There’s a few main aspects to speedreading, which include cutting out the sub-vocalising, using a guide, and not backtracking. As with most things it requires practice, but at least its a skill you can develop for free. Here are the techniques in a bit more details:

• Stop Sub-Vocalizing - You might not have realised it, but the vast majority of people say each word in their head when they’re reading. It’s a habit that’s been engrained through years of unknowing practice, but it’s completely unnecessary and does nothing but slows down your reading. If you can stop saying the words in your head as you read them then that’s usually the hardest part – generally you have to force your brain to not have enough time to subvocalise by reading at a fast pace. There’s also a handy (and fun) website called Spreeder.com that will help you practice – just copy and paste the text you want into the box, click ‘play’, and it will display each word individually one after another on the screen, at a rate you choose. Generally 300 words per minute is a good start, and is just about the threshold speed where it gets hard to follow the text, and subvocalise at the same time. So if you try it you’ll probably stop saying the words in your head, as you just don’t have time to.
• Read in Chunks – Rather than reading one word at a time, try looking at a chunk of three or four words – you’ll find with a bit of practice your brain will be able to process the information from larger and larger chunks of text, without having to read each word individualls.
• Don’t Backtrack - When you’re reading fast, it’s tempting to restart sentences again as you feel like you’ve missed a few points. If you practice not going back when you feel like it, then you should start to concentrate more to ensure you get it first time round, and this will help increase the speed of your reading.

As with most things, practice makes perfect, but you will probably find that you can dramatically increase your speed of reading in quite a short amount of time. When practiced a few times it will really help to increase your reading productivity. What’s more, there’s no need to pay hundreds of dollars on a speedreading course, when you’ve got plenty of free material to practice with on the internet! Obviously if you’re reading a heavy text such as a textbook or research article, you’ll probably have to slow down your speed of reading, as they don’t seem to be designed for easy comprehension! Good luck and feel free to submit any comments at the bottom of this page.

Tags: speedread, increase reading, reading productivity, speedreading, speedreader, speedreading tool, speedreading program

Everyone needs to recharge their batteries sooner or later, and having some time away from work is a great way to do just that. In addition, when you return to the work, you’ll find you’re more productive, motivated and will make a more efficient use of your time. I’m not talking about having whole days off though, but make sure that your working day is interspersed with breaks, so you give yourself time to get away from the project and clear your head. You could schedule these breaks in advance, perhaps have a quarter hour off for every two hours work – you could go for a walk round the block, just relax having a hot drink, read a chapter of a book, you can do anything you want. Most importantly, just do something that you will enjoy, and that you instinctively know will be beneficial.

This sounds like common sense, but it’s all too easy to just slog on with work and become less productive. And what’s the end result of being more productive, that you’ll hopefully get more done or have more free time!

Tags: increase productivity, more time off, personal development, break

• Idea 1 – Install the Google toolbar and make use of the bookmarking system it offers. I personally log onto about a dozen or so websites every day, from checking my bank account to logging into website control panels. Instead of typing in a web address every time, clicking “log in” and then entering your username and password, when you’re next on the ‘log in’ page, bookmark the page using the Google bookmarks (or any other web-based bookmark tool of course). Not only does this allow you to access your bookmarks from anywhere on the Internet, but with a click of a button you can be right at the log-in screen for each website you need to check.
• Idea 2 – Are you victim to inbox obsessive compulsive disorder? In other words, do you waste time checking your inbox too often? Unless you’re a support representative that would need to have a very quick email response time, try setting aside a certain portion of your day for answering emails. Don’t even look at your inbox until the time you chose in advance, and when you are answering emails make sure you’re not doing anything else. Basically work when your working and email when your emailing. Duh?!
• Idea 3 - If you regularly check news feeds and the like on the Internet then try using a feed-reader to bring all the news stories together in one place. Rather than having to surf between sites the feed-reader will present them in a single location for you to view whenever you like. Again, set aside a specific time to keep upto date. Google Reader is one such free feed reader where you can enter your favourite RSS feeds and it will bring them together in one place. This will also help you keep abreast with industry developments if you choose to subscribe to feeds related to your industry. Some of you will start thinking I’m paid by Google for all these recommendations I keep making, (I wish!) I’m just grateful for a useful free program when I see one!
• Idea 4 – When working offline, actually work offline and don’t be tempted to go surfing! From my experience if I’ve got to do some paperwork offline, especially when it’s quite menial (eg: tax returns, sorting bank statements etc!) I’m always thinking of new ideas to try with my business and I’m a victim of distracting myself by having a ‘quick’ look online to see if the idea’s viable. Frequently this quick look turns into a longer look! So if you need to work offline and to concentrate doing so, turn off your computer, Internet connection or Wi-Fi to give the task your full attention.
• Idea 5 - Get the systems in place early. With business ambitions, always ‘thing big’ – if you’re aiming for growth in your business (which most new small businesses are) you’ll need to set up systems to cope with this growth. Time invested in automation and setting up labour and time-saving systems is well invested. This allows your business to be more ‘scalable’. As an example, rather than manually creating invoices, look for an automatic invoice creation and CRM system. Once you’ve found one, then integrate it into all your other business processes to avoid duplication, unnecessary typing and flicking back and forth. Lack of capacity and the resultant decline in business performance from stretched resources is a significant business killer that shouldn’t be overlooked. Aim high and get the systems in place.

Okay so there you have it, like I said the ideas above won’t exactly change the world, but they’re definitely a step in the right direction to helping you reclaim back some free time and/or work more effectively. You might also notice a common theme (no, not my affinity for Google applications!) but the theme of COMMITMENT and FULL INVOLVEMENT in a task. Only when a task has your full concentration will you perform your best and will you feel truly happy in your work.

I hope this article has provided some food for thought, feel free to send me a comment if you’ve found it useful or have a question.

Tags: productivity enhancing, business efficiency, productivity, personal development, full commitment

Only the other day I was on the phone to a client who was about to make a purchase from me – something came up however and I was asked if I could call the client back within an hour. As I had just made the call I felt like there was absolutely no need to write a reminder down as it was only within an hour that I had to call them back. Guess what, the reality was that in the course of the following hour I got so absorbed in another project that I completely forgot to call the client back. I had to phone back and apologise the next day, luckily this time the client understood and was still willing to make the purchase, however it could easily have been the other way if they had contracted someone else or changed their mind. In this way, forgetfulness can definitely cost, however if my memory was better or if I had written a reminder, or set an alarm then I wouldn’t have forgotten.

There are two different strands to decreasing forgetfulness. The first is to acknowledge that the human memory is fallible and can always be improved by memory management techniques. I’m sure there are a few lucky individuals out there who never forget a thing (or don’t admit they do!), but I think they must be the exception to the rule, as I’m sure that 99% of people forget even some things at some point. The second strand is to automate the tasks with To-Do lists and CRM systems acting as a backup.

Memory Management Techniques

One method of decreasing your levels of forgetfulness is to attempt to ‘train’ your brain into remembering more things. This is a long-term process, however just ten minutes a day of practise will no doubt help to improve your skills of remembering. The first technique involves mental association – although this sounds like a term used by psychiatrists, it’s quite a simple (and effective) method. I will try and explain this by applying it to the example I gave above (missing a call to a client). Imagine I had just put the phone down after speaking to the client, and we had scheduled another call in an hour or two. First, try and think of something distinct that you will be doing at the time you want to make the call – for example if you’re planning to check your bank account online in an hour, then take a breather, close your eyes, try and relax, and then try and visualise logging onto the bank’s website. Then implant in your mind the notion that when you next see the bank’s website, you will make a call to the client. Visualise actually typing the web address in, and imagine seeing the website and watch yourself remembering what you’ve told yourself to do. Then come out of your visualisation, and when you next go to the website in an hour, you will have mentally programmed this reminder into your brain. Of course this isn’t foolproof, but if you practise it then I’m sure you’ll be surprised by the effectiveness of this technique. It will also help if you choose mental triggers which don’t happen every minute – for example I have successfully used putting the key in the door of my home as one such trigger, and this works really well. If you try it out, feel free to leave a comment below and let me know how it went.

CRM Systems & To-Do Lists

Okay so if it is vitally important for you to remember a task then you need something a little more reliable than memory management techniques. Customer Relationship Management systems and software is available which helps you organise all of your customer details, notes, phone calls, emails, documents etc.. There are a variety of software packages ranging from the free (eg: SugarCRM) to the relatively expensive (eg: Salesforce.com) which will help you automate and record all the information you need to store about your customers. You can also set call reminders, email reminders and much more. Of course a simple to-do list, either online or offline would also suffice for recording tasks to do. I personally just use Google Notebook for my to-do list, as you can access it from any computer, and best of all, it’s free! Whilst not a CRM, the other Google tools (such as their Google Calendar, Contacts within Gmail) are also useful. Whatever you do, in order for the system to be effective and work, it HAS to be in one place, easy to access, and most of all you have to access it regularly. It is no good having multiple to-do lists and a CRM system that you rarely log into, you’ll just get overwhelmed with trying to coordinate the resources – just stick to one or two systems and use them efficiently and regularly.

Over time if you diligently use your CRM software and To-Do lists for the essential tasks, and try and improve your memory for the smaller tasks, this should help to decrease your levels of forgetfulness and make you a more organised, in control person.

Tags: decrease forgetfulness, memory management, crm systems, to do lists, small business, crm