ith this method, full and complete comprehension can never be attained. Attack m e as a naysayer, but it s already been proven. Reply Tim Ferriss Hi Vale, Where has it been disproven? I d be very interested to see the data. There is no magic here, and there is no requirement to read beyond comprehension rate when actually reading for recall. The conditioning and drilling is a diffe rent matter with a different purpose. If you just make better use of peripheral vision, reduce fixation time and durat ion, you are not missing ANY content whatsoever. The speed then, is up to you. Cheers, Tim Reply Sarah July 30th, 2009, 7:43 pm July 30th, 2009, 10:02 pm

Thank you, this is exactly what I ve been looking for. It should make my work much more efficient, and I plan to teach my children this in homeschooling. I just discovered that several of my children have an eye problem that puts them i n the tenth percentile or less in their ability to track lines in reading and sh ift focus. It impedes their performance significantly, in spite of their being h ighly intelligent. Four to six months of training fixes it. It makes sense, then, that there must be training that can optimize the skill of the rest of us who read normally . Being in the top 1%, in this skill, can be taug ht. Very cool. I ve been planning to research this someday, and you just handed it to us. Reply Daniel Cabral September 9th, 2012, 6:55 am

After trying to practice the exercices a few times without much success I m starti ng to think I m like one of your children. Would mind sharing with us what is the precticing routine you have used with the m in these 6 months?

I ve been trying to practice 3 times a day, but I confess I can t do the two lines p er second exercices, my eyes just cant follow the pen and I loose focus on its m ovement. Cheers from Brazil! Daniel Reply Gordie Rogers July 30th, 2009, 7:46 pm

Could you please provide a picture of how the pen should be held? Cheers. Reply Alex July 30th, 2009, 7:52 pm

Hey Tim, this sounds great and I ll try it out. Btw, have u ever tried (or heard any feedback) on other famous speedreading tech niques? (like Photoreading or that Howard Berg fastest reader dude). would love to hear your thoughts since I m sure you researched this stuff pretty t horoughly. Cheers, Alex Reply NewWorldOrder July 30th, 2009, 8:00 pm

Using this approach on the Made to Stick book, my wpm went from 220 to 374. Thos e techniques leading up to the second testing, definitely train the eyes to move more efficiently. Reply Baker July 30th, 2009, 8:03 pm

I m going to take this post and put it into practice shortly. About two years ago, I did a similar but much less documented program, which dra stically helped. I ve felt myself slipping though, especially recently. I m pumped you took the time to pass along this info. It s this sort of content that I really connect with. Keep it up! Reply Name July 30th, 2009, 8:13 pm

I tried this (or something very similar) a few years ago but after the test part I stopped focusing on it, so clearly I stopped reading faster! Any suggestions fo r practicing this technique when it s obviously [for me] not second-nature? Reply

Learn How to Speed Read | Josh L Mann

July 30th, 2009, 8:15 pm

[...] Tim Ferriss claims he has the trick to help you read over 300% faster and retain what you read more efficiently. What do I have to [...] Mike July 30th, 2009, 8:24 pm

Thanks for posting this Tim. Many people have started suggesting speed reading t o me since I am starting grad school in the fall. Reply Michael - Fat Loss Tips July 30th, 2009, 8:29 pm

God I wish I learned some of these techniques in time for University. Way too mu ch time wasted on reading crap I needed just for an exam. I ve been using saccadic movements with a lot of success recently but I ll give the other ideas a go for sure Reply James Ballard July 30th, 2009, 8:29 pm

Thanks Tim. I unconsciously do some of these techniques, however, I need to take the time and learn the proper ones and really start cooking. Reply Rahul Shankar July 30th, 2009, 8:45 pm

Its like you read my mind! I ve been telling myself I need to start speed reading and this is just the timely post I needed. I love the detail and preciseness you v e managed to include in a post of this length. I m seen people recommend entire books to be read and followed on the subject. Hav e you gone beyond these steps mentioned and focused on other resources for furth er mastery? And as the poster Tyler asked what are your thoughts on photo readin g? Best, Rahul Reply Tim Ferriss July 30th, 2009, 9:59 pm

Hi Rahul and All, I tested PhotoReading when it first appeared on the ed heavily on TV. The short answer: I don t believe yet to meet anyone who can demonstrate it live and prehension or recall testing. I could be wrong, but Best, Tim Reply scene and was being advertis it works as advertised. I have then undergo any type of com I don t believe I am.

Etienne Juneau Same here Tim.

March 1st, 2012, 6:20 am

I ve tested it: didn t work for me. EJ Reply Jakob June 16th, 2013, 11:10 am

Hi Tim, time has passed since you wrote that post. Have things changed for you? Here are my experiences: At the moment, I am testing myself. I photoread a book about presenting skills a nd I made a presentation without any (as neil names it) brain farts . I photoread some other books (with strong believe) but it did not lead to awesome results yet. One night I dreamed of the pages. In my dream I was able to see the pages but th e Text was not sharp, so I was not able to read conscious within my dream. Sometimes I imagine (without timestopping), that speedreading goes faster when p hotoreading ahead. Sometimes when speedreading I rerecognize pages and know that I have seen them b efore. Reply Chris What? June 21st, 2013, 3:21 pm

Jakob and PhotoReaders, I ve read Paul Scheele s book and even paid for a pricey PhotoReading seminar 6 or 7 years ago. After trying to PhotoRead many, many books and trying to use the tec hniques for studying over and over again, I must agree with Tim I don t believe it works as advertised. Due to the rapid developments in neuroscience however, I haven t completely ruled out that it might be possible for a regular person to learn something like Photo Reading one day (without the use of drugs, physically altering the brain, or any other type of brain abnormalities). For the time being, I will continue to be very selective about what I read (lowinformation diet) to minimize the time spent with reading. This also means I m les s prone to substituting action with books: I must read book ABC first before I can begin doing XYZ book ABC and never even attempt doing XYZ. Thanks for reading :) Chris Jakob July 12th, 2013, 11:26 am often means I read half of

Reading a book by A. Huxley about the art of seeing, in which he describes how h e manged to heal strong his seeing problems, I figured out that while trying to photoread I had the wrong focus with my eyes. http://amzn.to/1drD9RJ While learning the photofocus I tryed to reach a visonable expression like descr ibed by Scheele in his book. Actually I figured out that I did not focus on a thing which is farer away than the book. Instead my visual focus was set up for seeing things very close. To test if you do the same mistake you can use a pen and move it infront of your eyes while beeing in the wrong photo focus. If you see the pen shark, I think, than you do it wrong. I will give it an other try after having learned to focus in the distance. What might improve my eyes too (as Scheele describes too). Next to the exercices of t he bates method. The experiences I made with sunlight (concerning) the Bates method, are positive . At least in the moment just after the exercise. Regards from Germany, Jakob John Bardos July 30th, 2009, 8:59 pm

In university I studied several speed reading programs and they do work, to a de gree. It really depends on what you are reading. Sometimes it is necessary to slow dow n and let your mind and emotions catch up with what you have read. Not everythin g should be read quickly. It is somewhat akin to inline skating through the Louvre. Sure you can see every thing 10 times as fast, but you miss details along the way. Speed reading is bas ically scanning. With that said, I had a professor once who could scan long reports in seconds an d give detailed feedback. Maybe I just need more practice. :-) Reply Adam Dunn July 30th, 2009, 9:17 pm

How does Kim Peak do it? Reply Pete W July 30th, 2009, 9:51 pm

Thank for the great post. I just did the exercises in the article. In the 25 min utes it took me to get through the post and the exercises I went from an average of 290 WPM to 420 WPM. Now if only the rest of the information on the internet was this useful. Reply

Ralph

February 23rd, 2012, 10:18 pm

Cool. I can get up to 1255 WPM with this method. Reply jeremy July 30th, 2009, 10:37 pm

Wow, great tutorial. I ll try this out for sure, and hopefully that can help with all the reading I nee d to get done next semester. Thanks! Reply Chris July 30th, 2009, 10:37 pm

Hey Tim, Great post as always. I practiced photoreading quite a bit in college while crammi ng for exams. I found that I could not effectively recall the information for es say questions and oral exams, but it seemed to really help with multiple choice questions. Then again, maybe I just got good at taking MC tests. Any way I have been implimenting 4-HWW principals for about 2 years now and am loving life on m y own terms! Thanks again and best of luck on your next book amigo! Chris Reply Jakob June 16th, 2013, 11:28 am

Hi Chris, how did you implement the 4HWW principles in university? Sometimes for me it is hard to deal with the fact that education is not directly income generating. Reply Sean Ring July 30th, 2009, 10:40 pm So How Do Deaf People Read Then?

Speed Reading Hi Tim.

Firstly, I love your stuff. Thanks so much for it. Let me add to this something that I learned when I took my first speed reading c ourse. I did it when I was an institutional broker for a large investment bank i n London. I hated reading the (useless) research that our economists were sendin g out, so I wanted to cut down my time getting the house view . My instructor shared this with us: He was teaching a class in Oxford. His first student came into the room and sat very near him. Seinfeld would have called him a close talker, I believe. The kid was staring at the teacher s lips and the teacher, quite unsettled by this, moved away as subtly as he could. The student noticed this and wrote on a piece of pa

per, I m sorry, but I m deaf, I need to read your lips to understand you. now realised why his student was on top of him and was calmed.

The teacher

As the tuition began, the first speed reading accessment came in. On average, mo st people read about 250 words per minute, or about as fast as we talk, as we so und the words in our head as we read. This kid came in at 1,500 words per minute . The instructor was astounded. Now most people, after trying and improving a fe w times, you can get over 1,000 words I hit over 1,100 per minute but it takes a couple of tries. This kid was doing 1,500 per minute every time, without the tu ition. The instructor was telling the rest of the normal people in the room to try to sto p reading the words and to just look at the them and trust their brains to do th e rest. The deaf student, reading his lips, start furiously writing down on a piece of p aper, Do you mean to tell me that people who can hear actually sound out the word s in their heads when they re reading? The instructor nodded. The deaf student then wrote this: HAHAHAHAHAHA! If one is deaf, (I now see) clearly one can t assign a sound to word. They just look at shapes. In fact, one of our exercises to get us accustomed to this was to turn the book upside down and to read the gobbledegook. Much like Su Doku, which is NOT a numbers game, just a game played with numbers, you need to get 9 shapes in a square, row, or line without repeating. We re using numbers to do this, but really it s about the shapes. Just stop saying the words in your head and your speed will improve pretty much 3-4x See, the disabled have much to teach us.

All the best, Sean Reply Tim Ferriss July 31st, 2009, 11:01 am

Sean, that is an AWESOME comment. Thank you! Tim Reply Etienne Juneau March 1st, 2012, 6:25 am

Great post Sean! Thanks. Reply Lej September 18th, 2012, 11:26 pm

Hi Sean. May I borrow your thoughts here. I work with PWDs. This is great to sha re :) Reply Laura Ospino February 18th, 2013, 8:47 pm

I just tried to stop saying the words in my head but i just cant , how can i poss ibly do that? Reply Deep April 14th, 2013, 9:56 pm

I have the same issue with trying to sound out the words, but can get in the zon e sometimes and am able to just see the words and move much quicker, but it only l asts for a little bit. I think it will stick with practice. I read a lot and would greatly benefit from being able to read faster, so I thin k it s something worth putting the time in on. Great post Tim, and awesome comment Sean (about the deaf person who is seeing th e word versus saying it in his mind)! Reply Sandra July 24th, 2013, 1:00 pm

Wow! Good things really do come to those who wait! Sean, I don t know if you ll ever see my comment as I just found yours now four years after you wrote it! I am a Grade 2 teacher and this past school year, I asked our itinerant Speech & Language Pathologist how deaf children learn to read. She didn t know for certain , and suggested I consult with an audiologist. The reason I was asking, however, was because of a speech impediment one of my weaker readers had, not a hearing is sue. I thought everyone read/comprehended by listening to the voice in their hea ds (I certainly do, and guess what? I m a very slow reader), but now I see otherwi se. I worried that since this young boy couldn t pronounce the words properly when speaking, he wouldn t be able to sound them out correctly when he was reading. . . which he couldn t. . . and would therefore be slow in his development of compreh ension. . . which he was. I was hoping to find a new strategy to use with him th at didn t rely so heavily on phonetics. I haven t contacted an audiologist yet, but your response to Tim, layered onto Tim s incredible post, has shed a brilliant new light on things for me. You have both refuelled my drive to research alternate ways of teaching my struggling student s to read. Sean, your story is about a deaf person who could already read, but from what bo th of you have learned in your respective pursuits, do you have any guesses as t o how this might apply to learning to read? Is there an age, or developmental stag e, below which you wouldn t attempt speed reading? Or, in other words, how soon in a person s reading life could they successfully employ your strategies? I m dying to go try this myself, so I won t spend any more time hijacking your comme nt space! Thank you both for the best learning I ve had this month!!! Sandra

Reply Rodney July 30th, 2009, 11:04 pm

Thanks for posting this. Finally someone tells us the actual science behind spee d reading. I ve tried a few reading programs that promised to help me read 10,000 words a minute that were crap. This stuff actually works. Reply Dustin Diaz July 30th, 2009, 11:09 pm

Oh wow, you re the first to use this photo under correct creative commons terms!! Thanks :) This is excellent. Reply Tim Ferriss Dustin! My pleasure, man. This is a killer photo! Brilliant depth of field and awesome k icks :) Tim Reply Eric Smith July 30th, 2009, 11:26 pm July 31st, 2009, 11:00 am

Your recommendation of YMII and Brickwork received a can t do from YMMI for a simple property search and then, Brickwork, a lengthy chat and no follow up within the promised time. I suggest you review you referencing. People are judgrd by the c ompany they keep. Eric Smith Reply Tim Ferriss Hi Eric, It s very much dependent on who you get, and please note that: 1) I have issued wa rnings about declining quality from these two (YMII doubled in size due to the b ook) on this blog, and 2) I just completely revised the book (due out December) to make this point clear. I m very sorry for the inconvenience, but the companies were excellent when I wrot e the book, continue to be for many people who use them, and I m fixing the issue. All the best, Tim Reply Jose Castro July 30th, 2009, 11:38 pm July 31st, 2009, 10:59 am

Tim, Keep it up.!!!! Thanks for sharing so much so far.

From Dallas to Nicaragua . Jose ; ) Reply Adam July 30th, 2009, 11:42 pm

I m really tired, but I gave it a little go. 286 468 wpm. 163% increase. I ll keep p racticing because it s a very valuable skill to be able to read fast. Thanks! Reply richard July 30th, 2009, 11:47 pm

Great post! I shot my Words Per Minute (WPM) rate up very quickly from 230 to 38 6 with just a few practice runs using this easy and fun program!! My goal is about 600 WPM and that s right round the corne for me. I use the Professional version but there s other program versions to choose from bas ed on you or your family s need. http://rocketreader.com Reply links for 2009-07-31 | sbdc July 30th, 2009, 11:59 pm

[...] Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes (tags: how to productivity books timferriss) [...] Alex - Unleash Reality you are legend!!! wasn t as(s) pompousish as you made out to be :P back to uni this week at a better time. which means 6AM wakeups and ample reading so couldn t av come July 31st, 2009, 12:51 am

i ve seen some of these ideas before, in Tim s book methinks, and other places, but the don t read in a straight line bit was power. thank you alex unleash reality Reply Ola July 31st, 2009, 12:53 am

Interesting post. I was considering the speed reading exercises for some time no w. I don t know my current speed but I think I enjoy my reading as it is. At least when it comes to casual reading (for pleasure I mean). However when it comes to work I would really like to improve my speed. I often need to look through hund reds of pages in a short time. I have yet to do the exercise but I am hopeful for the wpm increase. I will be t esting it in a foreign language, namely Polish. I thought it would be interestin

g if we could compare the results for different languages. You said it was teste d in five (Which ones?). Reply Joel July 31st, 2009, 1:34 am

I believe I once saw that the savant who Rainman was based on, could photoread, ho wever, science could not explain it and he was the only known person who could a ccomplish such a thing. That case is probably photoreading s basis, but I don t beli eve there is any way a person can just learn it. Good post. Has this been posted before? Maybe it was in the book? I remember it from someplace. Noentheless, I ve been using this method since I first saw it in 2 007. Naysayers, it really works. The only problem I ve found with this method is tha t sometimes, I don t feel like I ve got the energy to focus on it. But thats usually after a couple days living in airports. Reply Tim Ferriss July 31st, 2009, 10:53 am

Hi Joel and All, Thanks to all of you for the great comments and dialogue! Joel, Kim Peek (the re al Rainman ) can actually read two pages at once, one eye on each page, and he reme mbers everything he reads. See the documentary Brainman and you ll see this in actio n. Incredible. Best, Tim Reply Alex July 31st, 2009, 1:47 am

MRAGH I haven t tried it but i am soooooo excited! Reply allen July 31st, 2009, 1:50 am

I m forcing myself to be conscious of it. Thanks for the tips Reply Kevin Neadley July 31st, 2009, 1:52 am

Tim, very interesting post indeed. If you think about it, reading a book at norm al pace doesn t equal comprehension either so what is there to lose in trying this technique out. I am still at Uni heading into my third year this September and if I could get this technique down and improve my reading speed, I m sure it would be a great skill to have just like adding another feather to my bow. I bet you get tired of hearing You re so inspirational or Tim you re the best but what t he hell, you re an awesome guy with lots to share so I commend you for that. Keep em coming!

Reply Chloe July 31st, 2009, 1:55 am

Thanks. For online material, I recommend spreed! http://www.spreeder.com Adjust the width and words per line to 4+ to increase your peripheral perception . Set the speed to 4 times target, read it, then 2 times target, read it, then t arget speed. You will not understand the first two passes, but will do surprisin gly well at your target speed! Also, use this bookmarklet, which I modified from the site to handle apostrophes and bad Unicode characters: javascript:var%20sel=window.getSelection?window.getSelection():document.getSelec tion?document.getSelection():document.selection.createRange().text;sel=sel+ ;sel=e ncodeURIComponent(sel).replace(/ /g, %2527');newdoc=open().document;newdoc.write(%22 <BODY><FORM%20ACTION= http://spreeder.com/ %20METHOD= POST ><INPUT%20TYPE= text %20SIZE=80%2 0NAME= passage %20VALUE= %22+sel+%22'></FORM></BODY>%22);newdoc.forms[0].submit(); Attempted repost silly comment system mangled the bookmarklet. Reply Brendan January 26th, 2011, 6:35 pm

Cool website Chloe! Another one that I have been using as a resource is http://w ww.learnhowtospeedread.org Speed reading does make a difference and thanks Tim f or the article! I hope to meet you one day and have been a big fan for years! Reply Marko Cvijic July 31st, 2009, 2:17 am

Interesting thing TIm! I m just at the beginning of the speed reading process and for now it looks pretty amazing :) Reply NSCT July 31st, 2009, 2:19 am

Thanks but how to apply this with reading on computer screen? I use my mouse poi nter but it s not big enough to help me. And I don t want to hurt the screen with a pen. Any idea? I have the same concern with my mobile phone. I read a lot on its little screen but I feel it is not fast enough. Reply JB July 31st, 2009, 2:57 am

I find I can use vertical peripheral for predictable nonchallenging text, skippi ng like this: 1 1 1 Here s my question for Tim: Granted this is faster. Do I need to train it as a hab it? I already haphazardly picked up speed reading principles and do use them whe n comprehension load is light. Will I see a further major cognitive processing b enefit by practicing? Or is the real bottleneck cognition past a certain basic p

roficiency? What s the value proposition for advanced amateurs? For example, when consciously using physical saccajumps I will still regress bac k to ponder over new things, like the sacca word. And when my perif inferral fil ls in a word wrong, I ll go back to reread the sentence. Does this go away with tr aining? Or is cognition the bottleneck at that point? Reply JB July 31st, 2009, 2:58 am

oops, the above should be: 1 -1 1 Reply praveen July 31st, 2009, 3:09 am

This is very true. I ve checked this method. Reply Michael Kozakewich July 31st, 2009, 3:17 am

I agree with JB. I found myself naturally doing that. If you build a two-dimensi onal map of the text in your head, piecing it together using alternating ends of a line lets you scan the page faster. Reply Tim Jefferies July 31st, 2009, 3:34 am

Is speed reading this article with spreeder.com overkill? :D Reply JackT July 31st, 2009, 3:36 am

Sounds just like the adapted version of an Evelyn Wood-style speed reading class I took as a kid in high school. Here are some comments that fit with my experie nce; http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1021/does-speed-reading-training-actual ly-work http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=8853 Corrections backed by evidence Reply Josh July 31st, 2009, 3:36 am not assertions are appreciated.

Awesome. I remember seeing someone speed read in high school and always lwanted to learn. I forgot about this for a long time. I haven t tried it yet because I m at work, but I will definitely give this a shot. Really, thanks for posting this. I need to read much faster would save me tons of time with my website and other j ob.

Reply Emi Gal July 31st, 2009, 4:18 am

From 634 wpm to 1012 wpm, thanks mate! Reply szul July 31st, 2009, 4:19 am

Just read about this in your book the other day. It s definitely something that ma ny people read about, but never condition themselves to use. Back-reading is a m ajor issue when it comes to increasing your speed, so these are great tips. Reply Daily Links for Friday, July 31th, 2009 July 31st, 2009, 4:31 am

[...] Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes [...] Dan Cosgrove July 31st, 2009, 5:06 am

If you read this article, you can pretty much scrap any speed-reading book out t here. This is an excellent summary, written in readable English, of what countle ss books on the subject with regurgitate. This is a prime example of results vs. effort (getting all of the important info rmation out in a bookmarkable blog post, as opposed to a 200+ page book) Keep up the good work! Reply Jeffrey Tang July 31st, 2009, 5:40 am

Enlightening. I realize that I ve been using a lot of these speed reading techniqu es without thinking about it. Just things I picked up while trying to finish sch oolwork faster. A lot of very specific information here; thanks for sharing. I ll be trying these tips out when I get home from work today :) Reply Ethan Gardner July 31st, 2009, 6:01 am

With all the productivity tips you have offered, I am beginning to think that yo ur first name isn t really Tim, but rather an acronym for Time Is Money. As a person who is a slow reader with excellent recall, I look forward to trying out this technique. Reply Clay July 31st, 2009, 6:02 am

Does anyone have any good recommendations for a book to practice this on that me ets the requirements (200 pg, lays flat, etc.)? I don t really have any books that

meet this criteria, and I figure I might as well read something good if I am go ing to try this out. Reply Barret April 3rd, 2011, 5:23 am

the Bible Reply Thomas May 4th, 2013, 12:34 pm

The Brothers Karamozov or Anna Karenina Reply Steve Tim, Interesting stuff. My question is can you turn it off? After conditioning the br ain to read this way, can you simply gear back down and read at a normal pace? I ask because I am one of those people in the world he reads just for the pure en joyment. I don t want to speed read Walt Whitman, for example. But if I train my b rain that fast is the new normal and then want to go back to regular speed, will it be a constant process of learning and then unlearning? Reply Ken July 31st, 2009, 8:05 am July 31st, 2009, 6:43 am

Hey Tim, thanks for the great post. I just did the practice and my wpm went from 222 to 3 61 (162% increase in speed). I ll work on it to get faster! Thank you very much. G reetings from the Netherlands. Reply David Stillwagon July 31st, 2009, 8:34 am

I have heard about a few of techniques before and they do help to speed up readi ng. Reply Eddie July 31st, 2009, 8:45 am

i am yet to check out zap reader, but dynamic reading aside, i constantly use th e *readability* bookmarklet http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ Reply Speed Read in Twenty Minutes! CreationPad July 31st, 2009, 9:00 am

[...] Check it out so you can read faster too [...]

Oscar Hi Tim,

July 31st, 2009, 9:12 am

I read your book, and this article reminded me this technique. I need to put thi s technique into practice. I believe that the training times can be changed. Right? Tenha uma boa semana! Oscar. Reply Tim Ferriss Hi Oscar, Correct. The training times can absolutely be changed. Have fun! Tim Reply Kristjan-Olari Leping July 31st, 2009, 9:29 am July 31st, 2009, 10:47 am

That kind of techniques clearly help you to increase your reading speed. Basical ly they are the same things I teach in my speed reading courses. I think there i s at least one important thing what has not turned much attention in this post, but what is vital for achieving good comprehension at high speeds. You have to f ully focus to the text you are reading. The main reason behind poor concentration is that we let our thoughts to wander away form the text. Because of that we do not remember what we read even if we r ead at slow speed. Actually reading at faster pace can help you to increase your comprehension if you concnetration abilities are poor. Consider an example of driving a car. Assume that you are driving at 30mph at an y empty highway. Of course you will not drive so slowly there in fact, but let s s ay you do. If you are driving that slow then you can shave your beard, eat hambu rgers and read newspaper while driving and you will still not crash. Now assume that you are driving at 130mph. Now there is no possibility to read newspaper wh ile driving. The same principle applies to reading. If you are reading at slow p ace then you can think on other things while reading. If you are speed reading t hen there is no possibility to think irrelevant thought. You have to focus your mind 100% to the text or you do not have any chance of understanding and remembe ring the content. So if you force yourself to read faster then it wil help you to improve your con centration. In addition you will benefit from practicing special concentration e xercises. For example you could peform following drills: 1. Counting the words. Take a book and open it on any page. Count words in every paragraph. Count words only with your eyes, do not use your fingers or pencil f or that purpose. If you reach the next paragraph, start counting from zero again . Duration of the exercise is 5-10 minutes. 2. Drawing geometrical shapes. Draw a geometrical shape on the paper (for exampl e circle, square, triangle). Then draw a similar but a bit smaller shape inside

the previously drawn shape. Draw it in a way that the smaller shape fits in the bigger shape, but does not touch it. Next draw another shape inside the previous one exactly as you did before. Continue until you reach the shape with minimal possible size. 3. Reading a boring text. Find a book or journal, which content offers you absol utely no interest. Find 10-15 minutes for the exercise. Read this text as it was the most interesting thing in the world. Avoid any distracting thoughts or maki ng pauses whilst reading Reply Brandon James July 31st, 2009, 10:00 am

I started using the techniques outlines in your book and it s incredible how effec tive it is. The interesting thing it that it reframes your approach to reading i n general, when you read for efficiency, you don t wait time on topics that aren t o f value. I ve used that philosophy on a macro level and started only reading thing s that I truly get benefit from or truly enjoy. I love how it s possible to Stoici ze everything in life. Reply Au Dang July 31st, 2009, 10:09 am

Hey Tim, Thanks for the great article. I ll surely be using it for school (re-reading a few times of course) and as I start reading for enjoyment again. PS: I went to Tsukiji fish market in my VFFs, and now they smell like fish! Reply Alex T. July 31st, 2009, 11:41 am

Finally!!!! I have been waiting for you to blog on this subject. Awesome. Now I just have to wait to see a blog on Capoeira. Reply JackT July 31st, 2009, 11:52 am

I guess I was too subtle. Either that, or there are lots of believers in this th read and very few skeptics. As was covered in the links from my previous post, there is a non-trivial trade off of comprehension when reading speed is increased. Speed readers and skimmers tend to have the same level of understanding of text that is processed at the s ame speed, and comprehension is greatest when reading without either technique. If I m mistaken and in this technique reduces or eliminates comprehension problems unlike previous speed reading techniques please feel free to let me know what I m missing. Facts before assertions, please. If this is the holy grail, I d be grateful for a correction. If not, limits and tr ade offs should be noted. Reply Gurpreet July 31st, 2009, 11:56 am

Hi Tim, Very informative and interesting post as usual! I was going to ask you about Photoreading too, but seems you ve already discussed it with others. I bought it back in 1997 and had some success with it, but struggled to make it work to the full extent as promised, and was going to tackle it again recently, so this is a particularly timely article for me :) and the discussion about Kim Peek is fascinating! I ll definitely find that documen tary Brainman ! However, I have seen videos of people demonstrating Photoreading on live radio, etc. (although they were Paul Scheele s videos) any thoughts on those? I m definitely going to practice this PX Method but wouldn t it be great if both metho ds (PX & Photoreading) could be be made to work, & used in conjunction? Reply TheFamilyMan July 31st, 2009, 12:02 pm

I swear Tim Ferris has one of the greatest marketing minds of our generation. Reply TNS July 31st, 2009, 12:06 pm f

Great post. I did this years ago as the Evelyn Wood reading program. The night of inals , I read three books in just over 35 minutes with 96% comp. There was mentio n of a student at USC that read 85,000 wpm. He was tested on a micro-fiche machi ne, as page turning was the limiting factor. ps. I got away from some of it, because I was constantly interrupted by gawkers telling me you re not reading that . I never had the heart to tell them to f*ck off! But I can assure you it works, if you keep with the drills. One day, your eyes w ill pop and you will wonder how you ever got along without it. ps. If you ve ever fallen asleep reading a book, YOU RE READING TOO SLOWLY! YOUR BRAIN IS TELLING YOU I M BORED! Reply Dakota O'Neill July 31st, 2009, 12:21 pm

Don t really get this, not sure if its because I am dyslexic or what but yea. I ho pe other people get this and get it to work. Wish I do :( Reply Crappykoreabot July 31st, 2009, 12:22 pm

Eh, the whole trying not to speak in your head while reading (subvocalization), well according to wikipedia (I know it can be false, but generally it s correct) i t says that it may be potentially harmful to comprehension, learning and memory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization I suggest that you experiment with different techniques, photoreading/speedreading and see what works best for you . Reply

Steve

July 31st, 2009, 12:28 pm

How well does this work for non-native languages? My reading speed in Chinese is much, much slower than in English and I m looking for ways to speed up, but I thi nk I m limited by my vocabulary recall speed, not by eye movement. Any research on whether this is of use in language acquisition? Reply Mark Tennenhouse July 31st, 2009, 12:37 pm

Tim, I really like your stuff. keep it coming.. It is true that we can force ourselves to speed up by fewer fixations, and large r groups of words for each fixation. BUT, for good readers, this is only a minim al gain. A MUCH larger increase can be achieved by eliminating SUB-VOCALIZATION. That is, eliminate the voice in your head, eliminate reading each word to yourse lf. What am I talking about? Well, we learn to read by reading aloud to parents, at school. The habit never l eaves us without special training. We read at roughly the same speed at which we speak, somewhere (give or take) around 150-220 WPM. That s not a coincidence. SO..how fast can we understand written text? Well, how fast can we think?? The answer is MUCH MUCH faster than our current ra te. In fact, it s hard to say exactly what the upper limit of speed reading is.. As your posters pointed out, there are deaf people and other rare individuals th at have learned how to stop talking to themselves as they read. Their reading rates are amazing, over 1000 WPM. This amazing speed can only be a chieved by a completely different approach. There are methods to eliminate sub vocalization but they are very different from what you re discussing here. The methods I ve seen out there simply don t work. Please let me know if you come across any useful methods for eliminating sub voc alization. If you put another tutorial or video out there on the topic, I m sure i t would be interesting. thanks, Mark Reply James July 31st, 2009, 1:01 pm

Also another way to increase your speed is to increase your vocabulary. When you come across a word you do not know. You will stop and reread the words around it to understand the context it is being used. This is another way to inc rease your speed when reading. Reply

fmvs

July 31st, 2009, 1:01 pm

Bigup for the nice summary! Ever used speedreading softwares like Acereader? Pre tty cool, but I guess keeping it zen and using the good ol paper and ink can be j ust as effective. I m curious: what is your wpm right now? all the best! Reply Paul July 31st, 2009, 1:19 pm I instantly s

I read this title on twitter: How to read 300% faster in 20 minutes. aid this link has to point to Tim s blog and it did Ha. Good work Tim. Paul Reply CL July 31st, 2009, 1:25 pm

I would like to see an article on speed understanding (if there is such a thing). I think the above techniques are useful for increasing the speed of reading fluf f, but for more worthwhile or dense material I don t think increasing reading spee d makes much of an overall impact. Understanding to me is about making connections between what you don t know and wh at you know. In order to do that, you need to stop reading and think. I d say the reading aspect of understanding a text accounts for 5% of the time, while develo ping an understanding or figuring out how to apply the knowledge is the other 95 % of the time. So while a gain on 5% of the pie is still a gain, focusing on how to improve the other 95% (how to develop an understanding) might be more worthw hile. Reply Chris Tim, Most of the material I read these days is digital. Any specifics as to how to apply these techniques to reading on a vertically ori ented screen? Reply Brant Choate Tim, You read my mind with this post. I was just looking into speed reading last nigh t! Reply July 31st, 2009, 2:19 pm July 31st, 2009, 2:04 pm

Martin

July 31st, 2009, 2:25 pm

Just gave it a go. Googled online stop watches and found http://www.online-stopw atch.com/ Easily reading over 300% faster after walking through the post. It s strikes me that before the techniques become second nature, it might help to take a few minutes to practice before diving into a book or long reading session A reading warm up . thx Reply Eryk Banatt July 31st, 2009, 2:29 pm

Tim, it s official, you are the most interesting blogger I ve come across. Your post s aren t overwhelming and arrogant, your content is always amazing, and you are ef ficient to the point of being kinda scary. Kudos to you, sir, -Eryk Reply Will H July 31st, 2009, 2:42 pm

[On visual media]: I ve taken speed reading to another level: speed watching digit al media. I use software to speed up online lectures, videos, etc: whenever I m needed to co nsume a larger amount of information than per the usual 60 fps. Enounce is an ex ample of this type of software, and I use it to watch opencourseware lectures, f or example. Futher, I ve experimented with so-called speed reading software e.g. it f lashes phrases of 11 words on the screen in 1/10 of a second. Anyway, my question for Tim and everybody: still working on an advanced notetaki ng system to UP the comprehension from all this reading, and (now) listening. An y suggestions? Thanks, Will Reply Tim Ferriss Hi Will, Search take notes like an alpha-geek this :) Tim Reply Ryan Eliason July 31st, 2009, 3:07 pm on this blog. I have an obscenely OCD post on July 31st, 2009, 10:47 pm

Than you Tim. I appreciate that you bring us practical and useful information. T here s too much information in the world these days and most people are on overloa d. I also love your low information diet recommendation from your 4-Hour Work Week

book. Reply Dave July 31st, 2009, 3:07 pm

Are we really in that much of a hurry. I appriciate the skill for sure, but it s eems like it would be just adding stress to my already stressful life. I do enou gh stuff fast :) Cool read. Reply wedward July 31st, 2009, 4:01 pm

I m curious about how I might best apply this to reading content on the iPhone Kin dle app or on Kindle itself Any recommendations? Reply Tim Ferriss Hi Wedward, I just bought a new Kindle and you can use the back of a pen or your finger, no problem. Good luck! Tim Reply matt July 31st, 2009, 4:04 pm July 31st, 2009, 10:46 pm

So, from the comments that i read it appears the big thing is to not say or sound out the words in your head. By doing this it allows you to comprehend multiple w ords at a time where as when you sound them out you can only move as quick as yo u speak. I m curious to know if there is anywhere i can test my comprehension. I ll continue to practice, but i never know if i REALLY got all the information i was supposed to out of it. Thanks. Reply Matt Harris July 31st, 2009, 4:39 pm

This is something I ve experimented with before, but never really fully committed myself to doing. I ve heard that learning speed reading skills can have a huge imp act on someones professional life. Reply lucho July 31st, 2009, 4:54 pm

Enlightening! Reply CH July 31st, 2009, 4:54 pm

Thanks for this post! I just posted a week or so ago asking about speed reading

in some other post of yours. I ve been practicing ever since though I ve run into so me hurdles despite a definite improvement. Here are a few concerns I have I hope you can answer: 1.The pacing method works well, but when I start using your method of fixation ( looking at every 3rd word in) I become unsure where I should start and end the p acing of my pen. Should I start from the third word in and end at the third word out as well? Wouldn t that call my attention away from perceiving whatever is at the margins? 2. Also, since you fixate on only two or three words per line, wouldn t it make se nse to move your pacer in jumps as well to the words you are fixating on? Since I am only looking at 2 words, why am I pacing across the entire line when it defea ts the purpose of moving your eyes as little as possible? The pacing calls atten tion and your eyes move along with the pen rather than just jumping to the two w ords they are supposed to be perceiving. This reaaally confuses me because the t wo suggestions seem to be contradictory. 3. When pacing at such speeds, my hands/pen is moving psychotically fast, making a lot of distracting wooshing sounds on the pages as well as just going in betwee n and on lines I am supposed to be reading. Is this normal or am I going waaay t o crazy with the pacing? 4. Lastly, can you recommend any drills that can help me improve my horizontal e ye span? A lot of times I m missing words at the margins that are completely blurr ed out. You suggest starting at the second word in, but will that condition my e yes to where I will be able to move in to third/fourth word eventually? Or is th is something that cannot be improved? Thanks so much for this post, speed reading is something I really want to learn to do properly and this is very helpful! PS; Just out of curiosity, what s YOUR reading speed Tim? Reply Matthew Gartland Thanks Tim! I ve been hoping that you d hack reading speeds for a bit now. Brilliant! I ve always had the frustration of never being able to intake as many books and other public ations as I d like. Problem cured hopefully. I still have to give these tactics a go. Out of curiosity, how do these techniques and the protocol overall apply to nonEnglish texts? I m unfortunately not fluent, yet, in another language. Have you be en successful at replicating the results in other languages? Cheers! Matt Reply Benjamin M. Brown July 31st, 2009, 5:33 pm July 31st, 2009, 4:58 pm

I hadn t done a wpm test before, but I have tried to speed up my reading (primaril y through quicker comprehension and not through technical methods).

First test, I was at 800.4 WPM. Second test was at 883.2. Solid improvement @ 10 .3%. I m looking forward to trying this method again on my flight home to Chicago on Monday. Would love to get over 1000. I will try to keep track of progress on my blog. -Benjamin Reply First Attempt at Scientific Speed Reading & Accelerated Learning , 5:47 pm [...] Read more about the method here. [...] Steve July 31st, 2009, 5:49 pm Mega Speed reading from the 90's Very effective July 31st, 2009

This is the same as Reply Scott Forman

July 31st, 2009, 5:56 pm

This is great! My Mom took a speed reading course in college and always amazed m e with how fast she could read. Doing your exercises here I increased from 290 to almost 700. What is the next s tep? Just re-doing these exercises more often or simply reading more as in Step 4? Reply Eric July 31st, 2009, 8:05 pm

Dear Tim, Thank you so much for this and other fantastic posts! I just did a quick, somewhat sloppy run-through of the protocol and my w.p.m. ho pped up from 377 to 829 AND my comprehension seems to have improved too! It real ly works, what a gift! In return I would like to draw your attention to something that I think you migh t find of great interest and use: Systema (or Russian Martial Art). You may have seen it featured on the Go Warrior series or even more recently on the Deadliest W arrior series on Spike as used by the Spetsnaz. As a dancer, martial artist and c urious human being I think you might find the methodology fascinating. There are some good (and bad or mislabeled) clips on youtube, though the only way to real ly get the system is of course to experience it personally. The following is a lin k to the various schools operating in California (if you ever get a chance I hig hly reccomend Martin Wheeler): http://www.russianmartialart.com/main.php?page=affiliates&loc=us&sta=CA Though of course the real fun stuff happens in Moscow, if you ever get the guts to try and learn Russian ;) Anyway, Thanks again for everything! -Eric Reply

Peter P

July 31st, 2009, 8:20 pm

Great post! This is something REALLY wanted to see since lately I ve started reading tons of b ooks, specifically on online networking and what not. And it may shave off a few minutes the next time I take the SAT! I like how you challenge both mind and body to their limits, challenging the nor m to achieve outstanding results, with others blaming it on sheer talent/luck. Well, I tried out the stuff and I can read at LEAST twice as fast, but it feels kind of weird going at this speed, thus I remembered the quote about being afrai d of human potential. Keep it up TM. PXP Reply Tim Ferriss Hi All, Just two quickies: 1) My current reading rate is, I would guesstimate, on average between 700-900 w pm for non-technical, or 2-3 pages per minute. If I want to speed through, I can near double that after 15-30 minutes of exercises, but to reach the highest spe ed requires constant conditioning. Not close to my Pton days, but then again I n o longer teach this and have to demo it in front of large groups and do recall t ests afterward. Sound stressful? It was. Grab a book from someone who reads at no rmal speed and test their recall. It will be horrendous. Book recall is universal ly overestimated. 2) This can be used for any language, though ideograms will naturally be slower to read (Chinese, for example). The language is much denser than English, so you can consume more data with fewer characters. Tim Reply Ben Elgar-White July 31st, 2009, 11:06 pm July 31st, 2009, 11:00 pm

ive got only one problem, at first it sais do not read faster than normal but in t he final step, Read at your fastest comprehension rate . im not saying there wasnt a significant improvement (by these measure, using all the steps i went from 151-356), but im nor sure how much of that was concentrat ion, and how much was training. And if it wasnt training, could an individual hold such intense concentration fo r an extended period of time. This isnt an argument against this speed reading, i have only just finished the training, and havnt tried to practice & apply it over time. But i will in the fu ture, and if i see a significant improvemenrt ill be back to talk about it. Again, not saying it doesnt work, but has there been a double blind study, or so mething similar, where the fastest comprehensible speed with a tracer (but no tr aining) has been measure prior to a program like this one.

Ben Elgar-White p.s. if this works half as well as im hoping ill probably be reading dozens more of y our recomended articles. Reply Au Dang August 1st, 2009, 3:30 am

Thanks for another useful post. I ll definitely practice this method on the beaches of Nha Trang! PS: Just went from Tokyo to Vietnam, but during my stay at Tokyo, I went to Tsuk iji Fish Market in Vibrams, needless to say but they reek of fish. Just wanted t o thank you for those two suggestions as well. -Au Reply arb1trage August 1st, 2009, 9:24 am

Went from 306 to 505 wpm! Very impressive but to really increase comprehension I bet I will have to practice. I plan to use this technique in medical school (I will be sure to read everything 3 times, don t worry). Thanks! Reply Kevin Neadley August 1st, 2009, 9:58 am

To everyone who reads this: I have been practising these techniques and took my wpm from 220 wpm to 803 wpm. However, recalling this info is proving difficult. Is it right in thinking that if I keep practising the techniques mentioned above, recall will start becoming more easily possible? Thanks to those who can help. Reply Jonas Storm Hi Tim, Thanks for another great post. I ve read some books on the topics and it has helpe d me to increase my reading speed if I focus on it. I did find that I did not enjoy the reading as much when I read at higher speeds . I like to sound out the words in my head and go slow. It s like telling a story to oneself. So when I read to enjoy myself I keep it at 250 words per minute as this brings more life to the stories and I get time to visualize and debate upon what s writte n. And then when there s something that I merely have to read I ll speed it up. I also find it useful to use these techniques on books that I ve already read to f August 1st, 2009, 10:28 am

reshen up on the subjects. What are you guys take on this? Do you speed read fiction/novels? Jonas Reply Stephen O August 1st, 2009, 10:41 am

Great comment by the earlier poster (Sean) regarding the hearing impaired speed reader. I am hearing impaired and read way faster than anyone else I personally know, and now after reading that comment and your blog, it makes sense as my wor ld is visual. Reply Mike Yang Hey Tim, Is there more to this training method ?? Looks like just an introduction. Great stuff. Thanks, Mike Reply Luiz Campos Hi Tim, I ve been trying for weeks to get your contact (email or something) to talk to you about something you would be really interested. I m from Brazil and I just need to send you a file so that you can have a good ove rview the whole thing. It s definitely a solid plan. Let me know if you might be interested in doing some entertainment web business in Brazil too. Well, can t tell you much here. Email me or something. Thanks, Luiz Reply Sachit Gupta August 1st, 2009, 4:47 pm August 1st, 2009, 3:03 pm August 1st, 2009, 11:47 am

Great post! I know you love metrics i went from 615 to 855 wpm. Solid improvemen t. What s the next step? Keep practicing these techniques over and over or is ther e more? Quick questions:

I stumbled onto this old blog http://lifestyleentrepreneurship.com/blog/ has the content from there also been moved to this blog? Also, you mentioned your comin g out with a new version of 4HWW in December, what kind of improvements can we e xpect? Keep challenging and inspiring. Thanks! - Sachit Reply Tim Ferriss Hi Sachit, Gotta get to bed, but much more on the new book coming soon :) Tim Reply Alex August 1st, 2009, 5:01 pm August 3rd, 2009, 12:12 am

OH MY GOD this is amazing. I ve drilled once so far and went from 300 WPM to 624 W PM. Absolutely astonishing. Reply Anthony Hey Tim Completely unrelated to the post, but I wanted to make sure you got wind of this ;) . The third year of a convention I host just rolled by, total success. I can t say I owe it to you 100% (Seth Godin has been a big influence as well), but I will sa y I would not have found the balls to continue hosting it through the tough poin ts had I not read and been inspired by 4HWW. thanks for doing what you do Tim, hope to have you out next year, will shoot you the trailer when it releases -Anthony Reply LNS August 1st, 2009, 10:03 pm August 1st, 2009, 7:46 pm

Hi Tim, I am just about finished with your book 4 hour work week . I love it!! I was recent ly laid off and need major inspiration and I am finding it from your book. I hav e two questions. I keep doubting myself and the world as to whether I can do wha t you have done especially given that you are super smart!! I am 42 years old (j ust about to turn 43) and wonder if there is really still time for me to live th e life I want and make a reasonable living into my retirement? Do I still have t ime?

Cheers, LNS Reply Lori Havrilla August 1st, 2009, 10:44 pm

I could have used this program BEFORE Reply Lori Havrilla August 1st, 2009, 10:45 pm

OOPS! Hit the wrong key. I was saying, I could have used this program BEFORE I we nt to college. That was a painful 4 years. Reply Michael Medlock August 2nd, 2009, 2:15 am

Try Tony Buzan s The Speed Reading Book. (ISBN 1-4066-1021-6) It s a BBC publication so I don t know if it is available in the US. Another great book from the invento r of mind maps. Reply Jeremy Sinner Tim, Not to call you out on anything, but I m very appreciative of the repost from your old blog. I could never remember the name and always had to search for a bit to get to this information. I have been trying to fit this in my everyday life, trying to start reading a fe w words in occasionally; on subtitles, television show tid-bits like the History channel and what not. And it has improved my reading speed quite a bit from jus t passive practice. Can t wait for the new book to come out. I hate to try to ruin any surprises, but I hope you have some bits about Crossfit in there. Respectfully from Fussa City, Jeremy Reply Steve August 2nd, 2009, 6:54 am August 2nd, 2009, 5:29 am

thought you of all people would like this TJ quote I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infini tely the happier for it. Thomas Jefferson Reply Tim Ferriss August 3rd, 2009, 12:08 am

Thanks, Steve! That quote is outstanding! :)

Tim Reply Rick August 2nd, 2009, 7:53 am

this is good stuff, but it doesn t have to be either/or with something like PhotoR eading. I m a fan of PhotoReading and ulti-stage process and people . I actually view that as one ieve the information outlined junction with Photoreading. use it successfully. Photoreading as a system is a m always get hung up on the actual photoreading step of the least important parts of the process. I bel above on this post can be used successfully in con

The thing I don t like about this type of approach to speed reading is it still us es (or implies usage of) the paradigm of the reader s job is to read every word in the book and remember as much as possible , which is absolutely false. The reader s job is to get their needs met from the material. Sometimes that requires reading every word, usually, not so much. I love how Photoreading stresses the entire process of reading. First determinin g intention, what does one desire to obtain from the material? Then utilizing to ols like mind mapping to lay that out. Approaching written material with clear i ntention does wonders for the experience. Then the multi-pass system is absolute ly the way the brain is wired to interact with written material. The concept of one pass through, remember as much as you can, is sorely outdated. The material presented above is actually close to one of the photoreading techni ques, superreading . I believe it can all be utilized together. Good stuff, thanks for sharing it. Reply dasa August 2nd, 2009, 1:52 pm

Hi dear Tim, a friend gave me your book to read just few days ago. Now I have a technique how to be liberated even faster :) Thanks for both. I just wonder how it would be with other languages as English is not my mother t ongue. I suppose it could take a bit more time cos the range of the shared word register is not that large. Any research in that way? Love Dasa Reply Jacob August 2nd, 2009, 2:58 pm

Hey Tim, I loved this article. Speed reading is one thing, comprehension is another, what about memory? If you can t recall the information (for application) the other two elements don t seem all that important. Do you know of any systems out there or techniques where one can increase their

memory? I m familiar with the link/peg methods and have recently started working w ith Ruslans Mescerjakovs Phenomenal Memory System. Do you have any experiences/f eedback on how one can increase their memory of written material? Thanks! Shaju Reply elizabeth mars ole! thanks, Tim, e Reply Andy August 2nd, 2009, 4:13 pm August 2nd, 2009, 3:58 pm

Tim, a great summary of a key life skill. Listening is another area where a speed increase can be a huge benefit. We recen tly built a little site that lets you automatically speed up your podcasts, lett ing you get through more, and with less distraction. http://www.podshifter.com lets you set the speed you want to receive your podcas ts at, and then they are automatically provided to your iTunes in that faster sp eed. While it was built for ourselves to use, we find that pretty much anyone keen on speed reading will also love speed listening. Reply Naomi August 2nd, 2009, 4:32 pm

Hey Tim, I ve been following your crazily-speeded-up learning adventures with interest and I have a question: have you ever applied your learning techniques to gymnastics / learning to do flips? This is something I m struggling with at the moment, and I wondered if you have an y pointers. cheers Naomi Reply Yak August 2nd, 2009, 5:46 pm reading

OK I have a problem with this..I dont understand anything I am Fast: Yes, but what was it about? No idea. Reply

Will

August 2nd, 2009, 9:06 pm

Hey Tim, I ve been on the market for checking out speed reading courses like PhotoReading a nd the like. Do you know if the PX Method will be made available anytime soon? Thanks! - Will Reply Schmidty August 3rd, 2009, 1:22 am

@ Sean Ring Love the story and comment. Very inspiring. Reply Mary Hui August 3rd, 2009, 2:28 am

Wow, my speed has gone up from a slow 198 wpm to a new 385 wpm! The catch is, th e new speed seems to have been detrimental to my comprehension has anyone else e xperienced this problem? Reply Felix August 3rd, 2009, 4:05 am

Dude, I officially love your Blog. So much inspiration in here. I enjoy every po st. Thanks so much! Felix Reply Rocky Adams August 3rd, 2009, 6:07 am A stud. I m looking forward to increasing su

Thanks for everything Tim. You re a calss ccess, and appreciate your help. Reply tom August 3rd, 2009, 8:44 am

speed reading is EASY. I use the Kim Peek method. Start reading slowly, gradually increase the speed un til you are reading 1 line per second. Then have a surgeon remove your corpus co llosum through your nose. Now you should be able to start reading the left page with your right eye and the right page through your left eye. Remember what your eyes see (concentrate!). It s that simple folks. Reply

Tiit Phn

August 3rd, 2009, 8:50 am

Just finished reading every single comment on this post:) Got many great tips an d hopefully this will help my Economics @ University of Tartu Thanks Tim Reply Curtis August 3rd, 2009, 9:11 am

Tim, Finally! I have been awaiting this post for awhile. I actually purchased the PX Project from the site referenced in your book (your assistant was kind of enough to tell me there wasn t one). That shows you how excited I am to improve my readi ng speed and for self improvement items. Thank you for your constant insight in ways to improve my life. You re the man, Curtis Reply Jan Cisek August 3rd, 2009, 9:11 am

Really helpful info about speeding up reading and research (and experience) shows that comprehension increases the quicker you read. However, speeding up reading is only one aspect of more effective reading. For retention, you also need to read with purpose, and use various other techniques to make sure you remember the stuff you need. On our Spd Rdng course we also teach numerous strategies which save much more time than simply reading faster. Happy to share if anyone s interested (or you can check our site or download 37 speed reading techniques). Reply Ben Davidson Tim, Thanks for the post. I ve been using this method since I read the book, but it s nic e to have a digital copy that I can link to easily. -Ben Reply Ben Davidson Tim, Of other note Once I started using the principles in 4HWW (particularly the 80/2 0 principle), college got much easier. Within one semester I was able to increas e my credit load by 50%, decrease my homework time by at least half, and raise m y GPA by almost an entire point. I even managed a social life in there, which is something I ve always struggled to have time to do! The breakdown: August 3rd, 2009, 1:54 pm August 3rd, 2009, 1:41 pm

BEFORE 4HWW 13 Credit Hours 3.00 End of semester GPA AFTER 4HWW 19 Credit Hours 3.92 End of semester GPA Again, I also decreased my homework time by about 50% in the second semester. Th at s 50% of what I spent with fewer credits. If you want, I ll tell you about what you have taught me in the areas of body mana gement, too. For now, suffice it to say that one blog post of yours taught me mo re than either of the training courses I have taken in college, with faster resu lts. Thanks again for everything, Tim! -Ben Reply Tim Ferriss August 3rd, 2009, 6:49 pm

Ben, thanks so much for the awesome feedback! Totally made my day :) Keep up the great work, Tim Reply Terrance August 3rd, 2009, 4:41 pm could change the atmos

I believe that even a simplified form of this speed reading phere and attitude of most public high schools.

Perhaps 80%of the foundation of learning is READING and learning to read well ca n change every thing for a young person. Good vocabulary and reading/comprehension speed can make ALL the difference in a young person s life of learning. Thank you Tim for striving for excellence. Reply Rich August 3rd, 2009, 5:00 pm

This Princeton PX Project seems to a bit water down or short cut version of the original Zox Accelerated Learning System Details: http://bit.ly/DtkM1 The website rather loooooong, but this is the orginal source of the speed readin g techniques. It was originally developed in the 70 by retired business Richard Welch. The original program still 33 years later is the best by far. Numerous other peo ple have copied elements of, but ultimately the leave out some of the original t raining techniques, which still work.

Reply Alex August 3rd, 2009, 9:08 pm

Looks awesome. I know a couple people who have a lot of trouble in school becaus e it takes them so long to read. I m going to show this to them next time I see th em (and try it myself of course). Reply Read A Whole Book In Under 3 Hours | Style Through Intelligence , 4:37 am August 4th, 2009

[...] other day I read a blog post by Tim Ferriss (Find it here) on how to speed read using a method called PX. This exercise takes around 20 minutes to complet e [...] kyle timbo! thanks for your thoughtfulness and heart. really. separate question: If you could go back in time and have a conversation with 22 year old tim, what would you try to communicate to him? -or- What is the one thi ng you wish you knew when you were 22? Reply Meena D. August 4th, 2009, 7:58 am August 4th, 2009, 7:48 am

thanks Tim indeed i ve been a poor reader but not any more i assure you. I m gonna m ake sure i make do with this idea you ve given me. It s a great one keep it up ! Meena .. Reply Casey Tim, I spend a lot of time slogging through NASA documents, so this could easily save me hours everyday! First time visiting your site, and you have me hooked. Can I be your side kick? Reply Steve @ Freedom Education Hey Tim, Love the Princeton video. It s the first time I ve seen it and it was really good. I love how you addressed the first question from your own personal experience. Th is video is the real Tim (me thinks) because it s authentic and it s just you speaki ng from the heart. More of us should learn how to do that. Cheers and all the best Tim, August 4th, 2009, 10:56 am August 4th, 2009, 10:11 am

Reply Lou Aarons Tim, Some of the comments are on the mark, e.g. Mark Tennenhouse suggests that minimi zing subvocalization should speed up reading & asks for methods to reduce this silent speech. In looking at this issue, I basically agreed with Edfeldt (Silent speech and silent reading, Chicago, U. Chicago Press, 1960) that subvoclization per se is not diagnostic of reading ability (Aarons, L. Subv ocaliztion: Aural and EMG feedback in reading. (1971) Perceptual and Motor Skill s, 33, 271 306.).. If altering the fine motor controls of eye movements and eventually having good comprehension has been demonstrated (beyond subjective evaluations by the learne r), it would be helpful to cite the studies, It has been my personal belief and feeling that both enjoyment and comprehension of read text requires slower text reading with some wandering of the mind than that available in speed reading. The note on perceptual expansion and the comments on the use of speed reading in foreign languages reminds me of the effects of marginal stimulation use in my J apanese & Spanish language programs. The method used divides auditory input betw een the left & right brain hemispheres while the learner s attention is focused on the foreign word (right ear > left hemisphere) and the simultaneous equivalent native word (left ear >right hemisphere). Most listeners show a right ear advant age hearing the foreign word as clearer, louder, or better tha the native langua ge word (which they may or may not hear consciously. The learner automatically l inks the the two words. Similarly, if an eye fixation controls focal attention, than peripheral (non-focal attention) may be used to absorb the meaning ot the r ead material. Please excuse this somewhat academic analogy. Those interested may take a peek at: https://www.mhprofessional.com/product.php?isbn=0071443517 Reply Chris Weingartner August 5th, 2009, 8:03 am August 4th, 2009, 5:03 pm

Do you have any advice for someone who sub-vocalizes each word and basically see s only one word at a time? (Very slow reader, yet maintained a 3.8 average in a large and respected University) Reply arvind August 5th, 2009, 8:58 am

cool technique Tim! This will really help me to get through my final semester of varsity more easily. Reply Pat August 5th, 2009, 12:48 pm

Although I don t agree with the address of timbo I would be quite interested in what you have to offer in short form to this question. Reply Larry August 5th, 2009, 2:21 pm

This is intense. I did the exercises in about 25 minutes yesterday, and spent ab out an hour reading afterward. In the reading afterward it was a struggle to rea d faster and comprehend, and I was skeptical about any lasting effect. Today whe n I sat down to retry the exercises and conditioning I found myself comprehendin g quite a bit of what I was scanning at the exercise speed. Even at 2-3 lines pe r second I was picking up most of what I read, even while consciously trying not to bother with comprehension. So: amazing. Thanks so much for posting this! Reply Karan April 8th, 2012, 4:18 am

AWESOME!!! Reply Natalie Michelson August 5th, 2009, 2:42 pm

Haha, it s my dream to be able to read so fast, and a lot of people have told me a bout speed reading but never really gave me the tips on how to get started with it. Thanks for these suggestions! I ll give them a try and see how it goes :) Reply Benjamin Lonchar Great post Tim, This is great I have a few books I have been wanting to read but am still readin g The World is Flat (great book). I should be able to finish that up any day now and get moving on the others. Thanks again Tim Reply scoobydubido August 6th, 2009, 11:29 am August 5th, 2009, 3:30 pm

DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF WITH COMPREHENSION??? doesnt work for medical books thou !!!! Reply Heather Martinson Hi Tim! I just listened to your Ted talk and am responding to your invitation at the end . I didn t find any of your blogs that talk about education, so I don t have an idea what point you re at now, but I would love to share with you where I am. I m coming from completely outside school systems homeschooling. The lessons that public schools can learn from homeschooling are tremendous. You know, we don t hav e to appeal to the government to try something new. If we want to re-tool, we ca n be up and running with a new program in 10 minutes. We have learned so much, t hat it really is a shame that classroom children are being left behind. Here s a list of myths that society holds on to so dearly: August 6th, 2009, 4:03 pm

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Children can only learn from credentialed teachers. More words means higher intelligence. More desk time means more learning. Passed tests means learning happened. More schooling equals more success. Learning is hard, boring work

I have explanations and examples for each of these myths. I have started a schoo l where children have the amazing opportunity to teach themselves. Reply Bert Heaton Hi Tim, Great stuff. I am of course biased, but believe that the best way to dramaticall y increase your reading speed and comprehension is with PhotoReading, a techniqu e developed over 30 years ago by Paul Scheele, founder of Learning Strategies. M illions of people have bought the book, purchased the home study course or taken one of our classes. Bert Reply Chadwick August 7th, 2009, 9:24 am August 7th, 2009, 9:23 am

Tried it and doubled my speed from 210 to 420 the first time. Not a bad start. I think with practice and persistence, anything is possible. Reply Jerry Sablo August 7th, 2009, 5:05 pm

I m a little confused. Chris Weingartner s situation is similar to mine, coming from a background of 28 y ears proofreading. I read every word, and I m tired of hearing myself! How can I tu rn my voice off? The other part I have a question with is what Lou Aarons refers to: I basically agreed with Edfeldt (Silent speech and silent reading, Chicago, U. C hicago Press, 1960) that subvoclization per se is not diagnostic of reading abil ity (Aarons, L. Subvocaliztion: Aural and EMG feedback in reading. (1971) Percep tual and Motor Skills, 33, 271 306.). Are we talking about reading speed, and not reading ability? Anyway, Tim, thank you for you post. Now I will have to get your book, 4WWW. Reply ami ronalds August 8th, 2009, 1:08 am

thanks for the nice piece of information. Reply

Henry Barth

August 9th, 2009, 5:17 am

Thanks, now that I can read faster I ll have to buy three to four times as many bo oks. There should be a federal cash for books Reply Tim Rosanelli Excellent Tim, I took a speed reading course before that outlined these exact technique and inc rease my reading from 250wpm to 900 wpm on written materials. These results are great, but I noticed a dramatic decrease in speed when reading materials on a co mputer screen. Do you have any tips for increasing the speed on computer reading (I instantly g o from 900wpm to 500wpm, Try it out.)? I noticed a few things myself. Usually bo oks, I am able to read with two fixations per line but since the words on the co mputer are larger each fixation appears to encompass less words, therefore, grea tly decreasing my speed. I also noticed a decrease in speed because of the pagin g down a page. Any Advice? Maybe, a good topic for a future article. It seems that all of these speed reading courses are for books and they seem to ignore the fact that peopl e read more and more on computer screens. Reply Miles August 9th, 2009, 10:38 am August 9th, 2009, 9:04 am program.

Tim, have you tried out any of the software products that help you read faster o n the computer? RapidReader (thick client) and Reasy Reader (Firefox plugin) are my two favorites. More at http://mileslasater.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/reading-quickly-through-tec hnology/ Anyone know of a piece of software that assists you in learning to read books fa ster? Miles Reply Suresh Kannan Hey Tim Congratulations!!! You really have the balance. Health, Wealth, Happiness, Money and Relationships. It would nt have come all of a sudden. Somewhere, it must have started in this direction a mentor or a book when you were really young isn t it. Can you tell us when or who was that triggered you to unlock this Unknown Stupe ndous Human Potential. Regards Suresh K August 9th, 2009, 12:08 pm

Reply W. D. Terrell August 9th, 2009, 4:21 pm

The program is sound. The only limitation of success is the reluctance of some t o be skeptical. Having successfully taught the similar Evelyn Wood Reading Dynam ics program over 50 years ago I can attest to the benefit when one follows the d irections without question. I had one exceptional student in grad school who rea d scientific texts as fast as he could turn the pages with excellent comprehensi on. The key to success with technical material is having a sound understanding o f the vocabulary and terms used in the particular discipline. I personally read Michener s The Source in 25 minutes over 50 years ago and can still relate the stor y anytime, including the description of the main characters. The imagery can be even more vivid when reading prose and poetry. This technique should be taught i n every school in the country. Reply Tim Rosanelli Okay Miles, I checked out the software plugin for Firefox and tried it out. It s a great tool. I need to check it out a bit but this looks like what I m looking for. Tim Reply Michael Pearson Tim, Are you affiliated with Derren? He uses your text and PX Project spiel as his ow n, but seems to be using the technique that avoids mental or subconscious vocali sation mentioned above in comments, rather than what seems to be the core of you r approach. http://derrenbrownart.com/blog/2009/08/scientific-speed-reading-read-300-faster20-minutes/ Keep up the great work, Michael Reply vinayak kamath Tim The do not daydream bit is very critical to me Have you seen people with attention deficit conditions improve speed and more importantly concentration? How about d yslexics, any experience with them? Vinayak PS. I read the 4 hour workweek last year and it inspired me to take off backpack ing in Europe for a month. Reply August 10th, 2009, 3:04 pm August 10th, 2009, 11:20 am August 10th, 2009, 7:44 am

Mohit Soni

August 10th, 2009, 9:34 pm

After reading the article, I doubled my reading speed from 300wpm to 600wpm. I ll thrive to increase it. Thanks Tim! Reply Jason August 11th, 2009, 12:19 am

Excellent Tim, I tried this in high school but just couldn t/wouldn t let go. So I ve been reading ar ound 250 wpm for years. Painful. At the end of PX Project I was up to 910 wpm. My comprehension is a bit still a bit shaky but with work I know it will improve dramatically and if not I can just read it again in my spare time. Hey, one nice instant improvement I just busted through 180 comments in record t ime (for me anyway) normally I glaze over before the end. Two thoughts: If you vocalize like I do force your tongue to stay still. Put the tip on the ro of of your mouth or behind your teeth. Then read faster than you can speak. Ther e is a point where the voice just gives in. And oh yeah don t daydream Second for reading digital materials. Try increasing the zoom level (of the brow ser or the application) to 150% or 200% whatever works for you. I find that if t he text is too small I lose track of the next line plus the eyestrain gets to be too much. Thank you, Jason Reply Keith Roberson August 11th, 2009, 7:29 am

Speedreading is very much like watching a film in fast forward. It works well in subjects, like nonfiction, where timing and nuance are less imp ortant to deep comprehension. Watching a film in FF, is great for (Sometimes its even better ) scanning scenes, and general action.

But if you re REALLY interested in comprehension, then you MUST slow down and repl ay the events at a slower speed. There is more going on in my brain, then simply decoding the words. I am simulating the actors in the scene. I visualize it in real time, giving the actors their dignity in timing and nuance. Scanning can certainly help you spot the parts to focus on for simulation. But, Just as when we want to analyze a film, in order to analyze the greatest am ount of detail and subtlety, we watch the scene in SLO-MO.

I guess if your word memory is very good, you can replay the scene in your mind without re-reading the text. But I have a hard time, especially considering the subtlety of word-play and spo ken timing within dialogue, believing that you can read dialogue at high speed, and still get all the nuance and subtlety an actor would bring to his spoken dia logue. By slowing down, I allow my mind to fill-in much of the missing detail of the sc ene, and I can emulate the actor, emotional pauses, even his intentions, etc, mo re effectively. My brain builds a much richer story via simulation and emulation of the scenes and minds of the actors. By doing so, I increase my comprehension. Reply Russ Hey; I tried this for five minutes or so and seemed to read at about 600wpm with full comprehension. Unfortunately, it left me with what feels like motion sickness l ight headache and nausea so I think I ll stick to trundling along at 300wpm and sk ipping the dull bits. I mostly read for pleasure anyway and don t often find myself having to process a stack of papers in a short time. Interesting though! I was linked here from http://derrenbrownart.com/blog/2009/0 8/scientific-speed-reading-read-300-faster-20-minutes/ btw. Reply Jonathan Franzone August 11th, 2009, 8:14 am August 11th, 2009, 8:06 am

That is a very interesting technique for improving reading speed and comprehensi on. I ll definitely be giving this a try. Thanks, Tim! Reply danielmeieriscrazy August 11th, 2009, 11:19 am

Thanks, I have been meaning to do this for awhile, I was going to listen to the audiobook again and take notes on this section, but now i don t have to! Reply John Thomas August 12th, 2009, 4:47 am

non-speeding reading (MASSIVE regression to double-check comprehension) WPM = 13 0 wpm yikes. speed reading, partial comprehension, max speed WPM = 812 wpm. A Whopping 624% speed increase. Yippeee!! This ll come in handy. I already differe ntiated from a thorough reading (very slow, high comprehension) and a skim reading f ast (but certainly not this fast) and lower comprehension. This technique probab ly tripled or quadrupled my speed/skim-reading mode while maintaining the same l evel of comprehension and partially increased thorough reading wpm speed as well

. Grazie. Cheers! Reply John Thomas August 12th, 2009, 5:02 am

Just wanted to reiterate how awesome I think this approach is. I love how it emp loys: Fixation Elimination/Mitigation Regression Elimination/Mitigation Peripheral Vision Maximization/Utilization And implicitly the Time Constraint on reading is very comforting. I ve liked audio books because of their set time (avoiding regression and fixation that can caus e certain readings to be unexpectedly long). So Having a set reading time ensure s elimination of such regression-fixation hangups, stalls, and delays and create s smoother more ETA capable reading .. cool! Reply Philosophy, Technology and Math Blog Archive 11 Ways to Make Your Brain Stronger August 12th, 2009, 1:04 pm [...] at speed reading, and making yourself read faster. Need help? Check out th ese simple instruction to improve by 100% in 20 minutes and then download this P DF document and read [...] Ben Elgar-White August 13th, 2009, 2:39 am

Ok, i posted a while ago somewhat skeptical right after the exercise, but now im using this to read mostly semi-technicle books (i.e. astronomy in the middle ea st) which requires occasionally stopping to work out a basic equation, but im st ill reading about 250wpm with total comprehension, more than double what i did b efore, with practice i hope to get to around 600 for non technicle books. thanks tim, this article got me doing something ive been meaning to for a long t ime. Ben Reply GaryK August 13th, 2009, 8:13 am

Happened to find your blog from a new follower in Twitter and I got to say love how social media can let you come across inspiring articles.You got me trying th e technique and I hope I can read PC articles faster with the technique.Thanks T im, for the inspiration today. Reply Daniel August 13th, 2009, 8:50 am

Tim and All Apologies if this has already been covered too many posts to read (at my current speed anyway :) but I m curious: how does the technique translate to pages of dif ferent size and format? given that it relies partially on muscle memory of the e yes how can it?

For example, if you develop the technique by practicing with a small book won t yo u have to relearn the technique to speed-read text that spans the width of a 24 inch computer monitor? Seems like there would necessarily be a curve to overcome every time you encounter material that is formatted differently than your train ing text . . . Thanks! Daniel ps. Tim- I d venture you re familiar with the Gunning fog index Do you know what the index number was for the material you trained/taught on? Was there a standard f og index for the PX project? Reply Michael Kozakewich August 14th, 2009, 4:43 am

I spent Sunday speed-reading some stuff, and I think it drained me for the next couple days. Since then, I ve been able to keep up 1000 WPM fairly easily. It s a ma tter of getting into the groove, and not letting your mind wander. I set the font-size way up, squish all the text into a window about four inches across, and set it to scroll at about 1000 WPM, and I can manage to cascade down the text relatively fine as it scrolls. It s hard to learn things like that, but I can go even faster for things I already know, like blog posts about topics I m f amiliar with. Reply Eli Baker August 14th, 2009, 7:57 am

Woody Allan took a course in speed reading. He read War and Peace in one hour he s ays it s about Russia! Reply race42008.com Blog Archive Friday Diversion August 14th, 2009, 9:47 am

[...] I ran across this interesting item linked at Marginal Revolution. It clai ms to teach you to speed read in 20 minutes (up to a 300% increase). It s a fun exe rcise, so check out his technique. [...] Deodoro August 16th, 2009, 7:31 am

Hi, would you mind if I translate this to portuguese and post it in a blog (and link it back here, of course) ? Reply Tim Ferriss August 18th, 2009, 1:48 pm

Sure! Just be sure to link back for all my Portuguese-speaking friends :) Um abraco, Tim

Reply Daniel Cabral September 5th, 2012, 8:27 am

Totally agree! :D Reply Diego Scataglini August 16th, 2009, 1:35 pm

Hi Tim, great post. For those that would like to practice with online content, I created web based reading pacer @ http://www.eyercize.com It s free and it comes with a bookmarklet. I originally built the tool for myself, because I do most of my reading online a nd speed reading online content is usually much harder then printed material. Th ere is more eyestrain, lower resolution, and a lot more. You can set the tool to exercise all aspects of speed reading and simulate norma l book reading. Most users can t believe how fast they can read and how quickly it happens when th ey are forced to do so. One thing that I like about using the pacer is that I can concentrate on the rea ding and not on the technique. Tim, please give it a try and let me know what you think. Diego Reply Hamish Oudney August 16th, 2009, 8:45 pm

I ve practised these techniques before, and they work fantastically well. The one principle which easily doubled my reading speed immediately, is to read with your eyes, not with your ears. We are still in the habit of reading like we re 10 years old. Our teachers told us to read aloud to the class, and nothing has changed, we re still reading each wor d aloud but not using our voice. We need to learn to shut the internal voice up and let the more efficient sense do the reading. Have this in mind while reading and you ll read faster than ever. When reading on computer, ensure that you have the web page set so that you can see the whole page without having to scroll down. If it s a technical book, firstly you should decide if you need to read the whole book or just one section. How many times have we read the whole book when we cou ld have just read a few select sections? Also, decide what question you re trying to answer, so that you have a purpose for reading. When you have a target, it gives you motivation for reading difficult passages. Thanks for the info Tim Reply

Boris

August 17th, 2009, 3:59 pm

Wow! Just went from 276wpm to 600wpm in the first sitting. I love it. Thanks Tim ! Can t wait to see what a month of practice will do. BTW, in case someone else is looking for a timer, I used Weird Metronome 1.4 fro m download.com. It s small, free, and easy to use (just set it to 60 or 120 bpm). Reply Nick August 17th, 2009, 9:17 pm

Thank you so much! I just went from 345wpm to 1000 wpm in an hour!! Reply Anne Marie August 18th, 2009, 6:23 pm

yeahhh just went from 330 words per min to 980 words per min. Should have read a ll of the Omnivore s Dilemma (practice book) like this. Reply exapted August 19th, 2009, 12:37 pm

I ve been interested in the human vision system for a while, so this blog post mak es sense to me. I love how simple in concept it is. As a proof-of-concept, I hig hly recommend those who are skeptical or curious to try http://www.spreeder.com/ to read a random blog post that you haven t read yet. I can read so much faster w ith spreeder. I just put a techcrunch post into spreeder and found it really eas y to fully comprehend it at 800 wpm. Reply Lib August 21st, 2009, 10:37 am

I went through the exercise one time, and went from 273 to 806wpm! I ll definitely have to stick with this. Thanks :) Reply Link-a-tron A. Ekerplay and the Personal Legend August 24th, 2009, 2:53 am

[...] ever want to rush through anything EVER again, but oh-so-clever Tim Ferris s has written about learning how to read 300% faster whilst still savouring ever y word and I m anxious to try it out with my new [...] Joornaal August 25th, 2009, 4:39 am

Wow, this really does work. I did not go all the way to 300% but I did improve m y reading speed considerably. Reply Hushpreet August 25th, 2009, 11:33 am

The story told by Sean Ring is brilliant! I for one am really struggling to quiet down that internal voice, does anyone ha ve any tips? Reply Sean Ring August 25th, 2009, 5:57 pm

Hi Hushpreet, Thanks for the kind words. I d definitely try turning the book upside down and running your finger across the page while following it with your eyes. It ll feel like nothing s getting done. And that s how it s supposed to feel. Since you have nothing to sound out, it will feel a bit strange the first few times around. Then turn the book right side up and give it a go to see. Rinse and repeat as often as you need, for it takes practic e. Hope that helps. All the best, Sean Reply A Guide to Speed Reading Lone Gunman August 26th, 2009, 2:01 am

[...] PX Project is a single 3-hour cognitive experiment designed to increase your reading speed. Average increases using the technique are apparently in the regi on of 386%. The technique seems to [...] technolitics.com The Untrained Eye: Why Gullibility Sometimes Pays 2009, 2:57 pm August 26th,

[...] no delivery. It was with that skepticism in mind that I dug into Tim Ferri ss article How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes. With grad school looming, a poten tial boost in reading speed seemed well worth a few lost [...] brad August 27th, 2009, 7:48 am

this is great stuff tim. thanks a ton for all the incredible wisdom. best, brad Reply Barry Graham August 30th, 2009, 11:45 am

I tried this today and it seems good, I was distracted rather a lot while doing the exercises because the topic of the pages I randomly chose in the book I rand omly pulled from my book shelf, was eye fixations. While it wasn t talking about s peed reading, it was pretty close. I am not kidding! Here is the question I have for you Tim. When I use the pen and follow the top o f it, the text is blurred. Is that what you are suggesting we do? Or are you sug

gesting that we use the pen to make sure we don t skip lines, but while we are mov ing the pen from the 3rd work on the left to the 3rd word on the right, it doesn t matter if our eyes fix on certain words rather than following the pen exactly? BTW great book, I listened to it on CD, the unabridged version, and I lent it to one of my managers. My only suggestion is to remove the bad language so that pe ople with young children can listen to it without having to worry about them hea ring language we don t want them to use. I also bought the hard copy book as a bac k up now I ve listened to it. I work for a consulting company where we have to be billable 44 hours a week so I am not sure that I can ethically do exactly what y ou suggest, but there were some very helpful ideas in there. Reply Dan Seidman August 30th, 2009, 5:26 pm

These guys plagiarize your post? http://chetday.com/howtoincreasereadingspeed.htm Reply Tim Ferriss Hi Dan, It would certainly seem that way. Based on the Adaptagenix reference, it seems he pulled it off of my first blog (before this one and the new edits). It d be nice t o at least get a link back, but life is too short to chase everyone. I just try and take a few deep breaths, laugh, and move on Thanks for the heads up, though. It s important to be aware of who does this. Cheers! Tim Reply Matthew Cornell September 1st, 2009, 8:34 am September 3rd, 2009, 12:56 am

While reading all of a piece faster is a great goal, a significantly faster *eff ective* rate is possible by selective reading and non-method scanning. I.e., que stion what you want to get out of it, and apply strategy. FYI on-topic link: I m t old my article How to read a lot of books in a short time has helped a lot http:// matthewcornell.org/blog/2006/02/how-to-read-lot-of-books-in-short-time.html Reply Matthew Cornell September 1st, 2009, 8:37 am

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/07/30/speed-reading-and-accelerated-le arning/#comment-47699 While reading all of a piece faster is a great goal, a significantly faster *eff ective* rate is possible by selective reading and non-method scanning. I.e., que stion what you want to get out of it, and apply strategy. FYI on-topic link: I m t old my article How to read a lot of books in a short time has helped a lot [link i n name]

Reply amIT singh September 5th, 2009, 3:12 am

well i have been preparing for many exams to get into a good B school here in In dia this technique to read faster has really helped to read and answer the reading c omprehension section of CAT really quickly i have almost double my reading speed thanks Reply Alexander Mendoza September 6th, 2009, 5:19 pm

Antes de nada, gracias por que desde que lei tu libro mi vida cambio, y no es so lo un modo de hablar. y eso que aun no he encontrado el producto adecuado que vender. sobre este metodo me parece asombroso y me gustaria poder emplearlo y adaptarlo al espaol para ofrecerlo como un producto en internet, si me daria su permiso. gracias por dar lo mejor de si Reply Beka September 7th, 2009, 7:30 am

So this is my first comment way to take off the training wheels :) . I ve had this s itting in my Google Reader until I had about a half hour to practice and try it out I wish I d made time sooner. My reading speed increased from 310 wpm to 650 wpm with adequate comprehension in about 40 min (I went through each step a couple t imes and didn t move on until I d hit the target practice speed). Another great post , Tim! Reply Jure Jesenovec September 8th, 2009, 2:49 pm

Very interesting concept that works in many cases. I use this regularly for read ing through all emails and news, easy reading etc. As I understand the main theory behind this concept is increasing ones recognitio n ability. The reading speed would be limited only with our own personal ability of recognition the semantics at the given density of information flow. Reading insainly complex mathematical equation has extremly high density in comparison t o yesterdays yellow pages. But I must ask you Tim, where is the limit? If I m reading my favorite magazine, I deliberately slow down, take my time, enjoy the lines For all other material I use your suggestions from chapter E in your b ook elliminate :) The book is excellent! WBR, JJ Reply

Antoinette

September 10th, 2009, 10:02 am

I really enjoyed your blog about speed reading training and I have this to share . During the Vietnam war when new draftees were required to be trained and ready a lmost the next day, the US Govt began a test program with elementary schools. My school in rural Virginia happened to be selected and my class was the test subj ect. I was 9 at the time. We sat in a darkened room with the page projected on t he screen in front of us. At first the light showed a paragrapgh at a time and w ent slowly. Then it went down to a line at a time, then a few words, then one wo rd. Once we had mainteained that speed it began to pick up speed. Each session l asted about 30 minutes and after each session we were tested on comprehension, e ven to the point of being asked if specific words were used and how. As you can imagine the class quickly split into several levels of speeds. Suprising though, the comprehension was almost equat to the base line comprehension level (and I know this because the teacher was a friend of the family and they often talked a bout it later). This process went on for the whole semester and then disappeared from the classr om never to be seen again. While as an adult I m not comfortable with how we were used as guinea pigs, I am t hankful for the training. The speed I attained allowed me to do many things I wo uld not have been able to do without it. Standardized tests were much easier, ho mework was less time consuming, etc. The down side is that after years of speed reading I ve had to really work to slow down to read for pleasure- not that I enjo y the book more if read slowly- I just hate having to replenish the reading mate rial supply at such a fast rate! Also- sometimes my friends kid me that I can t ha ve finised the whole book that fast- I just smile and move on to the next book:) So I say to Yale and other nay sayers- this program works but it will not change your basic comprehension levels. If you didn t understand the words before you re ad them- reading them faster won t change that. It will, however, allow you to int ake more information that may, when digested, allow you to increase your underst anding. And it will certainly give you the extra time for looking up new words a nd concepts. Thanks for including the atrticle. I ve printed it out for friends so now I can ge t the books I loan them back faster! Reply Tim Ferriss September 10th, 2009, 3:59 pm

Thanks for the great story! Tim Reply Eryk Banatt September 12th, 2009, 3:06 pm

I raised my reading speed from 426 WPM to 934 WPM in just about a half hour. Tha nks for the help, Tim! I ve tried things like photoreading and other programs that are days long, and this was the fastest and most effective improvement. With much respect, -Eryk Reply

Tom Forese

September 16th, 2009, 8:12 pm ..very helpful.

Tim-thanks for the tip

I read the other day that when the train was being introduced naysayers warned t hat speeds of 40 miles per hour would cause the heart to explode. Progress will always have its critics!!!!!!! When will we see another Tim Ferris book? Tom Reply Tim Ferriss Hi Tom, There is a new edition of 4HWW coming out very shortly. More news soon ;) Pura vida, Tim Reply Andr Branco @Tim I couldn t avoid remembering this quote: I took a speed reading course and read Russia. Woody Allen War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves September 17th, 2009, 7:44 am September 17th, 2009, 8:57 pm

I guess we should not overdo this technique beyond the point where we are still enjoying the reading. =) Best, Andr Reply odin September 17th, 2009, 9:09 pm

This is trully brilliant! Real effective methods that can be put to use immediat ely.Can t wait to try it. Reply Jim Hardin September 22nd, 2009, 5:50 pm

Hi Tim! I just found your blog. Wow there is a lot of cool stuff here. This post on spee d reading is very interesting and I think I am going to put it to the test. I wo uld love to be able to read faster. I have 3 kids and not a lot of time to read books, but if I could read faster I could fit it in. It would be awesome! Reply

durbin

September 26th, 2009, 8:57 pm

you will need to practice technique at 3x the speed of your ultimate target readi ng speed. Thus, if you currently read at 300 wpm and your target reading speed i s 900 wpm, you will need to practice technique at 1,800 words-per-minute That should be 2x or 2,700 wpm, no? Reply Paste Interactive Blog Archive Using Summarize on Mac OSX to Read Faster er 29th, 2009, 8:46 am Septemb

[...] you truncate as much of the text as you like, getting it down to a much mo re scannable size. Like speed reading SummaryService is sucking out all the redu ndant words, transitions, and filler that make text more [...] Dave October 2nd, 2009, 6:02 am

Tim, Very useful information. Thanks. I ve always been frustrated with my reading speed . To learn to read by more than a word at a time, I created a program which I ve n ow turned into http://www.ReadSpeeder.com. It s 100% free and can be used with any text. It will automatically find the natural phrases in text and present these se quentially. The result is you can quickly grasp the meaning of each phrase witho ut having to think of the individual words. Using it feels like the thoughts are lifted from the text directly to your mind. That s how it seems to me, but please give it a try and see what you think. It even comes with a bookmarklet so you c an use ReadSpeeder directly on ANY web page! Plus you can save any text to be re ad later, or to be shared with other users, or to be read on a ReadSpeeder iPhon e app. I created ReadSpeeder because I really enjoy reading but I ve always been s o frustrated with my reading speed. This really has helped me to read faster and understand what I read better, and to end my habit of saying the words in my he ad, and going back and re-reading a passage multiple times. Anyway, if you try i t, I d love to hear what you think. Reply nickriebe October 7th, 2009, 11:24 pm

I agree with Durbin, Isn t the technique practice speed 2,700wpm for a target rate of 900, not 1,800?? nick Reply Rob Hmmm . I tried the exercise, and while my reading did improve, it was more like 30%, ra ther than 300%. I wonder if I ve done something wrong, or if this requires a lot o f practice to get to 300%. I know some of the posts say they went up 300% in one session, but that simply is very very far from my experience. Thanks. October 8th, 2009, 2:00 pm

Reply Andre P October 14th, 2009, 7:06 pm

Wow, Tim! I had looked into lengthy speed reading courses in the past and always thought there was too much of a time investment for something that wasn t proven. Over the past 20 minutes, I went from 252 WPM to 637 WPM with the same comprehe nsion. I wish I had read your book and this blog back when I was in grad school! Reply Thomas October 17th, 2009, 9:11 am

i am wondering how well that works for books/research papers which are more soph isticated (ie. math, physics, computer science). Esp. how well can you remember it? With 3000 words per minute you can probably r ead the whole linear algebra theory in a week ;) Reply Nur October 28th, 2009, 12:47 pm

I just started working in a book shop, and I need to read a lot of books so I ca n recommend them. These techniques would help me expand my repertoire.. (started with 200 wpm ended up with 425 wpm) Thanks Reply Blogg/slaskhink Trning, internet och annat October 29th, 2009, 7:09 am

[...] Troligtvis kommer det inte bli s mycket egen text utan mer funderingar, kor ta meningar och lnkar. Dock kan det vara bra att vara frbered p att det kanske dyke r upp tyngre textstycken. S passa drfr p att lsa Speed Reading. [...] Kyle November 1st, 2009, 7:35 am

WOW! I always read slow and there s a book for school I need to read by tomorrow. Knowing it would take me several hours to finish it at my normal speed, I Google d something along the lines of how to read faster and this game up. I started this exercise at 182 wpm, and within 10-15 minutes doubled my speed to 365 wpm! The best thing is, I do not feel like I have uncovered my full speed potential yet. I think that with some more practice I will be able to read at 400-500 wpm. Thank you Tim!! Reply Louche November 1st, 2009, 9:58 pm

I ve read about this stuff before, though never done these exact technique practic es. I think that it has helped me to skim better in the past. I can t say that the periphery thing has ever helped me much with comprehension speed, and especiall

y cutting off the edges. That just gets me leaving words out and not understandi ng a thing. Why the heck would you begin reading three words in? You just missed three words. Maybe there s something I m not understanding, but you need to explain it better. I always get suspicious when the majority of commenters are full of praise, but for something they re only about to try later, tomorrow, but certainly not yesterd ay or last month. Nonetheless, I will keep working on this. It hasn t improved my reading speech yet. Reply Internalizing & Manifesting What We Read | Smart Boy Designs , 9:47 am November 10th, 2009

[...] has compiled great information in aiding individuals in increased reading speeds. The blog post, Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 M inutes is a great [...] Patrick Thompson November 12th, 2009, 4:22 pm

I just released an iPhone speed reading app called QuickReader. It is currently being featured by Apple on the app store What s Hot list. It is a speed reading eBook reader that works very well with the protocol descri bed in this article. Essentially you follow a guide through the full-page text, similar to using a finger or pen, but in this case the guide is a highlight, a l ong/short underline, or an outline. It allows you to adjust the fixations to one or more fixations per line (called stops in the app) or 1 or more lines per fix ation and you have fine control over the guide speed from 100 to 2000 WPM. The g uide encourages proper tracking, eliminating regressions and back-skipping. And at anytime you can take a speed test to determine your current reading rate. The app comes with 20+ full-length eBooks. You can see a video demo of how it wo rks at quickreader.net/videos. Looking forward to the new edition of 4HWW. All the best, Patrick Reply Juan Abello November 20th, 2009, 1:48 am

Hi, I have tried this technique and it really works, though I have problems doin g it a usual habit: I mean I do it but days later I come back to my usual readin g speed. Please recommend a program to make this part of my normal reading speed . Juan p.s. Tim I love your book it demolished soooo many preconceptions about life Reply Loreal November 25th, 2009, 2:53 pm

This would be excellent if I could stop sub vocalizing. I cannot for the life of

me quiet that internal voice. Any tips? Reply Chad Bozarth November 25th, 2009, 11:38 pm

I have heard one speed reader explain that he sees text as pictures, ie. when he looks at a page he does not audibly read the words in his mind he just sees the word, etc. What do you think about this? Does your method of speed reading invo lve audibly saying the word in your head? Reply Dave November 27th, 2009, 12:22 pm

Loreal, Read by whole phrases. Try http://www.readspeeder.com to learn how. Reply Jack November 28th, 2009, 7:27 pm

It works, alright! However, my speed increased by 188%, not 300% like the title describes but still a very effective way to read in my opinion. Reply Emilio December 3rd, 2009, 3:04 am big picture bit it s kind of hard to get the details.

I feel I understand the PRactice maybe? Reply

[weekly review] How to Get More Done in Less Time | jiveSYSTEMS Blog th, 2009, 11:41 am

December 11

[...] you want to improve your reading speed, you can read this blog post by Tim Ferriss, Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes. I di d not make a 300% improvement, more like 50% increase in both speed and accuracy without [...] 5 Ways on How To Read A Book or Get A Book Read th, 2009, 6:32 pm KickAssLifeStyle.com December 15

[...] Ferriss at FourHourWorkWeek.com has an excellent blog post on scientific s peeding reading. I believe its similar to the Evelyn Wood style of speed reading from the [...] Sam December 22nd, 2009, 2:54 pm

Great read, reminded me alot of when i did Brian Tracy s Acclerated Learning Techn iques Course. The idea s for Speed Reading are so helpful. Sam Reply

Marcus U.

December 22nd, 2009, 7:14 pm

Nice work :) I used an online speed reading program from Fastreaders (www.fastreaders.com) se veral months ago and it helped me read faster. Most of these techniques work but you just have to retrain yourself to read differently. Reply Charles December 28th, 2009, 2:37 pm

Thanks a lot. This works. I improved my reading speed from 396 to 468 words per minute after the 1st test. I am going to train again so as my brain gets used wi th this new technical. ps: I wonder why we don t learn it at school. Reply Noah Fleming January 4th, 2010, 12:41 pm

old post but decided to give it a shot 65% increase for me. First try and increased from 305 to 504 although I m sure my comprehension is way down. I ll def. keep trying and practicing this however. Reply Noah January 5th, 2010, 8:30 am

Just did the exercise again after doing it yesterday. After re-testing I found I was not all the way back to to 305 but faster at arou nd 370. I did the exercises again and finished at 540 35 more wpm than yesterday.

I think I ll keep practicing. If I can read at even 450wpm and comprehend I ll be fl ying Reply Alex January 5th, 2010, 11:13 pm

THANK YOU SO MUCH! i was so slow at reading, 145 wpm or something, and now up in the 400s, this is great! im working on getting to around 500 and above now Reply Noah FLeming Day #3 Started test today with a crazy speed of 468 right out of the gate. Was able to redo the exercises and finish at 612 WPM with pretty good comprehens January 6th, 2010, 12:42 pm

ion. I m going to keep practicing daily and updating my progress here. Reply [anon] January 6th, 2010, 4:37 pm

This is a really great article and I can t wait to start trying it. The problem is I really like listening to audio books but people have told me that it slows my reading speed down. yet on the other hand i heard reading a long with with an a udiobook helps speed and comprehension. What should I do? I love how easy it is to listen to an audiobook when i am on the go but i don t want to hinder me on rea ding faster and comprehending better. Reply Karolien Straetemans January 9th, 2010, 7:32 am

Hi Tim, after procrastinating it for way too long, I ve finally given this a try. I live in Flanders (Belgium) and used the Dutch translation of Peter Senge s The F ifth Discipline (pages 146-150). It took me about 60 minutes (I ve counted after e ach exercise) and it made me read 88% faster. A great accomplishment although it s still far from 300% :-) The difficult part for me was knowing how long one second or half a second takes (reading and counting in your head at the same time is a bitch). I guess the mi stake I made is that at first I did not try out how long 1 second lasts (great c hronometers online though). I suggest you get comfortable with that before you b egin. Question: the book I chose isn t the easiest one around. Although it s these k ind of books I want to use speed reading on. Do you suggest starting out with so mething easy or with the material you really want to read? Thanks for the great book and blog! I really appreciate what you are doing! Reply Noah Fleming January 11th, 2010, 11:47 am

tested today again after a few days of not testing but lots of reading. Started out reading at 416WPM Did the exercises and finished at 624 WPM. So far not finding much consistency in this but seem to be able to keep bumping things up a bit even though I started slower than last week after 3 days of prac ticing. Reply Daniel Lu January 11th, 2010, 4:38 pm

Hmm I tried this but only got 13% increase. I think I m not using my peripheral vi sion. Any ideas on what s could be going wrong? Reply Noah January 14th, 2010, 11:36 am

Made a post about my results on my blog if anyone is interested.

http://noahfleming.com/blog/speed-read-like-rain-man-75-increased-reading-speedin-20-minutes Daniel, that could be. I find I really have to let go and focus to keep up the f aster speeds. I find now that if I m cruising along I almost get into a sort of concentrated zon e but lose it often and spend time trying to get back into it. Reply Read Faster Disconnected Bits January 18th, 2010, 8:32 pm

[...] Have at it. You can also read Timothy Ferris technique as described by the man himself on his blog. Either way, get ready for a whole new way to enjoy read ing. Possibly related posts: (automatically [...] Noah Fleming Tested again Baseline test of 468 After exercises was at 624 Reply varun patwardhen Thanks a lot!! You rock! Reply Eric January 26th, 2010, 9:19 pm January 26th, 2010, 10:16 am January 19th, 2010, 1:39 pm

Wow Tim, thanks for the article! I have been doing the exercises in a sort of sp aced repetition (Before bed, first thing in the morning, mid-day) and have notic ed that my starting speed each time has felt slow but is nearly 3x my original s peed of 188 without any stress. I have increased the speeds from 60bpm a line an d 120bpm a line to 72bpm and 144bpm. Also, I am using a metronome to keep my tempo true. MetronomeOnline.com is a sim ple app that will serve the purpose well. For consistent improvement it is impor tant to have a measurable baseline. If I were preparing a piece of music for spe ed, I wouldn t forgo metronome use. Cheers Reply Aaron McRann January 28th, 2010, 8:54 pm

Wow I m impressed. I started out at 240wpm and after doing the exercises I was at 5 07wpm. And only after a few minutes that s crazy. My guess is that practice will on ly make you faster Reply The Power of Social Media: Seth GODin is GODlike January 29th, 2010, 12:58 am

[...] faster than previous from the help of one of the most influential people i n my life, Tim Ferriss (Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes), and since I am starting up my own Social Media/Web Consulting Firm, I figured I would also had [...] Starting from scratch Self Discipline from Scratch February 3rd, 2010, 2:10 pm

[...] like to bump that number up to 1000. I will do this using a method Tim Fe rris posted on his blog: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/07/30/speed-r eading-and-accelerated-learning/. I won t be putting a date on this one since it should just progress [...] Mor February 12th, 2010, 2:09 am

although I couldn t even read at 1 line per second, let alone comprehend, I persis ted anyway just charging along suspeding pessimism. LUDICROUSLY I improved from 209 wpm to 384 wpm. it felt like I d habituated a faster eye speed, forcing my bra in to keep up with rather than dictate my speed hope this change sticks around as more than an afterglow.. or maybe I could try this exercise briefly before read ing until it becomes natural. thankz dude Reply Malinda February 12th, 2010, 8:47 pm

From 341 to 594. Very nice. Reply Nick Rooney February 12th, 2010, 9:15 pm

Thank you for this article. I am going to try it, and will report back with my r esults I am a very slow reader. :) Reply Guy February 13th, 2010, 3:06 pm

Hmm, an average technique, didn t really work Reply Veronica February 16th, 2010, 8:56 pm

Hi Tim thanks for this AMAZING post! I did the exercise and my wpm increased by 137% I practiced with my neuroscience book (an extremely technical book) and I w as able to retain what I was reading while reading much faster. Your technique m akes perfect sense what you are doing is training your eyes to read more efficient ly. I will do this exercise daily for the next couple of weeks to see how much more I can improve. Thanks again! Veronica

Reply Nathan Hey Tim, After listening to the 4-Hour Workweek audio-book recommended too my as part of my reading material for an internship I am part of I remembered hearing about in creasing reading speed. I looked it up and found this post. The information here is incredibly helpful as a lot of what I m doing requires reading and understandi ng information. I hope you don t mind, but I ve re-posted this on my blog. There s a link at the botto m giving you full credit, and I will happily remove the post if you would prefer ? You re a truly phenomenal person, and your book is amazing! Keep up the good work! Regards, Nathan. Reply Blake W. Tim, I am taking the Earn1K course, and I think you should know that I made you laugh AT LEAST twice the other night. ( **** abandoned us, for one) I am having some difficulty applying the course because I don t have hard technica l skills and I don t have much experience. (I just graduated college and negotiate d a work-to-own for two nearby franchise tax offices. That is going well, but it leaves a lot to be desired in a career.) Because I am so close to a university I think it might be worthwhile to apply th e Earn1K system to teach speed reading. Are you willing to offer any more materi al or insight that might help me be successful?? Remember, I made you laugh. Blake W. Reply Thrive By 25 Tim Ferriss February 22nd, 2010, 6:26 pm February 20th, 2010, 2:40 pm February 19th, 2010, 10:35 pm

[...] best-selling book The 4-Hour Workweek, has a blog that can teach you everyth ing from how to read 300% faster to how to control your Facebook obsession. It s g reat if you re looking to hone your [...] Ishan March 8th, 2010, 3:35 pm but I doubt that :)

I will try to keep this comment short

This is the first time I have come across your blog. I was going to start readin g a new book, which relates to quite a boring subject (PMP). I have tried to rea d this book couple of times eariler, but find myself completely forgetting what I have read, and never progressing beyond first few chapters.

So, I decided that in my first go I will just finish that book very fastly, and worry about comprehending it in second run. That s when I started searching in Goo gle for speed reading, and came across this article. I followed exercises in this article to the tee, and found myself naturally incr easing my reading speed quite a bit. After that, I started reading the book very fastly, with the intention of not co mprehending it. After reading a few chapters, I found that not only had I read those chapters ve ry quickly, surprisingly, I had understood everything and had 100% comprehension . That was quite surprising to me. I again started searching on Google, and came across another article which menti oned that if we read slower than our mind can process information, then we are s ure to not understand most of the stuff. That would be like watching movie in a slow motion. In a nutshell, your speed reading techniques not only increased my reading speed , it also made sure that I was able to comprehend more efficiently, and lesser t ime. Nothing beats that :) Thank You. I am a regular reader now. Heading over to Amazon to try out the book as well. Reply Sandy March 13th, 2010, 3:01 pm

I am a nursing school student and mother-of-two, and completely overwhelmed by m assive amounts of text we are required to read. To add to it, I am not a fan of reading to begin with. It is tedious, and I often have to skip back to the begin ning of a section because I didn t quite comprehend what was written. Tedious, and un-fun, to say the least. Books on speed reading are still books, and they take time to read. Your post is concise and to the point. Thank you!! I tried the assessment exercise, and my eyes are sore (I supposed they didn t get their mini breaks between the skips). My reading speed doubled with about the sa me amount of comprehension. Your post encourages me to keep practicing, and spend less time reading, and mor e time with my girls!! Thanks again! Sandy Wow! My eyes are sore after going through the assessment exercises, and I double d my reading speed, with about the same amount of comprehension!! Reply Adrian Simionescu April 6th, 2010, 12:09 pm

I ve been a reader of your blog for sometime now and I would like to personally gi

ve my thanks to you Tim. You got me interested in improving my skills in reading , comprehension, recall and memory. The thing is I ve always had problems with attention in school. I was only interes ted in certain subjects and things. If they where outside this I had a hard time keeping up. Especially with reading and recall. I thought that is it something wrong with me when it came to reading, keeping a focus and remembering things. W ell I refused to believe in this :D ! I said to myself a couple of years ago tha t there must be an explanation and something that I can do about my problems wit h learning, reading, attention etc. Anyway to put it shortly I started to research and study what was it that gave m e such trouble in these areas and came to find many great sources that helped me ALOT. There are things one can do to improve oneself!!! I accidentally stumbled on your book and loved it. Then I stumbled on your blog through your book and loved it even more :D . I want to say thanks for your blog and book. Have gotten alot of good info and i deas from it. Especially your blog posts like this one which worked like extreme ly flammable stuff that sky rocketed my progress. Not that I am a pyromaniac or something like that, just sky rocketed my progress :) . Thank s again and hope to see more great posts from you! Reply Tim Ferriss April 8th, 2010, 9:46 pm

Thank you so much, Adrian :) Keep up the great progress! Pura vida, Tim Reply Joshua SMITH April 10th, 2010, 8:29 am

The positive side to reading 300% faster is that I cover more during my metro ri de to work. The downside is that now I spend nearly 80 /month more on books. I hope the ipad makes up the difference. Merci pour l article! Reply VASUKi April 19th, 2010, 8:39 am

Thanks! I don t read books just because I don t have time to read. I wanna read a lo t of books. I ll try to implement this. Reply grant spoon April 19th, 2010, 9:01 pm

Tim, youre amazing, latest book is a bible of useful insight. As to speed readin g I ve never been a fast reader, prob well below avg. I can now skim at 600 to 800 w

pm with around 75% accuracy. Full absorption slow reading is probably closer to 450 now. I must say that whil e it is possible, it has been hard work. This yr 2010, I spent a good 30 min + p er day in jan at it with hard won progress. It takes time to retrain not to sub vocalize and to train the mind to capture more. I think you have some good ideas but would caution anyone this is not as easy as you may suggest. A suggestion tr eat this like a sport. you know you could run 10 miles, but you also know you ne ed to practice and get in shape first, no different in reading. It does work, bu t only through persistence and effort. I also recommend researching the low cost software packages out there that DO help. There are some good ones for less tha n $30 Be Well and at peace. Reply Igor Galvo May 9th, 2010, 2:50 pm

Hi, Tim. Just read your book and loved it. I m still implementing and adapting som e stuff, but already on my way to less than 10-hours week! Anyway, i m curious about this method. With long readings (more than 20 pages), i m able to recall info up to one hour latter. But, the day after, i can t really expl ain what i read. I m guessing i d need other techniques you taught on the seminar. To the point: i m trying to have your full lecture. However, i haven t found a link or anything like that so that i can buy it. Is it avaible? Thanks a lot for the inpiration! Reply Mia May 10th, 2010, 2:32 pm

Thank you so much for this wonderful oportunity. I went from about 1 page per mi nute to 2 1/2 pages per minute. Thanks again, Mia Reply Lewis May 14th, 2010, 4:16 am

Hi thanks Tim this is a great article very interesting indeed. I have just estab lished my base line and carried out all the exercises, but I feel like something is missing Is there any more information on this that I can get my hands on? I w ant something really in-depth that I can study and perfect. This, while it is ve ry useful, seems like an overview and it s teasing me to want more information! An y help would be much appreciated! Thanks again! Reply Anon May 19th, 2010, 12:40 am

I love the detail and precision that has been included in a post of this length. I saw people recommending whole books to be read and followed in the matter. Do you go beyond these measures and focus on other resources to control others? An d as Tyler asked what are your thoughts on reading the image? Reply

The ultimate guide to speedreading | Living a successful college life 2010, 2:28 am

May 24th,

[...] to buy his book in order to learn speedreading, he has published the artic le on his blog as well! Please read it here, so I don t need to copy everything (w hich I just don t like). The actual training is [...] JFGrissom Hi Tim, 189 WPM to 369 WPM. Thanks this will be helpful! You rock! Jay Reply Matt Thomas June 4th, 2010, 7:39 am May 25th, 2010, 11:17 pm

Good morning Tim, new reader here, I ve only been aware of your existence for a sh ort time but you seem like a very wise man whom I have very much to learn from i n the coming months. I was wondering though, can these test results really be ac curate? If you re giving yourself 3 times as long in the final test (3 minutes) ve rsus 1 minute in the baseline opening test, wouldn t you obviously read 3 times as much? Granted, your technique did increase my reading speed by over 150 wpm in the short few minutes given but it appeared to be a much larger number when comp ared to the results from reading for one minute in the first test. Wouldn t a more accurate final test call for the same amount of time as the opening test so you r answers aren t automatically a number three times the size of the first one? Reply Tim Ferriss Hi Matt, The last total word count should be divided by 3 to get your wpm rate. Hope that helps! Tim Reply George Patrick Tim, Thanks for posting this. I just read about your post on another forum. Been tryi ng to learn speed reading for the last couple of years but to know avail. Looking forward to reading the post in more detail and doing the exercises. Reply TJ June 11th, 2010, 8:39 am June 10th, 2010, 10:55 pm June 5th, 2010, 6:36 pm

I have been trying your suggestions, but have a question. As a person reads what are they to be thinking while going over the words/sentences? Are they just loo king at the words, single or in groups not sure what to be look at. Thanks, TJ Reply Ken July 14th, 2010, 8:48 am

Hi dear Tim, a friend gave me your book to read just few days ago. Now I have a technique how to be liberated even faster :) Thanks for both ANd this post is superb n awesome! Reply Dennis McGrath Hi Tim, I am always looking for new information to give me inspiration for public speaki ng and reading has always been a limiting factor for me. I will be keen to see h ow your techniques help me and other members of our Toastmasters club. Thanks a million Dennis from Boaters Toastmasters, Christchurch, New Zealand Reply Ryan England July 25th, 2010, 5:19 pm July 24th, 2010, 11:09 pm

I loved your book. I think I ve read it four times in the past year. Outsourcing g alore. You molded my lifestyle. Actually my first idea to make money came direct ly from you, mainly from this post. You taught your speed reading class and made $1500 for 3 hours of work. No one can make that much hourly, especially with a traditional job. But you figured it out and did it while you were still in colle ge. Thank you so much. Reply Alex July 26th, 2010, 6:15 pm

I can t help but feel like I did it wrong. I achieved an increase of 10.71%, which is something, but I think that it s a lot less than what was expected. I m going to try this again tomorrow and see if I can improve. Thank you for uploading this How-To though. I stumbled upon it by accident and i t reminded me of the importance of reading. I ve been having trouble immersing mys elf in a book because I feel like the speed at which I read is too slow for the novel/textbook to really progress. I ll keep practising though. Again, thank you. Reply

Bob Sherman

July 27th, 2010, 11:28 am

As others have noted, sub-vocalization is a major roadblock to faster reading. W hile our minds, when focused, can process thoughts at several thousand words a m inute, our speaking (even thinking the words) can only produce 200 or 300 words a minute. As you mentioned, regression is also a major stumbling block to faster reading. One reason for regression is a wandering mind. Slow reading does not provide the mind with enough new information to keep it occupied. So, your mind wanders and you stop focusing on the text you are reading. Pushing up your reading rate wil l help keep the mind occupied and prevent it from wandering away from the subjec t you are reading about. Your advice to us a tracker or pacer to push your reading rate up actually accom plishes at least these two purposes: 1) Reduces or eliminates regression by providing the mind with enough informatio n to keep it occupied. 2) Reduces sub-vocalization because words are coming in too fast to mentally pro nounce. And, always pushing your limits helps the mind to learn to process more informat ion and improves comprehension. This is why a good speed reading class will prov ide the students with motivation to keep practicing and building their reading s peed even more. Reply Dave Eaves July 28th, 2010, 3:17 am I could immediately notice

I tried the eye lid exercise as you mentioned and wow the separate fixation movements!

I say there are 3 main road-blocks that can hold people back from increasing the ir reading speed: 1) Being to careful with their reading 2) Mouthing words (even with ones lips) while reading 3) Going back to re-read passages of material already read! Thanks, Dave. Reply Shennan T. July 30th, 2010, 7:39 am

I ve just read this article and am anxious to get started on these techniques. I h ave a hard time comprehending what I read so most of the time I m re-reading thing s. Hopefully this will help me in my decision to go back to college. Great artic le. Reply Sam July 30th, 2010, 11:10 pm

I wonder if any of these methods work for older people as well. I am going to tr y and let you know later.

Reply Dan Cugliari August 12th, 2010, 8:07 pm

Quick tip for Pacing: You can use a cheap digital metronome and set it to pace yourself i.e. 50bpm = 1 click per line = average of 500wpm (or 100bpm @ 2 clicks per line give you the same speed. Could have each click as 1 fixation) 60bpm = 600wpm @ 1 click p/line 120bpm = 600bpm @ 2 clicks per line etc etc, be creative That s something that has helped me a lot in pacing my reading and giving me a goo d idea of how fast/slow certain speeds are Reply Michelle August 15th, 2010, 10:51 am

This site is quite interesting to me as I ve been reading (quickly) since grade sc hool with apprehension. I m now 48 years old and still can remember some books tha t I read in the 3rd grade (and a brief description of what it was about). I don t know that I m a speed reader, but I can go through a 400 page book in one afternoo n quite easily. I enjoyed reading the posts here. Thanks! Reply Tim August 17th, 2010, 12:50 pm

Hi Tim, nice name! I tried this, and went from 345 wpm to 772 wpm after the first try. Cant wait to teach myself to go even faster. Reply Fred August 18th, 2010, 9:18 am

Great guide to speed reading. I always wondered how to do it. I ll have to referen ce this on our site to help students study quicker and read better. Reply introspective August 19th, 2010, 1:36 am

This article is great. I am fan of personal development and accelerated reading is one of the biggest personal development goals. This article gave me some info rmation that the books on this subject didn t. Just keep up with good articles abo ut this topic. Reply Stuart Dobson August 19th, 2010, 5:30 pm

I ve been doing this since I read it in Tony Buzan s book about 10 years ago. Thanks

for bringing it to the public arena. These techniques seem to make your brain w ork faster if you keep them up. Only problem is, you become a very impatient per son! Reply Andy in Osaka Tim, A perfect 3x improvement. Why the hell didn t I do it a month ago?! That teaches me a lesson on procrastinat ion. Thanks to your book and the fantastic community that you have nurtured around it , I have been taken out of a slump I have been in for the past year. I feel like myself again. Five years spent high school teaching in Japan made me think that I was screwed for a career back at home. But now the entrepreneurial zest has c ome back in me like my UK student days. Instead of seeing my foreignness as a burden while living here in Japan, I am goin g to create my muse and explore the opportunities it presents. I ll get back to you in a month with progress. Brilliant! Thanks buddy. Andy in Osaka. Reply Gabe August 20th, 2010, 12:51 am August 19th, 2010, 10:11 pm

So after i ve done these exercises once, what s next? How often should I do them, when should I expect getting solid improvements. I ve done them twice now and my increase is 28%. My baseline speed is incredibly slow, 200 wpm. Are these the only exercises that you would recommend doing? You say it s a cursory overview of speed reading techniques. Where can I get a detai led overview? Thanks! Reply Nina August 20th, 2010, 11:36 pm

I was at a conference in Berlin last month where a researcher did a meta-analysi s of all the different techniques for increasing reading speed- they all failed. Reply Lily August 31st, 2010, 12:34 am

Do you think reading too fast is like eating ice cream too fast? Brain Freeze! Reply Robbie September 7th, 2010, 8:37 am

Hi Tim, Thank you, that was an extremely interesting post. It just helped me increase my wpm count by 55%, although I do believe my comprehension is not quite as good a t the faster speed than at my original speed. For the full PX project seminar did the students use these same exercises for 3 hours or were there further more advanced exercises used past the first 20 minut es? If you are doing any seminars or public appearances in the UK then please let us (your UK readers) know. I m a big fan of your work and have found your writing an d videos a great inspiration. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to the n ew book! Thanks again. Reply [anon] September 10th, 2010, 4:10 pm

I tried speed reading but just can t do it. I dont think my eyes are good enough f or this :( Reply Jake September 19th, 2010, 12:40 am

Hey Tim, I am very interested in speed reading like this because I am a high school stude nt taking very rigorous courses, and I admit reading is my largest time-consumer by far. I noticed you said that for study to use this technique to read the ass igned reading 3 times instead of reading 3 assignments in the time it would take to read one. Is this due to a loss of retention while speed reading? I want to make sure I don t sacrifice memorization for speed, as although I have been a slow reader, I have always been excellent at retaining information. If I do lose ret ention, would I end up doing better if I read an assignment twice in order to re tain more while still shaving time off? Reply Gary September 22nd, 2010, 7:53 am

Great blog. I tried the techniques and the posts are very insightful, especially the deaf person not having that &*#$ voice inside one s head to slow down reading . My son has been trying to get me to learn your techniques. And yes, he can be impatient with his Mom and me. I will break out of the audio mode of reading yet ! Reply Brent Van Arsdell September 22nd, 2010, 11:04 pm

My programmer Chris really needs Speed Reading. While we were doing our language learning software development this summer while in Hawaii (We are into the four hour work week and the good life) he spent all summer reading Atlas Shrugged. Now we will have to develop speed reading software for reading Russian!

Keep up the good work. Reply Kumar Gaurav September 25th, 2010, 11:57 am

So Tim, i think its ur nme isn t it! i read article previous year also but did not attempted it but i m in really need of it bcz my classmates r so intelligent that after al l studying less hrs in reading than me they score and even perform better than m e. Can you just help me sending a mail on my this mail id about what to do to incre ase my this slow reading habit. i will definitely try to follow ur words on this web page but other things like how to commit whatever we think how will it be pos sible as i never do what i think really .i always or even daily think of studying whole night as i wish to be 1st in class but i never did not a single time. and this thing always pull me back from what i really wish to be . PLEASE HELP ME AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE>>>I ..I WILL BE WAITING WAITing .. WAiting Waiting waiting and Reply Thaddeus Roth September 30th, 2010, 12:46 am

Interesting What If I do not wish to mark my novel with a black pen? Reply Collin Ferry October 23rd, 2010, 12:42 am

Keep the cap on. Reply James October 20th, 2010, 11:26 pm

This is Great!! I spent less that 15 minutes on your site and In minutes I went from 165 to 330 wpm. Although I m not quite sure if I truly comprehended everything I read in the final step but I m sure with a little practice I ll be OK. This is Awesome! As far as reading for study or comprehension, even when I read at my slowest (normal) speed I always go back and re-read at least 3 times 1st t o kinda scan make sure I know all the words (kinda dumb but..) 2nd. to grasp wha t s going on and 3rd for complete comprehension and retention. It s always worked bu t very time consuming Hopefully Now, I can still do that using your technique. I Bookmark you and comeback in a month or 2 with an update. Reply Justin Cordingley October 29th, 2010, 10:02 am

Sean Ring told a story about a deaf student who read at 1500 wpm because he does n t sound words. Now bear with me here, this is just a thought By looking at the way you would tea ch a deaf person (one who was born that way) to read, and applying that to someo ne who can actually hear, but doing it with a different set of characters, like some made up characters, would it be possible to learn to read without vocalizin g in that different character set? And if so, would that same skill be later tra nsferable to our alphabet? I suppose you might be able to do that while studying braille. Maybe learning a kinesthetic language would have some other positive effect. Well, I guess being able to read in the dark is pretty positive. A note on comprehension: I know you left it open ended here, but on other source s measuring comprehension is done by having a test of details within a book that y ou re supposed to remember. I just find that kind of test silly. It s a test of your ability to remember details, not your ability to comprehend the words, individu ally or as they fit together. I m sure I m not the only one that has a brain that keeps the details it likes, and throws everything else out. Reply Carmen K November 19th, 2010, 12:18 pm

I loved reading this article. I ve always wanted to try reading faster, and heard of speed reading before. Thanks for the great info. Reply Tommy November 19th, 2010, 3:29 pm

Nice article. But I still feel that I understand less when I read faster. Reply Jamie January 12th, 2011, 12:04 pm

I just did these exercises a few times for my new blog. For the blog my brother and I are doing a new life challenge every week and writing about it. If you wan t to see the results go to the site my name links to. You rock Tim! Reply joy January 17th, 2011, 3:45 pm

hey tim, I ve read ur blog and its really helpful. there s just one thing that concerned me m ostHOW TO ELIMINATE WORD READING IN MY MIND? i ve been trying different methods already but it doesnt work.. if you or somebody here could reply as soon as possible, i would be grateful. im catching things up before this week ends my exam. thank you! Reply

Chris

January 18th, 2011, 8:16 pm

Wow this really does work im just a kid but i can read so much faster now my gra des improve and now im so smart thanks tim you are a cool guy Reply fred_jones January 24th, 2011, 4:03 pm

tim, where is the source material for this article. any published data on this m ethod or the 3hr cognitive experiment conducted? Reply Justin January 26th, 2011, 7:01 pm

I know this post is old, but I just did this and increased my speed 460% in 20 m inutes. Tim you are the man! Reply CD January 28th, 2011, 10:29 pm

Hey, I don t mean to be rude, but sincerly, this didn t work for me, and I was dissa pointed that I not only wasted half an hour, but also that I wasn t able to increa se my speed. Reply Jason F. Grissom January 29th, 2011, 10:44 am

Just some food for thought not trying to preach If it didn t work for you, this is pretty simple to reconcile. It didn t work for me the first time I did it, but I went back to it a few times o ver a few different weeks and ended up having great results. If you really want it , practice it Things like this require you to work for it , not it to work for you (Stupid wood stove, give me some heat, then I ll throw in some kindling!) If you don t really instead. want it , move on to something else you do want and work for that

Either way you ll have to work for anything good before it will work for you Reply Joe Mitchell February 14th, 2011, 10:37 am

You are right. If someone is looking for a magic bullet , they should remember that magic is illusion. Magicians work hard to achieve that illusion. Reply Michael February 4th, 2011, 9:05 am

Amazing! I just read Moby Dick in 12 seconds! Reply Brian February 4th, 2011, 3:48 pm

People spend their entire lives teaching themselves to read slowly then expect to unlearn this bad habit in 10 minutes. It s like any other worthwhile exercise you h ave to work for it people. Some have to work harder than others. If it doesn t wor k for you work harder. Reply Andrew Beats February 6th, 2011, 3:06 pm

I have to say that I am hesitant to try and read faster because I think it would affect my enjoyment of what I am reading. For the purpose of completing reading assignments in school I can definitely see the benefit though. As a side note, thanks for introducing me to the word saccadic. I will have to introduce it into m y vocabulary. Reply Daniel February 26th, 2011, 3:34 pm

Thanks a lot for this tutorial. Is this a technique you should practice everyday to improve your reading skills or should you practice with the comprehension re ading. Reply Khushali March 5th, 2011, 9:15 pm

Hello! I would just like to say that I am SO happy that I came across this blog! I just attempted this technique and it helped me raise over 2x my original WPM. I knew I read slow, but this brought it to my attention that I read waay slower than average (111 WPM). I am hoping more practice with this will raise it even more! I was also wondering the same thing as Daniel, should we practice each pie ce of the three sections every time or ? Thank you so much and keep up the good work! Reply Jackie March 22nd, 2011, 8:52 am

I have always been a fast reader but it always came natural to me; I never tried by just reading the first and last few words of a sentence before. I find the c oncept extremely interesting; however it would take a while before I can underst and or comprehend anything using this method! Reply charles April 24th, 2011, 10:23 am

Hi, what would you do to improve more once you ve done the initial steps given her e? I imagine, you can t get to 3000 wpm with just this Reply

Paul Ginns Dear Tim,

May 13th, 2011, 12:32 am

I m running a research programme on gesturing for learning, so was intrigued to se e your arguments about using a pointer (pen or finger) to guide attention as par t of the PX Project. Would you be able to point me to any peer-reviewed papers a bout either the principles underlying the programme, or an randomised controlled trial of the programme itself? Reply Dima Almazov Hi Tim I just tested thoroughly the above exercise. I am f-ing amazed, because doing exactly as you reported, I got these results: Initial wpm: 230 Final wpm: 490 ( and I understood everything ) Thank you!! Dima from Italy Reply alex May 25th, 2011, 12:13 am May 22nd, 2011, 4:51 pm

hey Tim, i experimented on my self earlier when having to read books for school. i was reading 50 pages/h in english (im german), but what i noticed is that i wa sn t able to keep my focus for more than 60 minutes sometimes just 20-30. does it get easier when performed continously? or do you have special tricks? Reply MSD June 2nd, 2011, 1:43 pm

There s some really good ideas here. The only thing I would caution is to use the pen-across-the-paper technique to start yourself off with, but don t use it as a c rutch. I know too many people who have trained themselves too hard with that one tip, and can barely read without it. Reply JJ Speedster June 11th, 2011, 3:45 pm

Awesome pulp fiction reference regarding comment rules. I hope you don t mind if I use it on my own blog! And the advice you give is spot on! So many programs try to sell expensive cours es to teach just simple techniques that anyone can practice at home. Reply

Ashish

June 13th, 2011, 10:52 pm

What a great step by step guide. Loving it. We have to read synopsis and analysi s of more than 100 pages everyday and sometimes many per day. This technique sho uld help us decrease our time at it and increase our efficiencies, in turn. Thanks. Ashish Reply Jonah Hi Tim, That was amazing! I ve been a slow reader my whole life, and I just doubled my WPM in 20 minutes. I assume you ve been a speed-reader for years now do you have to k eep practicing your technique in order to stay fast, or does being speed-reader just become a natural habit over time? If the latter, how long did it take you? Thanks Again, Jonah Reply Joseph July 25th, 2011, 11:30 pm June 16th, 2011, 4:28 pm

Hey Jonah, Practice and with time you will get your speeds up. I teach speed reading and th e only students I find that excel dramatically in one class are those that read 8 hours a day for their jobs. The speed will come with time. Reply Guy July 4th, 2011, 7:09 am this is great for studying, one has m

this technique cuts ones time, in a big way ore time to do much much more! Reply Leelo Bush PhD July 4th, 2011, 4:05 pm

I can see where these techniques will take practice. As one who creates training programs for a Christian coach training school, I read continually. I can see w here these techniques are going to be very helpful to saving time. Thanks for po sting this information. Leelo Bush, PhD Reply Simon July 9th, 2011, 1:13 am

I can type faster than I can read Reply

SJK

July 24th, 2011, 1:59 am

Hi, I will be a Junior in high school after the summer is over. I am a very slow reader and I would like to work on increasing my reading speed. It would help m e not only for reading materials for school, but also for reading for pleasure. I have one question on the technique you ve described. When you said to use a pen as a tracker or pacer and underline the text while maintaining your focus on the tip of the pen, are you suppose to track or follow the tip of the pen with your e yes? If that is the case how does fixation work? Isn t fixation focusing on one pl ace and then jerking your eyes to the next point? If you focus on the tip of the pen, your eyes will naturally follow the pen and it will be more like scanning or skimming the line with your eyes than fixing your eyes on one point than anot her. Reply Joseph July 25th, 2011, 11:27 pm

It s about adjusting the speed of the pen so that you are able to go faster but no t too fast to the point where you are not able to take in the words with compreh ension. Try increasing the speed gradually. I read at about 600wpm but it comes with practice Reply Joseph Hey Tim, This is a great article, being a speed reading instructor, I can vouch for this stuff, it works! Reply kartik August 2nd, 2011, 7:58 am July 25th, 2011, 11:31 pm

Tim, Can I call you guru-gal {meaning teacher in Sanskrit}; and why not because you t aught me so much about how to read. These days I started to feel that I was dysl exic, because I couldn t understand a sentence though it was a very simple sentenc e, which even a below average student could understand easily. Being a topper, I had to perform well to live the expectations of my teacher and my parents. You helped to cope with this problem {though I continue to face this problem a littl e bit}. Thanks a lot for that. But still I need your solutions because the probl em is not yet solved. Hope, you are gonna help me. Yours obedient Reply Paul Kreitz August 2nd, 2011, 6:38 pm

But how does one increase comprehension rate? Does it come naturally with better technique and scanning speed, or are other faculties involved? Reply Joseph August 3rd, 2011, 4:40 am

Comprehension comes with practice. I have gotten my speed up to 600 wpm but it t

ook a lot of practice :) It s well worth it thou Reply Paul Kreitz Thanks! Reply david August 9th, 2011, 12:52 pm August 7th, 2011, 9:09 am

great post thank you now to test this out Reply GabyCR August 25th, 2011, 3:58 am

Hi! This is just to thank you, U didn t change my life because the only person u could change my life was myself, but u show me there was a way. Ur books came into my life when I left everything back in Costa Rica and came to China, to start ever ything all over again, from learning the language to remind myself that my mommy was not around and what do I buy in the supermarket now??? Exciting at the begi nning but when the days start going by without progress u freak out and ask what the hell did I just did? China is difficult but great, and I have the impression from what I read and see that u like it. Hunan, where I live, it s great too, u should try it, it will be nice to seeing u around. Keep going Tim, Pura Vida, Gaby Reply Lily Alex September 8th, 2011, 9:54 am

Wow! That was awesome to read the science behind the speed reading.I have checke d a few sites regarding this topic but couldn t be able to apprehend most of the p oints that were mentioned but I must say your post is certainly very comprehensi ve and it actually works as I have practiced for a short.In short,thanks! Reply asrockw7 September 17th, 2011, 3:56 am

I went from 120 wpm to maybe 200, mostly depends on the text. The first time I t ried it I felt like a genius. Looking back it felt as if I was reading at 350 wp m. I could read groups of words at once. One line only needed two glances. I sud denly just had the urge to drop the pen then I read fluently with good comprehen sion, however it seems to be something I can t really call upon whenever I want to . Maybe some practice would be needed to be able to accomplish my 350 consistently , or at least be my normal speed. If you would add more tips it would really be appreciated. My normal reading seem to be still a word-per-word thing however go tten a lot faster and I still need to exert some effort to achieve 200 wpm from 120.

Reply Robert Hi Tim! This post is very interesting, about your book, there is a version in Spanish? Reply Jyl September 23rd, 2011, 10:19 am September 17th, 2011, 6:17 am

Hi, how many times are you supposed to do the exercises to keep up your reading speed? Every day, before each reading session? Reply Kevin Patrick Tim, I went from reading 300 wpm to 710 wpm! After about 45 minutes of practice. But that was maybe 70% comprehension. I ve settled down to a comfortable 640 wpm, and that seems somewhere like 90-95% comp. Thanks! KP Reply Zeth Addington October 2nd, 2011, 4:05 am September 28th, 2011, 7:26 pm

I just doubled my reading speed! Thanks! Reply James Schudel October 8th, 2011, 2:53 pm

You should make an instructional video on this technique. I re-read it a couple times to understand some of the methods. This is great though. Thanks. Reply Jack October 25th, 2011, 1:47 pm

A ton of fluff, fillers and introductions. I read a lot of this piece and still got nowhere near what you re trying to say, which is probably near the end I guess . This isn t a book; it s the net. Internet articles should be short and straight to the point. No one is going to read all this. Thanks anyway for trying at least. Reply Julius November 4th, 2011, 5:53 pm

Thanks for the information. Now I learned how to read fast I think I can read faster now hehe

than you very much and God Bless

Reply Paulo November 19th, 2011, 9:24 am

Great post. Very inspiring. I m amazed at the results. I ve been practicing this ove r the past months and it s doing wonders. I ve literally found a better new job beca use of this read and reread technique that you mentioned near the end. I m finally being able to understand articles about electronics, science, sports, etc becau se of this. It also increased my ability to make complex structures of phrases t enfold. You should be awarded a prize for this man! Reply Jannet November 23rd, 2011, 6:40 am

Hi guys, does this actually work? like, how quickly could you read before and ho w quickly can you read now? Reply how to beat depression December 19th, 2011, 1:31 pm

I don t know whether it s just me or if perhaps everybody else experiencing problems with your website. It seems like some of the written text within your content a re running off the screen. Can somebody else please comment and let me know if t his is happening to them as well? This could be a issue with my browser because I ve had this happen before. Kudos Reply rosyua Hii Tim, Impressed by the speed reading techniques in your article.. Particularly interested in increasing my visual span.. You have not mentioned , as to how long does it take to develop this skill? How often and and how long one must practice to see a decent result.. Looking forward to your reply.. Rosy Reply Amit Amin February 9th, 2012, 11:03 pm January 15th, 2012, 11:45 pm

Hm Funny how this post is called the science of speed reading, but mentions or re ferences no scientific studies. I really want speed reading to be more than a my th, which is why this post excited me, but after spending a few hours researchin g what literature is available on this topic, it really doesn t seem that convinci ng. That s too bad, people could do with more knowledge in their heads from being able to read faster. Reply Ant March 8th, 2012, 9:17 am

AAAA! why didnt i find this earlier! i have been trawling through research artic les on pubmed and its taking forever. This might actually mean ill get a nights

sleep today. Thanks Reply James March 9th, 2012, 2:47 am

Can i apply this technique to e-books? Reply Madhushan March 9th, 2012, 5:22 am

This system doubled my reading speed. At now I read 600 words per minuite Reply dai March 19th, 2012, 11:45 am

Thank you for the informative tips and exercises. I just started this exercise a nd my eyes become a little sore/numb the next day. A reader has mentioned using a software as a course to keep track of their progress. I wanted to take it furt her so I went ahead and used ace reader. Will let you and everyone know if a pai d software is worth it or just stick to your method. Reply Liam Cavanagh March 24th, 2012, 3:37 pm

Went from 240 to 960. That s huge!! Thanks man!! Reply Ted April 8th, 2012, 11:46 pm

Very, very interesting and detailed points given here. All of your points are we ll explained and specific, unlike most of the speed reading articles which are t oo common and general to read. Should have stumbled your site much earlier! :D Reply Liza April 27th, 2012, 9:56 am

603 to 1575! God I wish I looked at this sooner since I was skeptical about spee d reading and felt like I had to read every single word in my textbook. I have large medical textbooks to read for school. I was on a flight and my carr y-on baggage weighed too much. After removing my book, my bag was 11 pounds ligh ter. I can t wait for school to be over. In the meantime, Tim you ve always inspired me w ith your style of experimentation and pursuit of efficiency. It s really attractiv e and energizing! What are everyone s opinions on using bookstands while speed reading? I still feel my neck cramping and my cervical spine best awkwardly forward. Maybe my head is just too heavy!! Reply

Liza

April 27th, 2012, 10:03 am

Sorry I meant 1275 My goal is to go 1500+ by the time I graduate! Reply Whitebox May 16th, 2012, 2:07 pm

I started up pretty slow. My initial speed was 158 WPM, which is lower than the average. Now I have determined to take it to at least 600WPM and then further. Your article is going to help me a lot, not only in increasing speed, but also t o understand the whole mechanism, which was very informative. Just wish me luck to reach my goal. Reply laura Hi Tim, Speedreading on pdf s and Kindle? Is that possible? Where can I learn this? Reply Cody May 24th, 2012, 11:54 pm May 22nd, 2012, 4:55 pm

Very excited to come across this article and even more excited to utilize these principals now and in the future. Thanks Tim! Reply Prabu Rajasekaran May 27th, 2012, 12:24 am

Oh, well, I increased my reading speed by 175% after reading and following the s trategies in this article. Thank you, Tim, and all of you awesome commenters. Reply Richard Hi Tim, I am taking the LSAT in October and thus I need to read quickly and understand s tructure as well as content. The major issue with the LSAT is the time associate d to read and select the correct answer in the alloted time period, usually unde r a minute per question. Any advise or method that could assist in reading fast but capturing key structural and content indicators. All are welcome to comment. Thanks Reply Luke June 3rd, 2012, 2:04 pm May 31st, 2012, 9:03 am

I am have never been the fastest reader, but I love reading anyway for enjoyment and enlightenment. After doing Tim s simple steps i went from 192 wpm to 328 wpm.

And I will keep on going! Thanks Tim Reply Speed Reader June 27th, 2012, 4:40 am

Great list , thanks for useful info Reply ritesh July 2nd, 2012, 10:34 pm tommorow is my exams .today i started reading ,hope this will help me

thank u so much Reply AH

July 7th, 2012, 10:01 am

I m having trouble figuring out the meaning of when it talks about saccadic moveme nts. If you don t need to read in a straight line what is then the technique? Goin g back and forth? Peering ahead? Just require some clarification. Many thanks Reply Lucy July 9th, 2012, 8:17 pm

Thank you I must try I am 50 years old and I started to read more now that I have more time. Children are all grown and moved out I have a collection of books I w anted to read I will definitely try this. Thanks for posting. Reply Adrianna July 16th, 2012, 11:14 pm

I just did this and it only helped a little. If I m going to increase my wpm by 30 0% I think it s going to take implementing these techniques every day for a couple weeks, not just reading this article and a few pages out of a book. Reply Neco Pagon Hi Tim, This is a very interesting post and I will be implementing it for this summer or what is left of it. I need to step up my game for my final year at law and I m su re that this technique if applied correctly by me will do the trick. Regards, N.P Reply Christopher July 26th, 2012, 12:39 pm July 23rd, 2012, 1:47 pm

This didn t work for me. I really wanted it to work. I don t even know what I m doing wrong. The first time I tested my WPM, I got 418 WPM and after the 20 minute exe rcise, I got 440 WPM. Most people are saying it worked on their first time tryin g this. I think I need a teacher for this. Maybe I ll try it again some other time and see if I have better luck. Reply Christopher July 26th, 2012, 12:39 pm

This didn t work for me. I really wanted it to work. I don t even know what I m doing wrong. The first time I tested my WPM, I got 418 WPM and after the 20 minute exe rcise, I got 440 WPM. Most people are saying it worked on their first time tryin g this. I think I need a teacher for this. Maybe I ll try it again some other time and see if I have better luck. Reply Alex August 10th, 2012, 10:22 am

This worked far better than I was expecting. I have tried to use other speedread ing programs, but because the technique was astronomically different from my own , I had an almost 230 wpm drop. This technique took my 681 wpm reading speed an rocketed it to almost 2500, precisely 2473 wpm. Thanks Tim Reply Alex August 10th, 2012, 10:27 am

I should probably say that I was using this technique for about 7 hours before m y reading speed got above 2200. Reply Jack September 17th, 2012, 1:59 pm

Hey Alex, When you read, do you pronounce every word in your head? Or, after scanning the words by keeping the pace, do the words eventually stay in your memory? Reply randhir Dear Tim, it is good tecnique but fast reading will impact your understanding. Good strugg le to this side but not more useful. i have read about Vivekanand who could read one page just in 2-3 second but abil ity to understand and remember was also there. i am not underestimating your work whatever you did is well thanks, Reply August 11th, 2012, 12:15 am

Gama

August 16th, 2012, 6:53 pm 5k wpm. I can rather smooth developed the brain sees it because movemen ability as one wo

I came to this to read 15k wpm, cause I already read about my brain/eyes do not register as twitches of the eye, but ts to gaze over the article. Because of this, my brain has to register up to entire paragraphs at once. It s like my rd. Reply Dashaun Carter August 18th, 2012, 11:45 am

This is a pretty great article. I ll definitely be using the pointer technique. I also recommend this software called 7 Speed Reading. I have no affiliation with them whatsoever. I did however use this software to increase my reading speed fr om 230 wpm to over 800 wpm in only 30 minutes. I m looking to go even faster. Inte restingly enough, some of the techniques you mentioned are also contained in the software. Reply Enzo August 28th, 2012, 5:53 pm

Awesome post. For practice do you recommend doing the whole exercise regularly o r just the last part using the peripheral drills? Reply Daragh B September 1st, 2012, 8:14 am

What should I do after the first time?? My wpm increased by over 140 wpm but the second time it only increased by 44 wpm can someone please help?? I want to get around 450 wpm I currently read at 341 wpm. Reply Daniel Cabral September 9th, 2012, 7:07 am

Hi Tim, I see this a very popular post with lots of comments so I tried to find the answ er in the comments before asking this and could not find the answer: Would you mind to suggest a daily practice schedule for us? Something like: 1 hour per day or two sets of 30 minutes of practice Obrigado, Daniel Reply Jack September 17th, 2012, 1:47 pm Etc

Hey Tim, For the two minute trial, when using a tracker and pacer, you said to hend the context, just keep the flow. If I m trying to pronounce each ch line in my head, how can I do that, even without comprehending the f the speed is 1, 1/2, 1/4 seconds per line? Are you simply saying to not compre word from ea context, i scan the l

ines and get the most out of it that you can, during the motor exercise, in orde r to eventually pick up every word of every sentence and understand the context, thoroughly, with complete understanding? So, scanning at first just to keep an efficient pace, then words will soon make their way into memory in full comprehe nsion (given we think faster than we read), once the pace is further developed? Thanks, Jack Reply TJ@How-toBeHappy.com September 21st, 2012, 2:28 pm

Thank you Tim! I was in the special classes for reading in elementary school and have always struggle with reading speed. I did these exercises once, and did ge t some results! But I m one of those some people won t be able to comprehend , so I am going to repeat until I do dag-nab-it! This kind of skill will be huge in helping me with research on my blog. Best, TJ Reply Boris spassky September 23rd, 2012, 3:57 am

This is an memory game just like chess . speed reading is really save my time Reply Dr Ali Alkhabti Very nice Reply Shawn October 6th, 2012, 11:54 am September 28th, 2012, 10:26 pm

Thanks Tim! I found these exercises to be very helpful! I was Valedictorian of my class, yet I thought that reading was a struggle for me. However, after trying these metho ds out I found that after spending around half an hour reading comments and comp leting the exercises that my wpm jumped from 228 to 408!! turns out I ve been wast ing a lot of times in the margins and rereading stuff I thought I missed but I s ubconsciously remembered. Reply Christelle October 8th, 2012, 7:09 am

Nice introduction to this technique. I ve always been curious about speed reading so I tried what you teach, I went from 290 to 600wpm, not bad. I d stil like to le arn about Photoreading though. Thanks, Christelle Reply

Nic

October 8th, 2012, 9:02 am

Thank you for the article. I m starting today. Reply Nadeem October 9th, 2012, 7:17 am

This is a great article. I am a college student. I am very slow at reading. A chapter of 30 pages takes a bout 1.5 hours. I m blind in one eye (left). Will this work for me? Thank you Reply Tenzing November 1st, 2012, 8:03 am

Can anyone please tell me if they know of a speed reading course that I can take that teaches Tim s method or is close to it. I find it easier to practice and lea rn in a controlled environment than to time and assign reading material to mysel f at home, Tim if your there any ideas, (I m based in London) although any school close to Tim s method may help. Thanks. Reply Ethan November 9th, 2012, 11:39 am

I already read pretty fast. I m going to test this technique later. Reply Addi November 13th, 2012, 11:24 pm

WOW. so i am a slow reader at 247 wmp and after this i was up to 635wmp! i am re ally exited because i bet if i keep practicing this technique i could get up to 1000!!! thanks! :D Reply Molly November 16th, 2012, 10:35 pm

Amazing! What used to be 290 wpm is now 1010! Thank you so much, this will be gr eat for debate and the SATs! Reply Jeff Beal Hey Tim, Thanks for the advice. You re always the teacher. Keep rockin ! JB November 21st, 2012, 8:33 am

Reply Branded Logos November 22nd, 2012, 4:09 am

Tim, I found your post very useful for me and i am glad to thank you. Regards George Alberto Reply Ali November 26th, 2012, 8:03 am

hi english is my third language and im reading 2 book that are more than 600 page ( english language) every page take me 5-4 min !!! (sometimes i need to use dictionary!) guys do u have any tips to help me improve my speed too ? i mean 5 min per page is just too much! Reply Fabricio Soares December 2nd, 2012, 7:41 pm

HeHello tim , r u a capoeirista ??? I see ur t shirt and that head stand Take care Axe Reply Badass December 5th, 2012, 7:27 am

Hello! Great post Tim, I usualy read like that but I wasn t aware untill I saw you r post. It seemd to me very strange that people always tell me that I read too f ast. Usefull article. Thank you! Reply Rishi December 6th, 2012, 7:23 am going back and re-reading

Went from about 450 to almost 600 wpm . cool The biggest change I found was that there was much less stuff. Reply Richard December 8th, 2012, 9:36 am

Hi. I just want to know how frequent should I practice the exercises mentioned i n this article? Should I practice more than once in a day? Reply linh December 9th, 2012, 4:29 am

Hi every body, I am very interested in the method speedreading I wonder if any course to teach about this?

Reply Sonia December 9th, 2012, 11:12 am

I ve been using your speed reading tips since I first read your book. One of the b est time-savers I ve implemented over the years. I don t know what my wpm is, but it doesn t matter. I just know I m able to read something faster whenever I want. Reply Jeff Bartel December 24th, 2012, 5:33 pm

I went from ~342 wpm to ~418 wpm. I was skeptical at first and even more so now, but I m wondering if it s my fault. I was going slightly slower than 1/2 sec/line on the speed portions, but I was at the same time picking up on many of the words. Should I have picked up my speed and disregarded understanding any of the words, just focusing on the area just above the tip of my pencil? I m confused, because for 1) on the first part Tim says DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF WIT H COMPREHENSION. but in the same paragraph says Read, but under no circumstances s hould you take longer than 1 second per line. Which is it? Try to understand as much as permitted under time restraints or foc us PURELY on speed in these drills? Reply Marcela January 4th, 2013, 8:38 am

Same question here any tips would be apreciated. Reply SR December 25th, 2012, 9:38 am

Tim, I just started digging into your book its fantastic, unfotrunately I am a slo w reader When I came across your speed reading excersises I jumped right on it. Tw o questions: 1) I always seem to read to myself and after practicing the excersises that voic e just seemed to read faster kind of feeling like a sprint and almost becoming exh austing any suggestions here (obviously this sounds pretty out there). 2) My WPM definitely improved nearly doubling and although I was able to compreh end the general message of the text, I feel I missed some important details how of ten do you suggest practicing these excersises to truely be able to master speed reading and comprehend everything you have read? Reply Brian C December 31st, 2012, 1:07 pm

Just completed my first go-through, and I only marked up 275% :( (thank you!) Reply Geoff January 1st, 2013, 10:07 am

As embarrassed as I am about my baseline and even my subsequent reading speed, I

feel I should post and thank you Tim. Although I have an IQ of 140 (genuinely tested, not some BS internet test), I ha ve a VERY bad reading and writing ability. I m pretty dyslexic (Baseline of 162 words a minute) but have been able to hugely increase my reading, although still a drop for an average person, my reading is now around 260ish WPM. Loads of people might laugh, but I just want to say Thanks Tim. Really appreciat e it. For those that laughed, well done, you can read faster than me. You should be pr oud and make the most of it. I stay up an additional 3 hours a day to make up fo r it (thanks for the Sleep Hack in 4HB Tim!!!). Reply Ryan January 17th, 2013, 10:09 am

Keep it up man! your wpm now is a huge step up from before, don t feel embarrassed , an improvement is an improvement, no matter what.. Reply Kumar January 4th, 2013, 9:33 pm

It would be helpful, if you post a video for this excerise in youtube. It will b e helpful for evey one. Reply Lars hi Tim thanks for your inspirational work (your books, your blogs, your videos )! in addition to faster reading, do you have any tips for better comprehension, an d especially, better memorization of texts? Lars Reply Ryan January 17th, 2013, 10:07 am January 6th, 2013, 1:23 pm

My wpm before this was 299, after doing each exercise through once, I was able t o read 572 wpm. Not as high as some, but I was impressed. I m doing this to help s peed up the limited time I have to read a novel for school. I assume my wpm time will increase the more I practice these exercises? Thank you! -Ryan Reply Vik January 21st, 2013, 1:02 pm

K, this works I read faster, but I lack compreshension of what I read, meaning t

hat you have to be 100% focused to really understand what you read, isn t there a method to be focused, also ? Reply alex January 22nd, 2013, 2:04 pm

GREAT my normal wpm is 275-ish i was already a reasonable speed reader with a 800-ish wpm when i tried after this my wpm is 1100-ish when i speed read HELPED LOADS I RECOMMEND THIS TO ALL WHO WISH TO SPEED READ Reply Abhishek January 23rd, 2013, 12:29 am

Wow! 63% improvement after just 20 mins been trying to improve my reading speed for ages without tangible results and no w for mins of effort I have this to show.. But i don t want to stop here.. how can I further accelerate cognition? does anyone know some resources for that? Reply ECS January 24th, 2013, 12:26 pm

Thanks for this! I went from 234 to 494 wpm during the exercise! I read tons of books from the library, so I wanted to increase my speed. Reply JK January 25th, 2013, 11:44 pm

Hi! Stumbled across this post, and tried it out since I m SUCH a slow reader. It w as a cool exercise and I improved by just a little. (Admittedly I did the exerci ses a bit lazily.) But what I want to ask is, in using this new technique, I find it kind of tireso me. A feeling as if I m holding my breath. I can t imagine getting through a whole b ook reading this way. Any suggestions as to what I m doing wrong? Reply Jarred January 26th, 2013, 11:36 pm

Maybe I didn t do this right, or just need to practice more, but my time increased by 70%, not 300%. And I didn t comprehend half of what I read after I did the tes t. It went from 130 wpm, to 190 wpm read. Or maybe its just because I m Dyslexic ( I really am), and didn t read the instructions right Is there anything else I can p ractice to help with reading for comprehension, and still do it faster? Thanks! Reply Luke Menniss January 28th, 2013, 3:14 am

Glad I did this. 330 wpm to 660 wpm. For a dyspraxic! Reply

Lawson

January 30th, 2013, 10:06 pm

i went from 250 wpm to 616. INSANE!!! Reply joe arrigo February 7th, 2013, 1:43 pm

Years ago I took the Evelyn Wood speed reading course. So I m familiar with the te chnique of forcing yourself to raeding faster, taking in larger swaths of words, and the comprehension comes later. I found this summary somewhat confusing. Reply charles February 10th, 2013, 4:10 pm

Tim, is there any way to improve peripheral vision? I like this article but I ca n t figure out how to read the first 3 words starting in the fourth letter. Readin g the first two while starting in the third is okay, but not the first three. Any tips? Reply Anon February 17th, 2013, 3:24 pm

you will need to practice technique at 3x the speed of your ultimate target readin g speed. Thus, if you currently read at 300 wpm and your target reading speed is 900 wpm, you will need to practice technique at 1,800 words-per-minute Three times 900 is not 1,800 Reply Rich February 19th, 2013, 10:18 am

i really dont understand how exactly i should do it,if its possible please expla in. Reply Krzysztof Byczkowski Hi, Tim! It s my first post on your blog. I want to thank you :) It s the first time I m trying to do something about speed reading. My measured speed rate at the beginning: 2 07wpm. After 20 minutes I can easily read the same book (in my case biography) a t average of 380wpm with relatively the same comprehension (sometimes I reach ev en 410wpm). It s about 83,5% faster! Thanks to this I want to learn how to read faster. My first goal is to reach 600 wpm, and finally I want to achieve the magic 1000wpm :) It is harder for me to read about 500wpm and above, but with some training I thi nk I can make it :) February 25th, 2013, 5:18 am

Thank you, again! This post made me very interested in this topic :) Reply Alex Lee March 2nd, 2013, 1:59 pm

I went from 156 words-per-minute to 828 wpm, a 430% increase in change. But my q uestion is how do you retain the words you have just read? Practice? :P Reply Lan March 4th, 2013, 6:47 pm

You are my hero. Reply Pratik Dear all Please provide your feedback on the following challenges to help me overcome the m. 1. everytime i start in from the third word i.e. trying to use more of the perip heral vision, i get so conscious that it affects my speed and comprehension nega tively 2. i ve pleatued at around 270 wpm. please help thanks :) Reply Robert March 5th, 2013, 10:38 am March 5th, 2013, 7:48 am

Hi. I have a question. In the end, after this tutorial, do I still have to use a pen as a tracker and pacer or I can read without any tracker just looking at th e text (I am pretty bad at explanations). Any way good job! Reply Eddie March 7th, 2013, 9:22 am

This is the first time someone mentioned the fact that it also increase your rea ding speed on a computer screen. With most of the people reading on either a computer,table or any other device I have up to now newer read something about that point. This is a clear explanation with examples how to increase your reading speed. Thanks for sharing this. Ed Reply Daniel Sandoval March 8th, 2013, 6:08 pm

Great article on speed reading. Thank you Tim for sharing with us. Side note: I m glad that I can scroll through the comments and see intelligent tho

ughts, debate and constructive criticism. Reply Marshall March 16th, 2013, 2:25 am

Thanks,very useful technique . But what if I do not understand the passage after finishing reading it?yes,I can speed up reading,but it means nothing if I did not understand it. Reply bh March 19th, 2013, 10:25 am

too much to read for dyslex Reply joseph March 21st, 2013, 9:04 am

Being in the digital era, are there any techniques that can help for reading on a computer screen? I knwo that the peripheral field training would help but is t here anything else that we can do such as some other method for tracking and pac ing? Reply Al Coleman Tim, This is an incredible article. I really appreciate it. Because this seems to be a drill, is one supposed to use the t just for drilling purposes only? Al Reply Kyle March 22nd, 2013, 7:20 pm pacer forever or is i March 21st, 2013, 12:32 pm

Thanks Tim. You helped not only me, but also many others succeed through speed r eading. I have looked for several months, searching in YouTube and other multime dia websites. None helped me. Thanks once again. Reply Zaine March 24th, 2013, 8:08 pm

All I achieved was an insane headache :( How are we supposed to use the pen? Moving it from left to right while reading a bove it .or leaving it stationary to mark the bottom of the line then read the line? At 2 lines per second my eyes ached and i couldnt even read 1 word per line. Reply Mike Davis March 28th, 2013, 6:20 pm

Amazing. While I only got a 72% increase, that s pretty amazing for 20 minutes. I wi ll go through the steps again as I am very confident that a little more practice will produce a greater result. Thanks! Reply Benny April 1st, 2013, 6:10 am

This will help me with all those textbooks and articles I need to read before ex ams start. You know, cause I ve been busy with 4-Hour Work Week! Thanks Tim! Reply Bibek April 4th, 2013, 3:29 am

well, a brilliant and exciting scientific research. can we later on read the sam e stuff without the user of tracker? it will seems quite boring to read all the time with the tracker for the maintenance of the speed. Thanks for the tip. Reply Raul R April 18th, 2013, 4:41 pm

when it says taking the steps and doing what its asking am i suppose to be rerea ding the same wording over and over or am i continuing reading after i do every exercise? Reply Coach Anne Arvizu April 23rd, 2013, 8:17 am

In today s day and age with time being the most valuable commodity, any technique we can use to shave a few moments here and there is worth doing. ONLY if we use the time we gain by being more efficient towards something important, something that is of value to us. Being quicker so we can cram more busy tasks into our da y is not how to live life. I have been a big fan of 4 Hour Work Week since it fi rst came out. So far I am at 38 Hour Work Week! :-) Reply Michael Snyder April 26th, 2013, 7:09 am

CHALLENGE FOR YOU TIM: HIGH SPEED MORSE CODE RECEPTION 50+ WPM HEAD START: http://www.tasrt.ca/TASRTVersions/TASRT.pdf Report back to me. Mike, KN8J Reply

Tim Walk

April 28th, 2013, 5:44 pm

I loved this! I ve been wanting to speed read for months and this actually helps m e do it with tips that are logical. Thank you! Reply Daniel McClure April 30th, 2013, 8:08 am

Just increased my reading speed approx 283% from 299 wpm to 1144 wpm with this a rticle! Reply blanche May 6th, 2013, 11:39 am

Amazing. I increased my speed by 45%. Is it permanent, or do you have top practi ce the technique over period of time to maintain the increase in speed? If yes, how often to maintain? Thanks, Blanche Reply Juan May 7th, 2013, 8:27 pm

This is amazing. I did not know i could read this fast. Thanks Reply Brendan Iwashko May 13th, 2013, 5:25 pm

Not bad at all 210 to 530 Reply Nicholas May 15th, 2013, 5:39 pm

I would like to say that this DOES WORK. I spent one night practicing, and the n ext day read a novel I had not read before. Previously, the book of its length m ay have taken a day or two to finish, now I finished it in a matter of hours. I went from 228 WPM to 877 WPM. The most encouraging aspect: I could still comprehend the story, the character s m otivations, and appreciate the language. The hardest part was shutting out the voice in the head , or hearing myself speak t he words while I read, that s what slowed me down before. Other than that, I think with further practice, anything is possible. Reply Oscar May 24th, 2013, 8:10 pm

I thought my initial suspicion was vindicated by comparing the control wpm test with the final wpm test. It s not hard to see how you would get different results comparing your natural reading speed with your fastest comprehension rate , but aft er doing the excersises it becomes clear that Read at your fastest comprehension

rate Reply

actually means

Slow Down!

Anurag Jain

May 24th, 2013, 11:03 pm

This is really amazing..Wondering why I didn t look for this earlier..Thanks a lot .. Reply Romuald Brillout May 25th, 2013, 8:21 am

Awesome stuff! I just found a really nice Timer and I m using it to determine the wpm; http://www.timer-tab.com Reply Brett May 30th, 2013, 12:16 pm

Very helpful! Do you have a product you recommend to take it to the next level? Reply dog May 31st, 2013, 11:42 am

approx. the size of a quarter at 8? from reading surface What does 8? Thanks. Reply Tim Ferriss May 31st, 2013, 6:29 pm refer to? Typo? Sorry, I am not English. I lost the line right there.

I m guessing that s supposed to be 8 inches (8?). I ll check out. Reply dog October 29th, 2013, 3:27 pm

Thanks Tim for fixing, However, these two sentences are still not clear: Each of these saccades ends with a fixation, or a temporary snapshot of the text within you focus area (approx. the size of a quarter at 8 inches from reading su rface). Each fixation will last to seconds in the untrained subject. 1st sentence, my guess: Each of these saccades ends with a fixation, or a temporary snapshot of the text within you -> YOUR focus area 2nd sentence: maybe it means for the untrained eye? Just guessing, I have no idea what do you mean by this sentence. English is not my native language, though I assume I have a pretty solid underst anding of it when it comes to even well edited academic texts.

This article still comes up high on Google for the term speed reading, maybe it would be worth editing it thoroughly for the benefit a humankind. Thank you, in the name of the English as a second language crowd.

Hopefully I don t have to come back here asking for meanings sentence after senten ce, edit after edit. I mean I read your book, I had no problem understanding it. ;) Reply Collin June 5th, 2013, 12:20 am

I may be four years late to this party, but I feel this comment is necessary. First off, Tim, thank you so much for this post. I found instant success after c ompleting the exercises. However, my skills can still use more practice and dril ling to reach my pinnacle (the wrestler s mentality hehe). I greatly admire and ap preciate all of the information you post! The knowledge on this site seems to enl ighten me on many subjects and it is all FREE. Secondly, thank you to the four hour community for sharing thoughts ( I loved re ading Sean s comment about the deaf) and providing more insight. Thanks again, Collin Reply Sherif June 16th, 2013, 12:15 pm

We are comparing normal comprehension speed in step 1 to fastest comprehension s peed in step 4. Isin t it better to be comparing fastest comprehension speed at bo th step 1 and step 4? Reply Phil June 20th, 2013, 9:51 am reading by 3x, however I think I killed my comprehension by 5

I increased my speed 0% :(

Need to pause and absorb the information. Reply isaac acheampong June 24th, 2013, 10:47 am

i like reading and also read fast. i sometimes get bored when reading. i want to know how i will not feel dizzy whe n reading. i also needs more books to improve my reading ability. Thank you. Reply Rithesh July 2nd, 2013, 11:31 pm

Hello Tim,

I am really impressed by all of your work. I am following your blog regularly si nce 2 months. I have been a slow reader since my school days and have been attempting to incre ase my speed for a long time now but never could achieve it. After reading this article I took the 20 mins test and this is what I could find . When started I was 161 words per min. When I finished the the drill I was 414 words per min. I was surprised that I achieved a 156% increase in my speed. Really amazed with my self and thank you very much for sharing this. Regards, Rithesh R Reply Julian July 7th, 2013, 10:40 pm

I m going into college next year and think developing this technique will be quite helpful. One thing that s still a bit unclear for me though is the matter of comp rehension. I ve heard that speed reading isn t worth it due to the loss of comprehen sion, that one should read things multiple times if speed reading to make up for comprehension loss, and that speed reading actually increases comprehension. Is one of these correct? Is something else? Any clarification would be much apprec iated :) Reply Ed Caldwell July 11th, 2013, 12:26 am

you just go reading of news paper and software which can improve your skills. Reply Julian ? Reply Sandeep October 14th, 2013, 2:12 am July 22nd, 2013, 5:23 am

I am concerned about Comprehension as well. Can somebody, who has benefited out of this technique, kindly clarify if you are able to understand things perfectly or are you reading at the cost of comprehension. It does not augur well for exa m preparations then. And then what about retention ? If this technique is only a bout reading fast with little comprehension and little retention then the latter would need the same old reading-word-to-word technique. May be I haven t understood the technique because I need more clarity. But someone please help me on this. I have very critical exams coming ahead ! Thank you.

Warm Regards. Sandeep. Reply samuel July 10th, 2013, 4:51 am

i can now read fast Reply Alex July 12th, 2013, 11:08 pm

It took me about 30 to 40 minutes to double my words per minute! Sweet, thanks T im! Reply ping July 14th, 2013, 9:10 pm

This is shit. Reply Yi Taylor July 22nd, 2013, 6:41 pm

Amazing amazing amazinggggg! I almost trippled my rate from 324 to 948 WPM! This is so inspiring! For 20 minutes? I will do the drills everyday for the next one month and I am very excited to see where that will get me. Please do yourself a favor and try this people! Thank you for sharing Timothy! Reply Tim July 23rd, 2013, 6:01 pm

This suprisingly actually works! I went from 110 words per minute to 220 words p er minute. In just 8 minutes or so! And I m not an ad or computer saying this! Reply Moses Grt job Reply Spencer August 3rd, 2013, 11:37 pm August 3rd, 2013, 2:11 pm

Wow! I know most of these websites don t give much detail, but I found this one ve ry detailed and astonishing. I went from 267 WPM to 936 WPM! Thank You so much! :-) Reply Luke August 5th, 2013, 5:21 pm

Anyone else feel like instead of speed-reading they are just bypassing words? I am trying so hard to actually read the entire line but only move my lines from t hree words on the left to three words in on the right, but I think I am actually just skipping words. Glad it is working so well for everyone else!

Reply Aman Hi Tim thanks for your inspirational work (your books, your blogs, your videos )! in addition to faster reading, do you have any tips for better comprehension, an d especially, better memorization of texts? Aman Reply Jacob W August 16th, 2013, 9:10 am August 9th, 2013, 7:06 am

WOW! This is amazing! I can t believe how well it worked! I ve more then doubled my previous reading speeds thanks to this, before I started I was at a pretty slow 231 wpm and now I m at 506 wpm with full comprehension! I wonder if trying this ag ain and repeating the process will increase my speed even more! Reply Simeon Hanks August 17th, 2013, 4:02 pm

Thanks so much for this resource! It provided a great capstone for my introducto ry speed reading blog post http://shanks-blog.com/?p=64 , I hope you don t mind th e pingback :-) Thanks again for all your hard work putting this out for us. Reply Tiffany August 19th, 2013, 3:33 pm

So I m not the fastest reader, but this helped increase my comprehension rate from 220 wpm to 517 wpm. Very satisfied(: Reply Geoffrey Levens, L.Ac. August 20th, 2013, 8:27 pm

Um Evelyn Woods Reading Dynamics-late 60's. Reply Kyle August 21st, 2013, 3:39 pm

Wow, this really works. I cannot believe that I just came across this. I went fr om 350wpm to 760wpm. Reply Carlos August 21st, 2013, 5:32 pm

I don t think I ve ever felt such a wide range of weak and empowered in a 20 minute time span. I m 23 years old, in college for music, and have always been the bottom of the curve because of my below-average 112 WPM. 20 minutes later, I am at 280 and I m repeating the process whenever I can so much as get a magazine in my hand s.

It s AMAZING! And especially fun to read to fast background music, reading a line for every 2 beats, just as a way to keep track of my eyes. I ll be trying with a m etronome soon. Thank you for this gift, Carlos Reply Dennis August 25th, 2013, 5:28 am

Wow, I went from 350 to 620 in just 20 minutes, thanks a lot! Reply Jack Langworthy August 29th, 2013, 3:30 am

Am I crazy or is there a crucial arithmetic error in your section The Protocol ? It says to practice technique at 3x your target reading speed (TRS) and then uses the example of a 900 WPM TRS. Then it recommends practicing at 1800 WPM, which i s only 2xTRS. I believe you meant to use 600 as a TRM example, but it s unclear wh ere the typo is. I love all things 4 hour! Thanks Tim! Reply Jatin September 2nd, 2013, 9:55 am

The technique is really when you are reading the hard copy, but i generally read ebooks, so can you please suggest some tip to improve the speed while reading o n computer. Thanks! Reply Carlos September 7th, 2013, 5:59 pm

The technique is only easier to practice with hard copies, but the act of teachi ng your eyes to scan faster carries over to all reading you will do. A previous post by a Diego Scataglini (please feel free to search his name on th is page with ctrl-f for the full quote) recommends the use of some online softwa re he made himself to exercise these same principles. It uses highlighting inste ad of a pen. http://www.eyercize.com Another interesting one is http://zapreader.com/ It allows you to copy and paste the text OR the link to the article you want to speed-read. Both are excellent tools! Reply Noah September 5th, 2013, 2:32 pm

This might save my butt this year. I m going to be a Junior in highschool, with a heavy schedule ahead of me. I ve never even taken an honors or advanced course, an d yet I ve got two A.Ps on my schedule this year, with A LOT of reading to do. And

that s not even why I m here. i m here because I ve got a book to read, along with othe r summer homework for A.Ps due in 4 days that I ve barely started. Reply Rose L. September 29th, 2013, 5:20 pm

Wow, I m using this technique from now on. I took a reading speed test and went fr om 478 wpm to 1,104 and still got 5 out of 6 comprehension questions right (I mi ssed one question the first time, too. Oh well.) Reply Lisa Pecunia October 5th, 2013, 12:30 pm

I just did these exercises over two days and more than doubled my reading speed. I do think there was a reduction in comprehension, but not by as much as you mi ght expect. I think with practice this will become very handy, because I read a LOT :-) . Thanks Tim. Reply Clytie M, October 6th, 2013, 9:33 pm

I cannot wait to try this out! I am such a slow reader, and I hope this can chan ge that! It sounds like (from other comments) that it does! Reply Ben Hilton October 7th, 2013, 12:00 pm Still my comprehension at the faster speed is crappy

It increased mine by 225% Reply Madision, QLD

October 13th, 2013, 7:26 am

Wow, this is amazing. I did a quick google search, improve reading speed in order to read faster for a tough exam coming up. It honestly works, and I have to say, I expected it not to. I went from 120 words per minute (extremely slow) to 440 words per minute, which is absolutely astounding for me. Thank you for doing thi s! I will definitely be trying this out over and over to continue to improve! :D Reply mutwaly October 14th, 2013, 10:34 am

i could not understand how to do the techniques Reply rola October 17th, 2013, 1:04 pm

It is very useful , but I want name some of books talk about speed reading Reply Kat October 18th, 2013, 6:57 pm

Thanks for this great post! I m just wondering: what s the best way to practice your suggested reading scheme to be the most effective? Ie: how often do I do the 2 min vs 3 mins reading, and then the 1st word, 2nd la st word etc ? Do I repeat the sequence again after I finished the first cycle? Thanks Reply Thiyagarajan.M` October 26th, 2013, 5:06 am

A good evening to you sirs/madam. I am a B.A English literature,final year colle ge student. I have a very will to read many books. But after sometime, I feel sleepy or bore dom after finishing some(few) pages in the book. so, my query is what can I do for this? I want to taste many many lots of books Reply Pat October 28th, 2013, 8:28 pm pls, help me.

I just increased my read speed by almost 75% in just one round of training! Reply Joshua October 30th, 2013, 5:03 pm

Hey thanks so much for the tips and help on how to read faster. I am trying to i ncrease my reading speed and comprehension as I prepare for MCAT. I am finding t hat I am running out of time during my verbal practice. But just in the time I s pent practicing my reading I think that it is helping me. The pen as a ticker is such a great idea. Thank you. Reply David November 9th, 2013, 11:31 pm on The Art of Manliness to draw me in, get the bas into spreeder, it was amazing! Having primed the c article, it helped me get through this longer one it all while practicing the concept. This one was run as it hard far more detail and practical exerc it, thanks for the article!

Brilliant! I read the article ics, then pasted this article ontent with the other shorter quicker, and still comprehend definitely better in the long ises. Beautiful. I ll keep at Reply Jason Kwan

November 10th, 2013, 7:16 am

Nice step by step instruction Using the techniques to read 4HWW LOL Reply

Patrick

November 18th, 2013, 10:13 pm

Trying to speed read this article Reply Klythe November 20th, 2013, 3:00 am

God, i love you! I just increased my wpm by 150% in half an hour, up from 400. A wesome stuff. Reply Subscribe to followup comments via RSS | TrackBack URL See more popular posts Topics 4-Hour Case Studies (45) Automation (7) Dance (3) E-mail Detox (20) Entrepreneur ship (49) Filling the Void (84) Gadgets (14) Geoarbitrage (8) Interviews (28) In vesting (13) Language (13) Low-Information Diet (39) Marketing (50) Mental Perfo rmance (29) Mini-retirements (23) Muse Examples (9) Nonsense (5) Opening the Kim ono OTK (4) Outsourcing Life (16) Physical Performance (39) Practical Philosophy (22) Presentations (3) Protecting Time (12) Quarterly Shipments (2) Random (21) Remote Offices (7) Rockstar Living in (5) Science (1) The 4-Hour Body 4HB (41) T he 4-Hour Chef 4HC (36) The 4-Hour Chef Recipes (1) The Book 4HWW (41) The SlowCarb Diet (4) The Tim Ferriss Experiment TFX (2) Tim Ferriss Book Club (1) Trave l (62) Writing and Blogging (18) Tim on Facebook Tim's Photos and More Vagabondingheader_5.jpg__548230_Home_Run_Baseball_Swing_-_upwaveMy response to So ylent creatorInsideHook SF LaunchInsideHook SF Launch XML Sitemap / WordPress Sitemap / Site Terms of Service / Powered by MediaTemple Copyright 2007 2013 Tim Ferriss. THE 4-HOUR is a registered trademark of Tim Ferriss. All rights reserved.