Speed Reading For Professionals

Why Speed Reading Skills Are Necessary For Professionals

We use new technologies to ensure our daily workload is manageable and not time-consuming, yet we still find ourselves short of time. Speed reading is a skill that lets you drastically increase your words-per-minute rate and improve or maintain your comprehension level, something that will help you manage your work and your time.

An average reader goes through a 250-word text passage in one minute. Efficient speed readers can read the same text in half the time, or even more quickly. Being able to read faster obviously has several benefits.

Be Ahead of the Pack

Speed reading skills, such as eliminating subvocalization (the tendency to sound out the words in your head or out loud), allow you to process new information faster than average. An immediate implication is that you can stay ahead of new developments, changes, and possible breakthroughs in your field thanks to your ability to read faster.

Speed reading thus lets you keep your edge, no matter how stiff the competition. The professional sphere is a highly competitive one; we’re constantly competing against each other for promotion, status, and better pay. Speed reading lets you stay knowledgeable and relevant, two essential qualities for moving ahead.

Be a Leader not a Follower

Speed reading doesn’t just save you time. It gives you something more valuable, by making knowledge manageable. With speed reading skills you become more efficient professionally as you take less time to read and understand what others take ages to process and study. This gives you a head start when it comes to impressing your boss in terms of productivity.

In the long term, being a speed reader helps you accumulate the knowledge, skills and know-how necessary for assuming more responsibilities and stepping ahead. Speed reading makes continuous education easier and more fun. You'll be discouraged even before you start if you know it will take you weeks to finish a 250-page book, but you'll be confident and eager to learn if you know you can finish it in a single session of a few hours.

Increase Influence, Confidence, and Expertise

Speed reading skills let your work speak for itself. You get to accumulate knowledge faster than the rest of your co-workers and competitors, which increases your influence and the impact your opinion has on others. As a result, knowing more means you become more insightful and ready to act on your knowledge, further increasing your impact as an expert. People start looking up to you and your opinion gains real value. Speed reading makes you stand out in terms of expertise, authority, and credibility.

Increased influence and better interpersonal impact means you start believing more in your abilities and talents, further reinforcing this cycle of personal and professional growth.

Predict, Proact, Prevent

Speed reading makes these three P’s possible. With more knowledge at your fingertips, you possess the wisdom and tools for predicting changes, preventing damage, and taking steps proactively for your own (and your company’s) benefit.

This might seem to be an improbable outcome, but speed reading gives you access to an immense world of resources and knowledge, inaccessible to those who do not have the skill to quickly unlock it.

Boost Career Prospects

Inadvertently or not, with speed reading you get more employment opportunities and increase your career-improvement prospects. With speed reading you are always one step ahead of the rest. You’re the first to learn about the latest game-changing development in your industry and you're fully aware of all the emerging trends. This makes you a priceless asset for any company. Intuitiveness, knowledgeability, and a proactive attitude are sought-after qualities speed reading grants you.

Time for Self-Growth and De-Stressing

A typical professional will go through a number of documents, in print and online, on a daily basis. Speed reading compresses reading time thus freeing your mind to focus on other tasks and projects. What’s more, this extra free time allows you the opportunity to unwind more frequently and for longer periods of time; these extended breaks help you regain composure and avoid burnouts.

Equally important is the fact that speed reading gives you the time to pursue other interests, boost your education, and focus on self-development. One of the best ways to stay current in the job market is to gain new skills and credentials. Having the time to improve your employability and expertise is a luxury, and an advantage that the free time you gain from speed reading gives you.

Achieve your Full Potential

Poor reading skills are often the root cause of why many people don’t even attempt to take up new skills, learn a new craft, or master a second a language. With reading efficiency taken care of, you open up a wide window of opportunities. Mastering speed reading through the elimination of subvocalization and regression also improves your comprehension, which lets you combat information overload. With an accelerated reading speed, information becomes controllable.

With speed reading you form time-efficient reading habits, such as fixation expansion (reading groups of words at once, instead of word for word), and these new habits will supercharge the rate by which your brain processes information. Counterproductive reading habits will no longer stand in your way, and you'll be able to fully realize your potential. No matter your goals and aspirations, the time factor is a major consideration to achieving them, especially if they involve reading about or studying something new. With speed reading skills study sessions are no longer a time-consuming burden.