Some of our readers ask for tips on becoming a more well rounded reader. For example: “I found it harder to read a article that uses words and wording I am not used to. Being unsure about the words makes it even harder when speed reading. Practicing it, should make it easier, so you won’t ever stumble when reading a new subject.” In this post we will try to address several aspects of addressing new subjects.
By simply doing the course and its recommended training you should be able to remember “technically” almost everything you read. You can generate association markers like “this sounds like funny ABC situation”. So you will probably be able to pass a standard retention test pretty quickly. However, whatever you read will not build up your body of knowledge. We assume that you read to learn new things and not just to pass retention test. Then there should be a better way to remember stuff.
To remember complex stuff we can generate a marker dictionary. For each new word we encounter we will learn its sound and its meaning, generate its marker (one we can reuse), and a set of details that may be applicable in several contexts. Do not get me wrong, this is a lot of work. When I learn a new subject it takes me several days to see all the relevant words, and the relevant words for each relevant word, and the meaning of each word, and the relevant details for each marker. By the time I finish with the dictionary itself I probably read an equivalent of 300 pages book and generate a marker structure for it. But now every new article I read within the domain of knowledge finds details ready for linking. The area of knowledge is new no more and can be address like any prior knowledge.
I will try to dive one step deeper into the dictionary structure. Suppose I get a new word like cGMP in a totally new for me area of medicine. First I need to get a simple understanding of what it is. cGMP is a material that calms the blood vessel muscles. So I have a marker of say a hyperventilated “muscle” (strong guy) drinking to calm down. Then I have to remember the word. “Cyclic guanosine monophosphate” is encoded a bicycle (cyclic) bat excrement (guano-sine) with one (mono) match (phosphates were used to make matches). I need also to remember how the word “cGMP” looks. Next I learn more what it does. It regulates the way stuff goes through cellular membrane (e.g. like a dimmer on cell’s wall), it is a messenger for mammalian vision (again, a dimmer) and controls smell perception and some other neural perception. At this point I replace the main marker to dimmer icon, and generate under it an hierarchy of functions (blood muscle relaxation, light dimmer, smell control valve, neural something placeholder). To understand the neural something placeholder I might need more reading that I currently can do, so I register to myself that I will need to reread about it later on. It may take 20 minutes to get just one word right, but the next time I see this word I know A LOT about it. Of course, I may need to modify the word’s marker again as my understanding of the subject goes deeper.
It is very tempting to say “be a superlearner, learn stuff outside your comfort zone”, but the effort involved may prove to be too large. Instead I would recommend to increase your comfort zone gradually and add new areas only if you have very high motivation and sufficient resources to build a new dictionary. As a rule of thumb I need 3 days to learn something entirely new. Do not judge yourself too harsh if learning gets hard: everyone has a learning curve, and each new area has a different learning curve. Eventually you will see that your areas of comfort are as large as the knowledge you get. This means that you are really missing out some great adventures and prepare to venture into unknown.
I’m going through a period similar to when you wanted to devour huge amounts of diverse knowledge (I think it was during your phd).
I’ve been very interested in learning psychology, since I want to gain a clearer understanding of super learning, memory, etc, and how to apply it in various areas of my life.
I tried speed reading “psychology for dummies” (usually, they are great books to start studying a new area), but I think I retained too little. My question is: when reading books regarding a new field of knowledge (be them eigher “for dummies” books or academic books like introduction to psychology) should I read them at about 250wpm WITH subvocalization?
Or is there a way to tackle almost entirely new information even at 500-600wpm?