OTHER ARTICLES

what would you do with a time machine?

Hey


What would you do if you had a time machine?

No, this isn’t a ‘travel back in time and kill Hitler’ type of situation. It’s a ‘Hermione time-turner’ situation:

Remember?

She had a device that would turn back time for her, allowing her to attend classes that were scheduled at the same time, and learn twice as much!


And although Hermione’s time turner is out of reach (for now), there is a way for you to maximize your time.

And yes, even squeeze an extra hour out of every hour!


How?

By increasing the speed at which you consume (and process) and write content.

These are 3 of my favorite methods to read and listen to content faster:

  1. Bionic Reading
  2. Tim Ferris's Speed Reading Advice
  3. Increase Podcast/Video Speed


Bionic Reading

Bionic Reading is this new way of presenting digital text that boldens parts of words and sentences, guiding your vision between fixed points.

This is based on the idea that your brain already stores a ton of words.

And by reading 2-3 letters within context, it automatically recognizes what word should be there.

Here’s a paragraph from above processed by the Bionic Reading tool:

Did you speed read through that?!


You can add this extension to your browser and read long articles quicker, process Kindle books, or just copy-paste the text into their online tool.

Tim Ferris's Speed Reading Advice

Years ago, Tim Ferris shared this speed reading technique:

This advice changed the way I read!

And it's super easy to implement:

  1. Use a pacer (pen, finger) to guide your vision across the line.
  2. Cut into the margins of text, so you don’t focus on the first/last 2 words of each line and just read the middle of the page.
  3. Double your reading speed beyond what’s comfortable.
  4. Return to a ‘normal pace’ — higher than your original baseline!


Increase Listening Speed

Instead of watching YouTube videos or listening to podcasts at regular speed, double the speed!


At the start of every week, just increase the speed by 10%, and see how much you still understand.

I’m at 2.2x on most of my podcasts…

And I still retain all of the information, and now get through 220% more content per hour!

Don't tell anyone, but I've even started doing it with some TV shows and bad movies that 'you HAVE to watch!'


We’ll talk about my favorite productivity tools and hacks in our upcoming emails, but for now, check out this week’s Know How on how to write content that can be read faster!