033: My New Favorite Way to Read

I'm pretty sure I've tried every way there is to read by now, but here's something that I've found to be the most effective, if you're going for maximum productivity and efficiency. Basically what I do is I, listen to the audiobook at twice the speed, while I look at the book and follow along.

And there are so many great things about that. First of all, it combines two senses, seeing and hearing, so you end up with really good comprehension, while being really efficient at the same time. It's kind of like these videos. Imagine if you were only hearing or seeing… It just wouldn't be as effective. So, combining the two senses does magic for comprehension.

Another possibly even more important benefit is that it keeps you in a straight line and keeps you going. So you're not going back and rereading things, you're not taking all kinds of unnecessary breaks and pauses, your eyes aren't running around all the time, and you're not getting distracted every two minutes.

So again, I'm pretty sure I've tried everything at this point, and this is absolutely one of the best and the most effective and efficient ways to read. You can take a book like ‘The Richest Man in Babylon' and finish it in literally only 2 hours. You can take a book like ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People' and finish it in about three and a half hours.

You can basically finish most books in 5 hours, unless you're reading Ayn Rand, in which case, let's be honest, you're screwed no matter what you do. So, let me just address one other thing. Every time I talk about efficiency with reading, someone always points out that, ‘you shouldn't be rushing, you should just enjoy the book.'

And I actually sympathize with that, because I know what it feels like to just relax and read, and I absolutely love that feeling. But at the same time, I don't just read for pleasure. Most of the time, I read with the sole purpose of improving my life, and the more I read, the better my life gets. So, there's absolutely a sense of urgency for me.

Anyway, I really hope you try this out and find it useful. It has definitely been one of the best things I've introduced into my life lately. I don't have some crazy attention span, so I get tired and distracted after a while, but this keeps me going and keeps me focused.

I think I've read one book a day for seven days in a row now, which is something that I definitely wouldn't be able to do, if I wasn't using this method.