Anthony Metivier's Blog, page 17

What Is Ars Combinatoria? A Detailed Example Using A Memory Wheel

Ars combinatoria is a mental technique that helps with both memory and decision making. The term means the art or technique of combination and is very powerful.

Sometimes called a “thinking machine,” here’s briefly how it works:

You compress larger ideas down into individual letters. These letters are then either referred to purely mentally. Or, as you’ll see, they can be placed on a “memory wheel.”

For example, the letter B might help you compress the word and concept of beneficence. There may be other letters related to B that unpack other large ideas, and the user may need to follow a logical order. Everything depends on the users goals.

To make this technique as clear as possible, including its uses for decision-making, I’ll share a very simple example on this page using a contemporary thought strategy known as W.R.A.P.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cYDm...

Ars Combinatoria: A Short History

The technique likely originates with Ramon Llull, a philosopher who lived between 1232 and 1316. 

Ramon Llull

Its influence is strongly felt and most usefully expounded by the Renaissance memory master, Giordano Bruno.

Note: Sometimes people mistake Bruno’s astronomical diagrams for memory wheels. It’s important to understand that his attempt to help us visualize an infinite universe based on finite solar systems does not necessarily relate to his theories of knowledge and memory.

Although using this critical thinking strategy may involve a “memory wheel,” using one is not strictly necessary. You could also use a traditional Memory Palace.

The point of using such a technique?

Ars combinatoria provides rapid mental access to pre-existing mental content you can use to either follow a process or arrive at optimized conclusions. 

Two example memory wheels that use ars combinatoria.

How to Apply The Ars Combinatoria to Your Learning Journey

The first step is to have a goal.

For example, when Ramon Llull devised the technique, he wanted instant access to information needed to persuade people to adopt Christianity. Since books were heavy and difficult to transport and people are skeptical, it was important to deliver reasonable arguments based on deep familiarity with doctrine. 

And Llull didn’t just want this rapid access for himself. He wanted a specific pattern of reasoning to flourish in the minds of many evangelists. That way, his convictions stood a stronger chance of spreading far and wide.

In Giordano Bruno’s case, Bruno adopts some of the ideas from Llullian ars combinatoria, but applies them more to what we might now call “self help” concepts. 

Perhaps the best book to read for clarity on this is Bruno’s The Seal of Seals. You can listen these conversations with translator Scott Gosnell for more information:

Scott Gosnell Talks About Giordano Bruno

Scott Gosnell On Giordano Bruno And The Composition Of Images

Other Teaching Traditions

Arguably, the arrangement of information into mental memory wheels influenced the development of the textbook. This is a point brought forward by Walter Ong in his study of Petrus Ramus.

You will often see such compressions of information down into different letters in other spiritual and philosophical traditions, such as Advaita Vedanta.

For example, Swami Chinmayanada uses the BMI chart (Body Mind Intellect) to teach how certain mental impressions (vasanas) hold us back from lasting self-realization.

Swami Chinmayanada and the BMI chart show a similar compression of large ideas compressed into a spatial arrangement.

If you watch him teach it, you’ll see that he clearly has it all memorized.

But as Llull imagined people might do, this chart is being used to instruct others towards adopting a particular outcome. The chart allows him to “combine” multiple ideas by extracting meaning from the individual letters as he goes.

Why Ars Combinatoria Is NOT a Memory Palace

Although this technique shares characteristics with the Memory Palace technique, it is ultimately very different.

The main reason is simple:

Anything you would place in a Memory Wheel for “combining” or “recombining” would have already been memorized by the user. This is quite a different application of using spatial memory when compared to something like memorizing the planets.

A Memory Palace, on the other hand, is used to memorized the information placed in the wheel. You then use the wheel to access the information in different ways.

We know this is the case because Giordano Bruno teaches the techniques separately and the “Combinator” is designated as a seal, not a Memory Palace in his memory system. 

A Modern Example Of Ars Combinatoria Using A Memory Wheel

 

Let’s make a very simple memory wheel based on a decision making tool Chip and Dan Heath share in their book, Decisive.

We’ll call this memory wheel our Decision Palace. I’ve used what you’re about to learn often, and I hope you’ll consider building one like this for yourself. 

Here’s exactly how I built and configured mine to help me make decisions better and rapidly identify the best possible solutions, almost purely from memory.

Imagine a circle broken into fourths. Place the letter W at the top, R to the right, A at the bottom and P to the left.

Unlike the Bruno memory wheels, this WRAP outer ring is simplistic.

However, based on what Bruno describes in Thirty Seals, The Seal of Seals and other works I’ve read, the functioning I’m sharing here is accurate in tone, tenor and outcome when it comes to using a self inquiry to reach decisions based on memorized decision metrics.

W means widen your optionsR means reality test assumptionsA means attain distanceP means prepare to fail

To learn more about this decision tool, please check out Decisive, by Dan and Chip Heath.

An Example Memory Wheel

 

My particular wheel is not merely a mental construct. It is a Memory Palace based on the Anzac Square Memorial in Brisbane. 

I could have easily used the circle-like structure of the Bergeron Centre at York University, or “squared this circle” in any number of standard rooms around the world. 

Does the memory wheel have to be based on a real location?

Not necessarily, but since spatial memory practice is so beneficial, why not? 

If you want multiple memory wheels that feature clear and distinct wormholes or portals to other memory wheels in the manner Bruno suggests, it’s probably beyond most of us to get there without some kind of Memory Palace strategy. But it’s your journey and it’s entirely up to you.

A Modern Scenario

Now, for a practical example of how the outer ring of our WRAP Decision Palace works, let’s introduce a contemporary scenario. Let’s say our robot overlords have made changes to the internet and we have to update our websites. 

The new requirements mean a decision must be made to keep things humming, it has to be the best possible decision. Due to all kinds of psychological biases, our brains pressure us to fall back on previous decisions, a problem we’re aware of and know can cause great harm.

That’s why we consistently train our memory to remember to use the Decision Palace. In other words, consistent memory training heightens the self-awareness.

Not only that, but constant practice helps us remember that we don’t know what we don’t know. So to avoid potential bad decisions and make sure we have the best possible ideas to consider, we enter our Decision Palace and proceed to W. This letter opens up and reminds us to widen our options.

The Next Circle

Now, before proceeding to the next step, we go from the outer circle to an inner circle which contains 5 more Ws and an H. Who, what, where, when, why and how. Depending on the exact situation, we’ll want to go through each.

Let’s say we better determine what needs to be done, but still haven’t widened are options enough. 

So we ask “who” can help. To do this, we step one circle deeper into the Decision Palace, where we find every letter of the alphabet. 

Start with A and think of every Internet person we know. We recall Andy, who owns one of the world’s largest yoga websites. He might have some ideas.

B… No one is coming to mind but I think Jonathan mentioned an internet wiz named Bonnie once upon a time. 

C… and so on. The deeper into the alphabet you go, the more you’ve widened your options.

The Benefits Of Using Ars Combinatoria

When it comes to critical thinking and the contemporary example I’ve shared on this page, the answer is simple:

You no longer need to be worried about limited resources or fall into a scarcity mindset. Your mind already has dozens of ideas for people to ask or even just study their sites to see what they’re up to at the moment and gather ideas. 

Then, when we get to R, which in some circumstances could be weeks later, we’ll use either the same 5WH circle, or perhaps another will appear to assist in this stage of the game.

As a word of warning: You could potentially have endless circles inside of circles, so strategy and placing reasonable limits on things will be your friend as you practice.

Of course, neither Llull nor Bruno had any such Internet needs in their time. But I believe everything they placed in their memory wheels were just as practical.

What do you think? Does ars combinatoria seem like a mental technique that might be useful for you?

7 Active Reading Strategies That Help You Remember More

You’ve probably heard that you need active reading strategies in order to understand and remember more. 

The question is… what exactly are these strategies and how can you use them effectively?

On this page, we’re going to cover what I consider to be the best active reading techniques.

According to whom?

First, scientific research.

Second, I’ll share techniques I learned as part of my journey towards getting two MAs, a PhD and working for decades as a research and writer. 

So if you like the best of both proven research and lived experience, you’re in the right spot to learn how to read better and faster.

Let’s get started. 

What Is Active Reading?

Active reading is distinguished from passive reading, an activity where you read just to read.

By contrast, the active reading process involves strategies. These strategies may include:

MindsetMental heuristicsSpecific steps followed in a particular orderAdvanced note taking techniquesUsing memory techniques like the Memory Palace during or shortly after reading

The most important aspect is that you have a specific goal in mind. For example, as I teach in How to Memorize a Textbook, a goal might be to extract and remember three points per chapter. 

Here’s another example:

Whereas passive reading might involve just picking up the latest book to hit the market, active reading involves researching books that belong to a specific example.

Some of my personal case studies have involved the Advaita Vedanta research project that led to my TEDxTalk, Two Easily Remembered Questions That Silence Negative Thoughts.

All of the books I read for this project are compiled in the bibliography of The Victorious Mind: How to Master Memory, Meditation and Mental Well-Being. 

The success of these projects required reading actively in each of the following ways we’re about to cover in depth. 

How to be an Active Reader: 7 Proven Active Reading Strategies

As you go through each of the following strategies, I suggest you take notes. Why?

Because it is one of the best possible techniques you can do to really switch on the power of fully engaged reading. 

One: Active Note Taking

I take notes in a number of ways. These include:

Linear note taking Note taking on index cardsMental note taking using a Memory PalaceMind mapping

I have written a lot about many unusual note taking techniques. Two of my favorite include using index cards in different ways.

The first way involves capturing individual ideas on individual cards. I usually decide on how many notes I will take from each chapter to keep things simple and follow the “less is more” principle. 

Next, I will make the first card have the title and name of the book. Each card thereafter will feature a quote, key point or my own observations. I always add the page number in case I need to find my way back to the place in the book for context.

The second style involves cramming everything on to just 1-2 index cards per book.

For example, when going through certain books, like some novels I’ve read for a research project on consciousness, there’s no need for multiple index cards. So I use one index card as I read and jot down first the page number and then the quote or idea.

This single card keeps my attention focused on the goal of reading the book. Sure, some of them might be entertaining, but here’s what matters:

Using the index card while reading helps me remember the goal of paying attention to the theme of consciousness – the core reason I’m reading the book in the first place.

Two: Question Everything While Reading

One thing that puzzles me about people who practice speed reading is their contradictions.

For example, they’ll tell you how to stop subvocalizing, yet at the same time instruct that you should ask questions while reading.

How exactly is this possible? I’m not sure, but I can tell you that I ask questions all the time and vocalize on purpose. 

In fact, to make reading extra-active, you can adopt the voice of particular people in your mind. For example, you can pretend that you are Einstein and ask questions in a German accent.

Now that’s what I call active and engaging. And the best part is how it all helps with retaining new information for the long term.

What questions should you ask? The obvious ones, of course:

Who?What?Where?When?Why?How?

But you will make your reading even more active by asking other questions. 

A first level of additional activity would be to add “else” to each question above:

Who else?What else?Where else?When else?Why else?How else?

If you can push for 5 answers in each case, your engagement will go through the roof.

I would suggest you also ask questions like: 

According to whom is this true?On what grounds are they an authority?How long is their point valid?What challenges or contradicts their point?Under what circumstances is their claim not true? What other evidence exists that they did not include? 

There are potentially hundreds of questions. The more you practice asking both simple and more complex questions, the more powerful questions will come to mind. 

Three: Use Multisensory Visualization

A lot of people tell you to visualize while reading.

That’s great advice, but what if you have aphantasia (lack of a mind’s eye)?

The answer, whether you have this condition or not, is to widen your options. 

In the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass, you’ll learn to visualize using multiple senses that we remember through the KAVE COGS formula:

KinestheticAuditoryVisualEmotionalConceptualOlfactoryGustatorySpatial

The Magnetic Modes can be practiced to the point that they work like high-precision cogs in a clock.

Touching on each of these “Magnetic Modes” brings even the most abstract information to life, especially if you’re using mnemonic devices.

Here are some examples of active reading using a few such devices:

You read a book about the presidents and want to memorize one or more names. When you come across “Grover Cleveland,” you think about the kinesthetic sensation of stroking the blue fur of Grover from Sesame Street. You hear the sound of traffic in Cleveland in the United States and visualize the waves by the lighthouse in Cleveland, Australia.You read an equation like 5 ( x – 3 ) = 35. You imagine holding a seahorse in your hand (which looks similar to the number 5). It drives a bulldozer with a scoop shaped like a parenthetical mark. You hear it pushing against a cross in the ground that shoots a bullet at a moustache lying on its side. You estimate that it is about 35 metres high.You read a difficult concept like the halting problem. You imagine Alan Turing “halting” a computer program as it is about to run a speed light. You “hear” their argument in your mind. (Yes, it’s okay to subvocalize while reading.)

There’s no doubt that many people will struggle with some of these active reading activities in the beginning. We often haven’t used any of them since early childhood, and even then, they were neither strategic or as sophisticated as they could have been.

The trick is to just get started. Study more accelerated learning techniques like these as you go. Practice more often and regularly analyze your results. 

Four: Pause On New Or Difficult Vocabulary

Amongst the many bad pieces of advice given in the speed reading community, reading without stopping is amongst the worst.

In reality, the path to reading faster is to increase your vocabulary. That way, you won’t be slowed down in the future. You’ll just know what more words mean.

Here’s a simple routine you can follow when you don’t recognize a word while reading:

Pause and guess at its meaning. What is the work likely to mean?Try to think of alternate words that might fit in the sentence and still make sense.Write the word down on an index card for vocabulary or in a notebook. Jot down the page number and come back to reread the passage later. 

I suggest that you do not stop to look words up as you go, at least not in an online dictionary. 

Doing so interrupts the routine I just shared and also opens you to all kinds of distractions. It’s perfectly fine to save the material for later and doing so improves your memory while fending off digital amnesia.

Five: Draw Difficult To Understand Charts And Diagrams

Sadly, I used to skip charts and graphs. This bad reading habit slowed my path to understanding and weakened my visual interpretation abilities. 

Eventually, I learned that it is worth a bit of time – and is highly engaging – to contend with graphs and charts. And the best tactic for doing so was taught to me by my mentor Tony Buzan.

As you can see, I’ve redrawn what Tony Buzan called “The Most Important Graph In The World.”

(He’s right, by the way. This graph explains the science of how to establish long term memory of information in the shortest amount of time.)

If you want a highly active means to understand visual information better, I highly recommend not only drawing graphs and charts. Discuss them verbally with yourself while drawing and later with others. When you teach, you learn the lesson twice.

Six: Revisit Your Reading Strategically

The index card method I’ve shared on this page allows you to revisit only the most important information from books in a compact format. 

However, sometimes you need to go back and read more. I would suggest that you turn “sometimes” into “almost always.” (Obviously, there are some books where this is not necessary. But even then, it’s worth revisiting them for better memory.)

Unfortunately, there’s no magic number for how many times you should revisit a book to keep your familiarity active. You need to decide this based on your current memory ability and your needs for the information. 

But here’s a fun idea: 

Place your books on your bookshelf in three categories:

Just readRead six months agoRead one year ago

Experiment with different patterns. For example, you can look through books you’ve read in the “Just read” area five times a week for the first month and then move them down one shelf. 

When the book is in the “6 months” area, look at your material once monthly for six months before moving it to the yearly area. Once there, you can look once a year, or start again by putting it at the top.

This powerful variation on the Zettelkasten method helped me a lot during graduate school. Thanks to having index cards in the books, I used Roman numerals to manage the amount of reviews I’d done. 

Of course, you’re probably wondering… what if I only read digital books? Audiobooks? Or what if I can only access the books I read at a library?

Good questions. Here’s where using physical index cards will come in handy. You can store these and arrange them according to the needed review patterns in shoe boxes.

This is how I’ve always done it. And I’m not the only one.

In fact, here’s a picture from one many Magnetic Memory Method course participants who do the same. (You can find Mike McCollum’s full success story on our community’s testimonials page.)

If you want to learn more about techniques like this, consider adding the Memory Palace technique. It’s a fun and easy process and it only takes a short amount of time to learn how:

Seven: Summarize Using Multisensory Routines 

Reading doesn’t end when you close the book. I learned this during graduate school when Dr. Katie Anderson supervised a directing reading course. 

In case you’re not familiar with the term, it’s a course where you agree on a reading list with a professor. In lieu of attending a class with others, you meet with the professor and submit papers, usually for publication at the end of the course. 

Dr. Anderson wanted more than just a paper from me. She wanted weekly meetings based on full book summaries I’d written. 

In the beginning, the process of writing about every book and article I read for the course was a pain. But as my memory of everything I read was incredibly sharp thanks to the exercise, I soon came to love.

The best part? When you’re actively keeping those index cards and using the Magnetic Modes I shared above, writing a summary only takes a few minutes.

To get started: 

Read a bookGather notes and any interesting or unfamiliar termsApply the Magnetic ModesCreate a document on your computerWrite the title and author of the book at the topSummarize all the big ideas in the book and any important details and impressionsStore in a meaningful file system for organizationPrint out the summary and wrap it around your index cards for physical storage in a box or something similar

Of course, some people are thinking… we’re in the 21st century! Why print this summary out?

Well, when I was in grad school, I remember the very sad story of the grad student who kept everything on his computer. When his machine died, so did all of his research, including the full draft of his thesis. 

He ultimately dropped out, because the pain of doing all that work over again was too much. 

Sure, you can back things up in the cloud or on a backup drive, but everything digital is subject to decay and disorganization. It’s entirely up to you, but as far as I’m concerned, backing up your summaries in print is itself an active reading strategy worth putting into practice. 

Conclusion: The Active Reading Process Pays Off

If you want to remember more of what you read and develop deep and lasting comprehension, these active reading strategies reap many rewards. 

The best part?

The more you read strategically, the more strategies you’ll discover. Each person develops their own style, relative to how consistently they practice reading. 

And when you do, I hope you’ll come back to this page and share them in the comments. 

In the meantime, please let me know:

Which of these strategies appeals to you the most? 

Skimming vs. Scanning: Which Helps You Remember More?

If you’re as skeptical about speed reading claims as I am, you’ve probably wondered about skimming vs. scanning. 

After all, speed readers aren’t the only ones who use these reading techniques. They also aren’t the only ones who have developed energizing strategies that help you remember more by reading less of some books.

The big problem you probably face is that you need to read faster. And you need to do so in a way that doesn’t sacrifice reading comprehension.

I skim and scan books myself, all without any of the highly questionable eye-training and subvocalization nonsense taught in speed reading books and courses. I also read much more on a yearly basis without sacrificing comprehension. 

Since I’ve got the academic credentials and publishing credits to my name to demonstrate that I am a reader with legit techniques in my pocket, I’m confident I can help you skim and scan more intelligently.

So stick around because on this page, I’ll share my best tips and skim and scan reading strategies with a particular focus on remembering more. I can only recommend that you don’t skip around – and we’ll talk about why in a second. 

But let’s dive in by looking at these techniques from a higher level first.

Skimming vs. Scanning: What’s the Difference?

At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much that distinguishes these two reading techniques. As you’ll soon see, there are key differences, and their value to you stems from what you’re trying to get out of the reading material in question.Therein lies the ultimate difference:

Reading techniques matter, but they matter most when deployed in context. You need to use the right techniques that work to produce the desired outcome.

And in many cases, neither skimming or scanning will work. For example, if you have no familiarity with the topic area, these techniques won’t help because your brain doesn’t have enough connections to the material.

Also, you might not have enough vocabulary to use either of these techniques effectively. This issue usually means that without some preexisting knowledge of a subject area, the differences between these two techniques doesn’t really matter. You will want to start with my free power-training on how to read faster instead.

With this higher level point in mind, let’s get into some definitions that show how and why these techniques differ.

Skimming Defined

If we look at the origin of this word, it literally means to scoop a substance from a surface.

That means when we’re trying to differentiate skimming from scanning, we already know that skimming can never serve as a depth reading technique. It’s all about the shallow elements of a book or other text.

However, shallow does not necessarily mean superficial. 

As scholar and narratologist Gerard Genette discussed in his epic book, Paratexts, the “surfaces” of what we read often contain tremendous amounts of detail.

For example, Genette points out the power of reading the colophon page for all kinds of important clues, including:

Date and location of publication
Translation information
Edition number
Author’s biographical data and rights

Now, you might be thinking:

This stuff has nothing to do with the meaning of the book!

That may or may not be true, but it is always a best practice to at least glance at the colophon page. As I discuss in this video, you can pick up a very powerful memory tool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er-k8Ecgdfo

Other parts of the books you can skim intelligently include:

Table of contents
Index
Bibliography
Acknowledgements

Combined, skimming these elements of a book give you a lot of context. They are worth doing anytime you read any book because they help to form a field of understanding in your mind. And if you use mnemonic devices, you’ll be able to remember more by skimming.

Caption: I dealt with a ton of overwhelm while completing my PhD and a second MA at the same time. Knowing how to balance skimming vs. scanning was a lifesaver!

Scanning Defined

In Brilliant Speed Reading, Phil Chambers says that scanning differs from skimming because it is “less pre-directed.”

I’m not so sure about that, and as we’ve seen, it really comes down to your desired outcomes. 

In my view and experience, scanning should include the skimming we just talked about. Scanning might include skimming, but doesn’t necessarily need to include the other strategy.

Scanning definitely involves going deeper. Rather than just familiarizing yourself with the “surface” features, you would go deeper, including:

Flipping through the pages of each chapter
Analyzing any graphs or charts
Looking at images (what learning expert Barbara Oakley calls taking a “picture walk”)
Reading chapter openings and conclusions
Reading the book conclusion

I included some dedicated reading in scanning because scan reading is useless without giving you something to base a decision on.

What decision?

Whether or not you’re going to continue and read the entire book. This decision is one of the best reasons to use both of these techniques because it can save you a ton of time on either:

Skipping books unlikely to serve your goals
Saving books for later that you don’t need to read right now

How To Skim Read 

When learning how to skim a book, I suggest you start with the back cover. Try to mentally notice at least three (or more) details or observations that come to mind as you read. 

For example, on the back cover of The Victorious Mind: How to Master Memory, Meditation and Mental-Well Being, you might notice a few things like:

The author is a film scholar
Terms like “self-inquiry” and “control-freakism” are used
It talks about the importance of experimentation
The works of Gary Weber are mentioned
An image of a “magnet” accompanies the name of the publishing imprint

By reading the back cover, a “field” of awareness is already developing in your mind. 

These observations will compound as you dive into the colophon page, the index, bibliography and other “paratextual” elements of the book. 

The most important aspect of this kind of strategy to remember is that you’re reading to develop context. You’re not even sure you’re going to read the entire book yet, but you’re taking every opportunity to make sure you remember more by consciously observing its “surface” details from the beginning. 

The Top 10 Scanning Techniques

To scan effectively, you will want to first decide a few things based on what you’ve learned from the skimming exercise. 

The main question to ask is this: 

Does the book warrant reading further?

If the answer is “yes,” then I suggest you:

Get out an index card. 
Write down the name of the book and the author (include publishing date)
Memorize the publishing date using the Major System or Dominic System
Count the number of chapters and then page through the entire book
Note any keywords or key ideas that leap out at you
When you find interesting points, add them to new index cards and include the page number
Note any key graphs or images (you may want to redraw some of them if you find them hard to understand)
Ask questions as you scan
Jot down a summary of what you understood about the book from scanning

When asking questions, you can include the stock questions common to most people who use critical thinking strategies:

Who
What
Where
When
Why
How

But you can also go further. You can ask questions like:

How and why is this author an authority on the book’s topic?
How does the author demonstrate the validity of the research references in the book?
What is the book’s big idea in my own words?
What are a few of the sub-ideas in my own words?
Do I need to read this book in full? 
Do I need to start at the beginning or can I select certain chapters? 

One of my favorite questions is:

So what? 

To put it another way, “if this claim is true, what changes? If it isn’t true, what changes?”

If you find that the answer is… “nothing changes,” then the stakes presented by the book simply aren’t that high. It might be worth skipping the book altogether.

In sum, the quality of the answers you get from these questions will depend on your skills as a skimmer and your general familiarity with the field before you started the skimming and scanning exercises. 

Now, if using index cards is not something you care to do, you can use these mind mapping examples to consider some alternatives.

Should You Skim Or Scan?

As you can tell by now, my answer is both. One reading strategy is almost valueless without the other.

Plus, you really need to perform some self-analysis before getting started. If you’re not already familiar with the area, neither of these techniques will be particularly helpful. In fact, they could damage your enthusiasm for learning the topic at all.

If necessary, work on your reading comprehension strategies first so you can gain familiarity with the field. 

Everyday Applications For Using The Skimming And Scanning Technique

If you’re in a bookstore, that’s definitely the time to simply scan a book. As a nearly universal rule, when I have found a book that passes the “scan test,” I get it. Too much time is wasted wishing I would have just got something and little is lost by having another reading resource around.

When working in libraries, it definitely makes through to go through both skimming and scanning. To keep my index cards gathered together in a compact manner, I usually put them in ziplock bags.

I know: this process is kind of weird. However, I’ve been practicing it since 2000. The organizational power alone has been invaluable over the years. Plus, I simply remember a lot more along the way about books I’ve seen, even if I haven’t read them all. 

For online applications, you can do something similar, taking care to write the web address and the date you accessed the article online. Some people will want to use Evernote, and there are tactics you can learn to optimize all kinds of software programs of this kind.

How To Skim A Book For Use With The Memory Palace Technique

There are a lot of ways to remember more of what you read even if you’re skimming and scanning.

Of course, this assumes that you know how to use a Memory Palace. If you don’t have this skill yet, learn how to use it now:

Once you know how to use a Memory Palace, you have options. For example, you can:

Rapidly memorize the publication date, title and author name of any book
Quickly create images based on page numbers using a 00-99
Use individual pages as simple Memory Palaces

Ultimately, you’ll want to save these techniques for a full read of the books you encounter. And for that I suggest you learn how to memorize a textbook in greater detail next.

How To Choose Your Reading Wisely And Contextually

At the end of the day, the techniques you choose for your reading are less important than what you read and why you’re reading it.

Unfortunately, no one can tell anyone else exactly what to read. That’s why I recommend you deploy these techniques within the context of a vision statement. 

For example, I have a long term reading project about NASA and space travel, one that is nested inside a learning project about the relationship between memory techniques and early developments in science and astronomy. 

When I found Dr. Richard Wiseman’s Shoot for the Moon in a bookstore, I skimmed it and instantly saw how it fits my reading project. Later I scanned it to maximize my field of understanding and then read it thoroughly from cover to cover for best results.

When you use skimming and scanning techniques in this way, you’ll go beyond the energy-draining tactics that lead to highly suspicious ideas like “photoreading.” 

Instead, you’ll have energy-creating strategies that keep your enthusiasm high because you’re legitimately extracting maximum value from each and every book you look at. Without context, all the skim tips in the world won’t do better for you than any other accelerated learning technique.

So let me know, what do you think of these definitions of skimming vs. scanning? And what vision do you have for your reading goals?

How to Stop Subvocalizing: My Surprising Solution

Wondering how to stop subvocalizing?

Well, let me ask you this:

What if this rather strange term from the world of speed reading is fraudulent? Or what if reducing subvocalization is tactically a false goal for any serious lifelong learner?

Here’s an even better question:

What if there exist strategic ways to use your “inner voice” to read faster? 

You’re in luck.

You see, the Magnetic Memory Method stresses the importance of avoiding energy-draining “tactics” so you can focus on enthusiasm-producing strategies that actually help you learn faster and better. 

That’s why on this page, we’re going to explore:

How this strange term “subvocalization” has been defined and used historically.
The psychological pain used to exploit people who are desperate to learn (this is probably what allows for the perpetuation of pseudo-scientific fraud in this area).
Real techniques you can use to improve reading comprehension and speed by using your inner voice.

And hey, if after you discover the truth subvocalization you still want to reduce it, I’ve got something for you. I’ll mention a simple trick from the world of meditation that is more likely to get you there.

It’s perfectly a reasonable exercise. And the best part is that it relates scientifically to the nature of consciousness and studies in other aspects of learning where the eyes are involved.

Let’s get started. 

What Is Subvocalization?

First of all, there’s a long history to this term, and “subvocalization” isn’t the only word people have used. As Donald L. Cleland and William C. Davies show in “Silent Speech – History and Current Status,” the term also appears as:

Silent speech
Implicit speech
Innervocalization
Lip reading
Vocalization

The first recorded observation of people “speaking silently” to themselves occurred in 1868. Two psychologists focused on human physiology created a device like a telegraph key activated by the tongues of their test subjects. Everything they discovered is premised on the idea that parts of your mouth and throat move while you are reading.

Somehow… for reasons no one seems to know… these movements came to be negatively portrayed as a (gasp!) habit. 

What we do know is that people who cite the same research clearly haven’t interpreted it as I have. They clearly missed Ake Edelfelt’s conclusion that subvocalization should not be stopped (more on his research-based assessment below).

Frankly, if my interpretation is correct, and the “speed reader” who says the research calls it a bad habit is correct, then one of us is a horrible reader. Given that no one writing on that site uses a full name or lists any academic credentials… I don’t wish to come across as arrogant, but the bad reader probably isn’t me.

Carrying on… 

The Historical Devices That Proved Subvocalization Is Normal

Later devices used to study subvocalization included connecting a pneumograph to a kymograph.

Some of these studies may have been mixed up with research into stuttering, which also involved using a pneumograph.

If you read John Madison’s An Experimental Study of Stuttering, for example, he finds that stutters suffer brain fog and poor concentration. But he also finds that the use of a telegraph key for gathering data related to vocalization is highly suspect.

Obviously, early 20th century science was not as sophisticated as what we have today. A lot of different people entered fields of study without necessarily having direct or even indirect credentials.

It is thought, for example, that Rune Elmqvist, inventor of the first pacemaker, may have contributed an early electronically activated writing machine to initial experiments.

It is not that he shouldn’t have, but when you see so many people with so many devices studying phenomena like this, here’s a suggestion. Start thinking “Wild West of Knowledge.” That will be more effective than expecting anything like clear and focused scientific analysis from this historical period.

Indeed, when the first serious publication finally arises in 1960, Ake Edelfelt completely dismisses subvocalizing as a problem:

“Silent speech is universal during silent reading; efforts to eliminate it should be discontinued.”

Jump ahead to the present day and nothing amongst serious scientists has changed. According to research compiled by Scott Young, if you want to read well, you need to subvocalize.

How To Stop Subvocalizing: Seven Weird, Unproven Tips That Probably Won’t Work

The first thing you need to understand is that it’s more than fraudulent to claim that subvocalization should be stopped. It’s contradicted by almost every speed reading program and book I’ve seen.

For example, in a course called “Kwik Reading” by Jim Kwik, you are given ways to reduce subvocalization.

A few videos later, you are told to ask questions while reading.

Well… which is it? Hear your inner voice or don’t hear your inner voice? How are you supposed to ask questions mentally if you’re trying to be silent?

The lack of clarity and the utterly impossible to ignore contradiction in terms should instantly remind you of Ake Edelfelt’s finding: stop trying to do this.

To persist in forcing yourself to be silence is nonsense. In fact, my research has yet to show exactly how something as normal and natural as subvocalizing came to be called a “habit.” It’s even less clear how the speed reading crowd started heaping so many negative connotations on your natural reading voice.

But wait. There’s more, because the advice only gets worse. For example:

One: Keep Reading

A lot of speed reading training books and programs tell you to stop “backreading” or “regressing.” 

This “tactic” is utter nonsense for many reasons.

For example, have you ever read Nietzsche? He causes you to reread things he’s said frequently. 

Have a look at this passage from The Gay Science:

Owing to three Errors . Science has been furthered during recent centuries, partly because it was hoped that God’s goodness and wisdom would be best understood therewith and thereby – the principal motive in the soul of great Englishmen (like Newton); partly because the absolute utility of knowledge was believed in, and especially the most intimate connection of morality, knowledge, and happiness – the principal motive in the soul of great Frenchmen (like Voltaire); and partly because it was thought that in science there was something unselfish, harmless, self-sufficing, lovable, and truly innocent to be had, in which the evil human impulses did not at all participate – the principal motive in the soul of Spinoza, who felt himself divine, as a knowing being: – it is consequently owing to three errors that science has been furthered.

Nietzsche says he’s going to talk about three errors at the beginning of the passage. He then doesn’t use the word “error” again until the last sentence. To understand what the errors are, you literally have to go back and reread the passage. 

Different ways of referring back to points within entire books or even individual paragraphs is a strategy that good writers use all the time. It’s like a P.S. inside of prose, or a callback to a salient point mentioned earlier in the text. If an author says, “As I mentioned back in chapter one,” there is zero reason why you would not go back to reread the passage if you can’t remember it. 

Sure, you might “read” faster by not going back to refresh points an author reiterates, but you’re not guaranteed to understand more just by plowing forward. If anything, your path to meaningful comprehension will be slowed, if not destroyed. 

Pro tip: Although I strongly disagree that you should avoid “regressing” backwards by rereading information (in fact, one of my most popular posts teaches a rereading strategy), there is a subtle point to be drawn here.

When you can’t understand something and repeating an idea isn’t making it any clearer, moving forward can be helpful. There are many difficult topics I’ve read where I needed to not only keep reading, but also read outside of the text by using supplement guides and other resources.

I also needed to memorize information I did not understand, which is one of the three corrections I made when correcting these three pieces of bad advice memory experts tend to give.

Two: Use Your Finger Or A Pointer

If running a finger, pencil, chopstick or broken antenna from a transistor radio helps you read better, that’s great. You’ll get no argument from me.

But I think you deserve to know the origin of this tactic, which may have hypnotized people around the world into thinking it has an effect it might not. 

According to Marcia Biederman in Scan Artist: How Evelyn Wood Convinced the World That Speed-Reading Worked, the origin story of this technique is beyond belief.

Here’s how it goes:

Once upon a time, Evelyn Wood dropped a book. As it was flying through the air, she reached to grab it and noticed she could read a sentence faster as her finger paced beneath it.

Let me ask you this:

How do you read a moving sentence on a small object like a book, even with a finger between your eyes and, say 21 words, flying through the air? 

The answer is that this story sounds like nonsense. 

Again, I’m not saying that some kind of aid can’t help.

But before you invest a ton of time in it, consider how these tactics come into being in the first place. You could save yourself a lot of time and energy as you use the rule strategies needed for reading faster.

Pro Tip: The rare time I can’t focus, I will use a blank index card to cover up parts of the page I’m not reading. I find this approach useful because it removes the stimulation of all the other words.

It also does it in a way that doesn’t add a meaty finger between my eyes and the text. You can move the index card slowly down without even having your fingers appear near the page. 

Three: Count From 10 to 1 While Reading

Counting while reading is another tip from Jim Kwik. 

Huh? Vocalize one type of content in the hopes that it will blot out another? I’m not sure how this makes sense. 

However, there is a technique related to this that is worth using in the context of meditation. It appears in Gary Weber’s Happiness Beyond Thought.

This techniques stems from the Zen tradition.

To perform the exercise, count from one to ten and try to suppress the even numbers. It’s kind of like playing a game of, “Don’t think of a red cat,” but I’ve found that I actually can do it (even though it took over a year of trying).

Has this exercise helped me concentrate more while reading while also picking up speed and comprehending more?

Yes, but that’s because many meditative activities have been shown to improve memory and concentration for reading. That’s why I practice this technique while meditating, not while reading. 

Four: Listen To Music While Reading

Some people can listen to music while reading. When I was younger, I was able to do it all the time. I used to write a lot while listening to music (and sometimes still do).

However, I don’t see how doing this can help reduce your inner voice. This article provides no research to back up the claim and says that “Classical usually music works best.” 

Really? Which Classical music? What does “usually” mean?

I don’t know about you, but when I listen to Bach and Beethoven, those masters grab my ears by the throat and don’t let go.

Good music commands our attention, so although I know from personal experience that it’s not impossible, these dubious claims with zero substantial research evidence or even anecdotes make no sense. They only raise questions. 

Five: Force Yourself To Read Faster Than Normal

Although there is merit in pushing ourselves for better performance, there’s a potentially huge problem in this suggestion. 

For one thing, if you’re pushing yourself to read faster how are you doing it?

Chances are… you’re doing it in thoughts. And that means you’re almost certainly “subvocalizing.”

Plus, speed reading books and courses always advocate defining your “normal” reading speed. They talk about spending a lot of time testing how fast you’re reading and recording the numbers.

I find this practice odd for a few reasons:

As with the command to read faster, you’re creating mental content that almost certainly places a filter or lens between you and the content you should be focused on.
Being aware of having a timer on and needing to count words also creates more mental content to think about (and vocalize while reading).
How many people are actually skilled enough with the numeracy needed to:

Create and gather accurate data?
Analyze the data they produce accurately?
Reasonably and reliably crossindex the speed data against the behaviors of their throats while reading?

By all means, experiment with placing such filters on the reading experience.

As John Graham has shared, adding “obstructions” during memory training helped him win the 2018 USA Memory Competition. But keep in mind that those training efforts were directed at a competition outcome, and there is nothing in particular any memory competitor needs to understand.

When it comes to speed reading competitions, where timing is definitely an issue, I couldn’t find any sample questions to get a sense of how in-depth the comprehension questions go. 

That would be interesting to know, as would the specific criteria that apparently satisfied a “group of [unnamed] reporters” that Anne Jones read the final Harry Potter novel in 47 minutes.

I’m seriously suspicious of the intellectual credibility of the questions she was asked, especially when her summary of a novel that was not read in anything like test conditions is that it was “very, very interesting.” 

Again, even if we had access to the standard used to question Jones’ comprehension, the larger point is this:

Competition and speed reading demonstration outcomes do not necessarily reflect anything related to the reading comprehension strategies that actually help people get ahead in their lives. 

It’s also easy to fake knowledge of fiction, especially pop culture fare, because they are grounded upon well-known principles of narratology, such as the hero’s journey archetype. I’d love to see someone read Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs in the same period of time. That book too is something anyone could call “very, very interesting.”

Six: Train Your Eyes

I’m not sure how running an infinity sign in front of your eyes with your finger is supposed to stop you from reading in your head.

It’s also not clear how any number of arm movements are supposed to help in this regard, though many speed reading books and courses insert what appears to be elements from Qigong and so-called Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) like “tapping.”

Personally, running my eyes around in circles only gives me a headache. I highly recommend you check with a doctor first before engaging in any eye movement exercises. And take other body movement instructions with a grain of salt. There’s no doubt some physical movement can help you read better, but what it has to do with learning how to read without subvocalizing remains a mystery.

Seven: Train with Software

The Internet is awash with software programs purporting to help with different speed reading skills. Most of these softwares show you one word at a time, kind of like certain movie previews flash words on the screen for dramatic effect.

I’m not sure how being shown individual words is going to help, but clearly part of the idea is that you will experience the words so quickly, you won’t have time to sound out the words. I’m not sure if it’s true, but when looking at these softwares, I quickly feel nauseous. 

To be fair, I once submitted myself to reading an entire chapter of a Dostoevsky novel using one of these software programs. Sure, it does feel like you’re following along.

But there’s a catch. I can’t remember which novel it was, I don’t remember anything about the chapter, and who knows… maybe it wasn’t even by Dostoevsky. 

Worse, the reading experience was far from pleasurable. In fact, the experience was downright painful, and the only time I ever looked at such software again was while preparing this article. 

The Real Way To Stop Subvocalizing

I’ve gone through many tough times due to bipolar disorder. During university, my mind sometimes got so loud during episodes where I could not afford to stop studying that I frequently went to the hospital for help.

Do you want to know what helped?

Increasing the sounds of words, not decreasing them. 

Back then, books on tape were still quite rare, and even rarer on CD. But whenever possible, I got them and would listen to the books narrated by professional actors while following along with the text in hand. 

And listening to the incomparable George Guidall narrate Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment is not something I think I’ll ever forget.

When I couldn’t find a book on tape or CD, which was often the case with the dense philosophy I needed to cover… I narrated the books myself. I often used a micro-cassette recorder so I could review the material at 2x speed. It made me sound like Mickey Mouse, but that was okay because it let me use a powerful technique for memorizing textbooks.

When you’re immersed in the reading experience, you know exactly how to eliminate subvocalization. You do it by merging with the text and loving the reading experience, something that can require a bit of mental strength if you don’t know how to deal with boring topics.

Frankly, I can say that I never read in my head. I always strive to “fuse” with the author so I can assemble with their ideas and share as much as possible of their realm of human consciousness. 

What Reading In Your Head Really Means

Because here’s the truth:

Humans never read in their own heads. 

No individual owns language. And each brain is an information storage and retrieval “device” that relies on trafficking in words that are shared.

Words aren’t really all that important at the end of the day. It’s the ideas words point to that matters. And when the hucksters get away with shilling their garbage about “subvocalization,” it’s because they’re preying on the pain some people feel when they are locked out of the conversation.

So if you want to be included in great conversations, your best bet is to:

Increase your vocabulary
Create detailed study missions
Read more good books, much more often

And to help you with learning more vocabulary so you can read faster as the path to remembering more, make sure you grab my free memory improvement kit. It will give you access to the universal Memory Palace technique every single person can and should learn. 

Until next time, never forget:

We read to interact with the “voices” of others. Vocalize or do whatever you need to do to get at the meaning contained by the words and you cannot help but read better and faster.

9 Critical Thinking Strategies That Lifelong Learners Need To Know

If you’re looking for critical thinking strategies to help yourself or others, congratulations.

Learning to think better is one of the best ways to help ourselves improve the world.

And now that you’re here, I’m going to treat you to an epic lesson in critical thinking techniques that can:

Improve your performance at school or work
Help you make better decisions
Assist in avoiding mistakes that crush others
Improve profits as an entrepreneur
Using creative thinking and critical processes of understanding that improve your memory

This final benefit is especially important if you find yourself forgetting information. And on this page you’ll even learn more about how to remember the steps involved in thinking more critically. 

A Brief History Of Critical Thinking Strategies

Every culture has developed tools for thinking better. Let’s list just a few classic examples:

Asia: Tao Te Ching and The Art of War
India: Panchadasi and the Advaita Vedanta tradition
Greek: Plato and the Socratic Method
Russia: Triz
Britain: Analytic philosophy
France and Germany: Continental philosophy and Nietzsche’s “genealogy”
Spain, Italy, and other parts of Europe: Llullism and techniques like ars combinatoria

This final tradition is particularly interesting because it was key to the development of formal logic and ideas that eventually made modern computing possible.

Critical thinking is always evolving and some of the newest applications are involved in everything from new political initiatives to quantum computing and innovations in space travel.

9 Types Of Critical Thinking That Help Lifelong Learners Outperform Their Competition

Let’s face it. The reason we learn critical thinking is not just so we can improve the world. It’s so we can compete in the race to improve the world. 

That means that critical thinking cannot stand on its own. It has to also include analytical thinking and creative thinking. 

That’s why we have to go beyond the typical stuff you read online about asking:

Who
What
Where
When
Why
How

Don’t get me wrong. Those are important questions to ask. But let’s dive in and understand four of the biggest and best categories of critical thinking:

1. First Principles Thinking 

This kind of thinking breaks a problem down to its basic parts and uses them to explore new paths. It tends to keep a goal in mind at each step.

To use this kind of thinking, you also want to: 

Identify core assumptions
Break the problem down into parts
Create new processes towards a clearly defined goal

Example: We know that memory requires at least some level of repetition. But how can we reduce that amount?

Looking at our core assumptions, we can break the problem down into parts and notice that primacy and recency effect allow us to create a tool.

The new process is the Memory Palace technique, something that every memory competitor and many students use and refine year after year, usually by repeating this same critical thinking strategy.

2. Blank Slate Thinking

This technique starts with first principles, but you go further. You ask: What would this look like completely from scratch? 

Example: Imagine you’re trying to solve poverty in an inner city. Even though it won’t be possible to start the city over, by thinking about what the area looked like before it was inhabited, you can imagine a new history and try to figure out how greater fairness might have been achieved. 

3. Synergistic Thinking

Synergy is about combining things together that don’t normally go together.

As a way of stimulating more critical thinking, you would get a bunch of items together and keep asking, Why don’t these items go together? Then dream up ways they could be combined as a critical thinking exercise.

Example: Imagine scissors and a banana or a kite and vase. Ask: Why don’t these items go together? 

Your answers might be something like, because bananas don’t need to be cut and vases don’t need to fly. Try to come up with at least 5 reasons why the items you’ve paired don’t go together. 

Then try to come up with at least 5 ways they could. Even if the solutions you come up with are silly, they will exercise your mind. For example, maybe banana skins can oil rusty scissors or kites could deliver flowers to people in hospitals where the elevators are broken. 

4. Adaptation

A lot of innovations come from people transferring a feature from one area to another.

Example: Book of the month club business models have become everything from vinyl record clubs to monthly underwear subscriptions. 

Another way to think about adaptation as a critical thinking strategy is ars combinatoria.

This ancient technique let you adapt a Memory Wheel based on “contracting” larger ideas down into individual letters.

Then, if you had a problem you needed to solve, you would expand the letters and adapt the ideas within them. It’s hard to explain, so here’s a video that describes the technique in-depth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cYDm...

5. Magnification and Minimization

We often get stuck in our thinking because we’re looking at things in their actual scale. But when we change their size and dimension, we can gain new insights. 

Example: If you’re trying to solve a problem involving thousands of people, scale down to thinking about how to solve it for just ten people, or even one. 

Or, if you’ve having a hard time imagining something small like the operations of a biological cell, draw it as big as possible so you can zoom in on individual parts with greater ease. 

6. Reverse or Invert

Have you ever wondered why magicians disappear in a puff of smoke instead of appearing in them? Or what about donut holes? Where do they go? 

Take problems and play them in reverse in your mind. 

Example: In the hard problem of consciousness, experiences like headaches are said to be impossible to measure. (This is because pain is typically based on perception.)

To invert the problem, you might consider pleasure and how smiling is inherently visible. To reverse it, you might imagine tears flowing back into your eyes and try to trace them back to where in your brain the process of crying begins.

7. Assume Different Points of View

We often make the mistake of seeing problems only through our own eyes. But it’s very useful to try to “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” whenever you can. 

Example: Some criminals have broken into your local grocery store and broken all the windows. This obviously raises safety issues and the criminals should be punished. But can you spend 5-10 minutes thinking through the life situations that may have led these people to act criminally in this way? Did they have as much free will in it as you assume?

Next, think through the perspective of the store manager. Think through the experiences of one or two of the employees. Then think through the perspective of some of your neighbors.

Apply this kind of critical thinking strategy to many situations and you will gain a much greater perspective on human life and reality.

8. Mastermind Thinking

I never met Einstein, and chances are, neither did you. But that doesn’t mean you can’t imagine having a conversation with him. 

You can also have imaginary conversations with Steve Jobs, Buddha and Joan of Arc. Although these won’t necessarily be accurate, the more you know about these people, the more you can ask, What would Jimi Hendrix do and get a reasonable answer.

Example: Let’s say you want to 10x your revenue over the next two years. You can read the biographies of 3-5 entrepreneurs who have been successful in your field and then mentally assemble them for a council meeting in your mind. Ask them what they would do and let your understanding of their accomplishments guide your answers.

9. Last Principles Thinking 

Science Fiction is very good at asking, “What’s next?” 

Example: In SevenEves, Niel Stephenson imagines the moon blowing up and ultimately wiping out all life on planet earth. The entire novel answers the question: what’s next? 

To use this in your thinking, ask “If this situation is true, what happens next?” 

Although it’s usually impossible to know, by running the thought process, you will be practicing one of the finest strategies for critical thinking we’ve got. You don’t even have to avoid reductio ad absurdum issues, so long as you work to come up with several solutions. 

How To Make Critical Thinking A Daily Habit

You might have just read the strategies above and be thinking, “That’s all fine and dandy. I can see why these critical thinking examples are so useful. But how am I supposed to remember how to use them?”

Here are some ideas:

Use A Memory Palace

This technique can help you readily memorize everything we’ve just discussed. Here’s how:

Keep A Journal

If memorizing critical thinking strategies isn’t right for you, you can always copy them into the first page of a journal. Then, when you need to solve a problem, you can write out your responses to each thinking process. 

Read About Decision Makers

Chances are that if there’s a biography about a successful person, they’ve been successful at critical thinking. Whether it’s an actor, entrepreneur, lawyer or president, success leaves clues and advanced thinking skills will be involved in every extraordinary achievement.

Discuss Often

A lot of people don’t think critically with any level of skill because they don’t engage in enough conversation. 

Is it strictly necessary? What if you’re an introvert?

Those are good questions, but I’d use critical thinking itself to flip things around a bit. I would ask instead:

What happens if I continue the way I’m going without enough conversation with others? 

Anytime you hit a stumbling block, such as an idea or belief about yourself that would prevent you from getting a benefit, it’s more valuable to ask about the price you’ll pay by not voluntarily embracing an obvious solution. 

In sum, discussion works and everyone who wants to be a better thinker should engage in as many of them as possible, with as many people as possible. 

I’ve found that Lunchclub is a great tool for meeting a large variety of people who come from all kinds of different perspectives.

By speaking with others, you’re also placing yourself in creative and supportive environments that lead to even more ideas worth having.

Read Books Regularly To Stimulate Critical Thought

There are many big ideas and lessons that you’ll never encounter if you keep your head stuck in the sand of your own interests and preferred entertainment.

For example, I find economics pretty boring. But by being willing to stretch, I’ve learned a ton, experienced many surprise insights and wound up using many directly useful ideas that improved my life.

Go through these books that normally wouldn’t attract you slowly and with as much interest as you can muster. And if you need help, my article on dealing with boring topics is a must.

A Bonus Critical Thinking Strategy Everyone Can Use

So, what do you say? Can you imagine yourself using any of these critical thinking strategies?

Or perhaps I should ask, What do you imagine the consequences will be if you don’t?

Whether you’re using these approaches yourself or teaching them to someone else, here’s one last suggestion.

Whenever you’re looking at a problem, new or old, ask yourself:

What’s the real problem that needs solving?

Far too often, people work on coming up with solutions for the wrong problem. Everything you’ve learned today should help in avoiding that sad outcome, but I just wanted to throw it in as a bonus. Just in case.

And get this: It was thinking critically about this article using the very tools on this page helped me realize it needed to be here. (Last principles thinking)

Cool how it all works, isn’t it?

 

How To Read Faster: 16 Proven Tips From A Thorough Reader

If you want to know how to read faster, you’ve probably tried to stop “subvocalizing” and reduce “backskipping.”

What if I told you such “speed reading” techniques are probably a waste of time for most serious learners who have big goals for their lives? 

There are at least three reasons why speed reading won’t help a lot of people. These are: 

A limited vocabulary
A limited understanding of the field
A lack of reading strategy

Even if techniques like controlling your eyes better and silencing your inner voice helped you, so what? If you don’t know what even a small percentage of words mean and lack familiarity with the topic area, you’re not going to understand any faster. In such cases, you’d do better reading slowly, looking up words and terms, and interrupting your flow to aid understanding by reading outside of the main text.

So let’s reframe the question:

If you’re learning to read faster, what are the fundamental speed reading techniques that will help you zip through multiple books in a single day? 

As someone who blazes through multiple books all the time, reading intelligently and applying speed in ways that make sense is something I can help you achieve. 

And the best part is I can help you read quickly without giving yourself the headaches most speed reading courses induce, so let’s get started. 

How to Read Faster (While Remembering Everything)

The first thing to do is define “everything.”



No one actually needs or wants to remember everything. As Jill Price’s so-called photographic memory shows, doing so can make you ill. 

Instead, we want to develop a number of “decision metrics” that guide us as we go. 

Soon, your frustrations around your reading speed will disappear. You will safely leave behind all the instructions about recording your baseline reading speed and suppressing your inner voice, only to be told by speed reading experts that you’re supposed to make mental images and ask questions as you read. 

(Seriously? How are you supposed to reduce your inner voice and increase it at the same time? Speed reading courses that teach this should offend anyone with a modicum of common sense in their system.)

So we start by thinking about goals for reading faster and remembering more. And to do that, let’s just expose the white elephant in the room:



There is no perfect way to get started. And the tips to read faster I’m about to present are not necessarily “steps” to follow in order. My hope is that you’ll rethink what reading is, and what reading can be. 

How to Read Faster and Comprehend More
Tip #1: Set goals with deadlines within a reading plan

If you want to read faster, you have to practice reading more often. 

And the best way I know of to do that is by creating a reading plan for yourself. That way you can develop topic mastery based on a combination of vocabulary, specific terminology, history and the perspectives of the main players in the field.

For example, when I was researching my book, The Victorious Mind, I created a 90-day reading plan. That way, when using all the techniques you’ll discover on this page, I was reading in a direction that was leading me to a specific goal. 

 

Creating your own reading plan takes some practice, but here are some suggestions. These are important because if you want to read faster, you need to develop familiarity with the topic.

Find the definitive textbook or most famous book on the topic. For example, when I started a reading project on consciousness, I quickly found out that Gödel, Escher, Bach is a key text in the field. 
Find 2-3 articles about the book and read these. Go beyond the Wikipedia page. 
Find 2-3 videos. 
Find 2-3 podcasts. 
Use my how to memorize a textbook strategy as you read to cull out the information you want to remember
Follow-up with 2-3 of the books mentioned in the definitive textbook

(In massive tomes like Gödel, Escher, Bach you’ll discover endless reading suggestions, so setting a limit is really important!)

How will adding more material to one you read faster? 

My friend and fellow memory expert Jonathan Levi calls this tactic, “brute force learning.” The answer behind why it help is simple:

When you start with the fundamentals and develop knowledge of the field, you’ll give yourself the most important reading skill in the world: pattern recognition.

In setting reading goals like this, you’re learning what it means to know your field. The more you know, the more you can know, and that will naturally help your brain:

Recognize big and important ideas faster
Connect them to fundamentals in instantly memorable ways
Using multiple mediums like video and audio tap into more representations of your brain and add more perspectives from others who have read the book

Note: I personally expect every beginning to be “front loaded” with more effort and only after some “pattern recognition” has been developed do I expect to read and understand faster. However, we want to make sure we don’t fall into collector’s fallacy, which is why when I say 2-3 other resources, I really mean 2-3.

To develop this level of recognition as quickly as possible, let’s look at the next powerful strategy.

Tip #2: The U.S.S.R. Technique

It would be nice if life were simple enough that we can always read at the same time and the same place – just like in school. 

In fact, with a bit of planning, we can. And it’s one of the most important strategies for reading faster that I know. This is thanks to the power of rhythm and flow.

U.S.S.R. stands for Uninterrupted, Sustained, Silent Reading. 

Instead of doing eye training exercises to expand your peripheral vision, protect your environment from visual interruptions. Read in a quiet place with little or no foot traffic. Put borders around your time.

And if you have family or roommates with schedules that interfere with your own, take responsibility and communicate with them about your needs. It would be nice if other people would remember and respect your schedule and goals, but it’s unrealistic to hold them to that standard. Be firm and protect both your time and space. 

Tip #3: Learn to relax

A lot of people are so stressed out about not reading quickly enough that they tense their bodies. This lack of physical ease puts their posture out of whack, impedes breathing and makes being alive generally uncomfortable. When learning how to read a book fast, you need to be in an optimal physical position.

Rather than give a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach (that doesn’t exist), experiment. You may need to sit in different ways depending on the topic matter. 

Meditation is also a key strategy for developing relaxation on demand. These 12 concentration meditations should help you out. 

Tip #4: Do Not Avoid Reviewing

I’ve never understood the emphasis on eliminating “back skipping” or “regression” you see in the speed reading community. This strikes me as precisely the way to make sure you forget information. 

Instead, I suggest reviewing frequently and strategically. For example, I like to hold my finger in the page where the chapter started and go back to it several times. This technique is kind of like inner-book interleaving, which we’ll talk about more later. 

(It is not really possible to reproduce this technique when reading digitally, though some software programs allow for multiple bookmarks that make this easier. If the document is numbered and you have a Major System, memorizing page numbers can help with this as well.)

But the main point is that I don’t stress if my mind wanders or I need to go back. Reviewing is a way to keep focus, maintain connection with the book and actively connect the dots while reading. 

I’m biased, but I also find that physical books are better for avoiding mind wandering and you get other benefits, as I’ve described in detail here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er-k8...

Tip #5: Do Not Wreck Your Eyes Based On Bad Science

A lot of speed reading books ask you to follow a pen in an infinity symbol. Or they might ask you to draw dots on your pages to impose three columns, the idea being that if you only perform three eye fixations on each line you’ll read faster. 

Scott Young has deeply questioned the research on eye training and reducing subvocalization. Frankly, I think he could have gone a lot further. So many of the claims are based on self reporting by people who probably don’t know enough about testing themselves for us to believe they are being accurate. 

What about using a pointer? 

Maybe, but think about the bizarre origin story for this technique:

Evelyn Wood says she discovered it when a book fell off a desk and flew past her. As she tried to catch it, she noticed her finger running along a sentence. For more details, read Scan Artist: How Evelyn Wood Convinced the World That Speed Reading Worked, by Marcia Biederman.

I don’t know about you, but I doubt I could ready anything from a book in motion, let alone have my finger help with the process. This puzzling origin story only gets weirder when you look into fraudulent claims involving JFK himself as perhaps the most famous person to fall for such speed reading fallacies.

We can go deeper:

Why would you put something between yourself and the information, either your finger, pencil or a chopstick. (Yes, I’ve encountered a course that suggested carrying around a chopstick.)

This strategy sounds like the opposite of how you would want to train your eyes – which would be unassisted and definitely unobstructed. Plus, how are you supposed to use a pointer on mobile, when your finger would constantly be clicking links and opening new pages? 

As you can see, some of the speed reading teaching out there falls apart quickly when held to scrutiny.

Tip #6: Consider Interleaving

I’ve already mentioned picking a main, authoritative textbook on a topic and reading a few additional articles. Essentially, you’re giving your brain a break as you weave between different voices and this encourages what is called “diffuse thinking.”

It also helps you break up time spent on a dense book with lighter versions of the same information. However, you can also get the benefits of diffuse thinking by reading a few other topics at the same time.

For example, when I go to the library, I purposely “distract” myself by grabbing a few books from other topics that interest me. I’ll get a novel and a few books from completely random categories.

This strategy helps make it easier to take interesting breaks and set little mini-goals. 

For example, let’s say you grab one book you need to read and three unrelated books. You can then create a little if-this-then-that reading circuit: 

Finish one chapter then…
Peruse an interesting book, then…
Finish another chapter, then…
Pick up the next book… etc. 

Don’t underestimate the power of giving yourself a shorter reading goal and then allowing your mind to wander. It’s well-documented that it helps us understand and remember more. 

Tip #7: Don’t Force “Understanding”

When it comes to reading comprehension strategies, force isn’t one of them.

In reality, we read precisely because we don’t understand and should acknowledge that we will always not know what we don’t know. 

In some ways, understanding is always incomplete, and one of the points of Gödel, Escher, Bach is to illustrate this as a normal and healthy part of human consciousness. 

If you don’t understand, make a note of it. You can also use a modified version of the Feynman technique to help coax yourself along. 

Typically, the Feynman technique involves describing a topic in writing as if you were teaching it to a child. Then, when you come across blanks in your knowledge, you fill in the gaps with re-reading or reading outside the core textbook. It is powerful and yet another reason while subvocalization is probably not a great strategy. You want to use the power of asking such questions and teaching yourself while you read. 

In all things, be humble enough to realize that your fullest possible understanding is always yet to come. It’s a process forever held in beta, and that is a very exciting thing when you stop to think about it.

Tip #8: Vocalize to get over stumbling blocks

Not to overdo my criticism of subvocalization. I actually think there is a context in which it makes sense. 

However, when it comes to reading faster, one of the quickest ways to overcome a hurdle is to read something you don’t understand aloud. 

Even the best authors are capable of writing unclear sentences. Heck, they can even produce garbled paragraphs, pages and even entire books. 

 When you can’t understand, there is no shame in reading out loud. In fact, I’ve had times when my concentration was so shot, I recorded myself and listened back to the material to aid in understanding it. If you want to know how to read faster and comprehend from someone who has hit rock bottom and still wound up getting a PhD, that is exactly how I did it. 

Tip #9: Priming and Picture Walking

Priming is the best thing from the world of speed reading in my opinion. There are different ways to do it, and here is the general pattern I use, followed by a discussion:

Read the front and back cover first, including all verbs
Scan the index and bibliography
Read the conclusion
Read the colophon page
Read the table of contents
Skim through the book looking for illustrations, charts and tables
Read the introduction
Read the most interesting chapters
Read the entire book (where relevant)

When we talked earlier about expanding the field, I meant in terms of an entire topic. But we can do this in terms of an individual book as well. 

Reading the covers and all of the “paratexts” like the colophon page, index and bibliography is great for “dropping seeds in the field” of your memory. It’s like looking at a map and pinning little flags of recognition. You are literally training your brain that there is already familiar territory here.

For example, whenever I look through a book and see a name like Giordano Bruno or Friedrich Nietzsche in the text, I recognize that this new book includes content “wormholes.” Recently, I quickly read Daniel Dennet’s Breaking the Spell, and quickly assessed the many ways he makes use of Nietzsche in that book. 

It’s not that this strategy necessarily leads to any specific outcome. It just creates context and wakes up parts of your existing memory and competence in the field. It also generates curiosity. When you’re curious, you’re probably having fun, so this aspect of priming is basically like watching a movie trailer to whet your appetite. 

When it comes to reading the book out of order, I read the conclusion first primarily to find out if the author actually arrived at a conclusion worth pursuing. Combined with the introduction, these two parts of the book usually mention in which chapters evidence has been given to support certain arguments, and this helps you decide where you need to focus.

Finally, if it seems clear that the book is worth reading, I’ll dive in and use the next strategy. 

Tip #10: Cull the information you want to memorize first, use the Memory Palace technique later

A lot of speed reading courses talk about making associations as you read. 

I do this myself sometimes. But I never do it when I want to understand and remember a large amount of the book quickly. 

This is because I find it’s better to read strategically and limit the amount of interruptions. I do not think interruptions to take notes are bad. But too many gets us into collector’s fallacy, which is why I limit myself to between 3-10 points per chapter.

I’ve been sharing this technique for years and a lot of people think it won’t be enough information. The reality is that if you can memorize the big ideas, a lot of the granular details will tend to fall into place anyway. This is because wherever content is king, context is god. The details typically fill themselves in. 

Strategically, when using the Memory Palace technique, you can add more details later, but you’ll have nothing to add those details too if you don’t just get started. In brief, I extract the points to index cards, and this is because they are moveable. 

Then, when I have the main points I want to memorize, I place them in a Memory Palace purposely chosen for the content in that book. There may be several Memory Palaces for the book, or some of the information may be connected to other existing memories with or without Memory Palaces. 

The point is simply that reading and note taking is divided from the process of memorizing and reviewing. This makes everything clear, crisp and focused. I find the same approach makes sense when learning to become fluent in a language as well.

Tip #11: Write Summaries

When Dr. Anderson told me she wanted summaries from each book I read during my last semester of courses during grad school, I swallowed hard. That’s because there were dozens of books on my reading list. 

However, I’m grateful she made this assignment a requirement because I’ve been writing summaries ever since. It’s great for learning faster because it taps into the levels of processing effect by causing you to actively recall the information in your own words.

I’ve found that 250-500 words is more than enough to capture a book’s core thesis and its main points. 

Tip #12: Discuss (With Anyone or Anything)

It’s important to verbalize what you’re learning. If you can’t join a group on the Internet for live stream discussions, I suggest:

Scheduling a reading discussion with family
Self talk while walking or at the gym
Talking with pets as a last ditch effort

It’s always better if you can talk with other people, but if that’s impossible, at least talk to yourself. This activity is like the Feynman Technique, minus the writing.

You can also imagine having a discussion with the author, or even the authors of other books. As I shared in this Q&A on how to learn effectively, imaginary interviewing is a great way to speed up your path to understanding more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOESI...

Tip #13: Expand Your Vocabulary 

Brilliant Speed Reading, by Phil Chambers, seems to me one of the best books on speed reading thanks to its emphasis on vocabulary development. 

By learning all about prefixes and suffixes, you rapidly reduce the amount of time you have to spend looking up words you don’t understand. Chambers’ book gets you started, and something like Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis is well worth your time if you want every book you read to be super clear and easy to digest. 

Tip #14: Know Your Needs and Wants Using the 80/20 Rule

You’ve probably heard about the hero’s journey. It’s the structure of nearly every fairy tale and popular story in the movies and novels. 

In every story, the hero has a driving ambition that comes into conflict with a psychological need. 

The same thing happens in reading. You know you “want it all,” but in reality, you only need a certain amount. 

Thus, as the hero in your own reading adventure, you need to accept that no one, ever, has memorized everything in a book and had all of that information be useful. It’s just not in the nature of either books or knowledge.

Rather, smart people develop the ability to zero in on the key points and identify the granular details that support those points in valid ways. There’s no best way to develop this “radar” other than to get started culling information in a manner like I’ve suggested above. 

Tip #15: Be Patient with Different Writing Styles and Conventions

Authors have their quirks and some genres come backed with tedious conventions. However, there’s a reason they evolved and often, just being patient is the fastest path to mastering a text. 

Again, understanding is a process, not a destination. So if you double-down on how much you’re reading, you’ll learn the different conventions of different genres much more quickly and then be able to skim more intelligently and without learning the details. 

This kind of reading is especially true when it comes to legal documents and scientific papers. Many of their conventions were designed so that readers could quickly pick up the “gist” of their arguments and know almost at a glance if they relate to the research query. But without spending some time to learn those conventions, you’ll forever be locked out of knowing how to navigate them. 

You can apply this same thinking to novels too.

For example, I loved Ready Player One by Ernest Cline so got a copy of Armada. I soon realized I wasn’t as much in love with Armada, so I used my knowledge of convention to skim through it. I quickly found the dilemma, the decision and action, the gathering of allies and a few other features that led me to understand the battle and resolution. 

Am I going to write an A+ paper on Armada? Of course not. But I am satisfied that I got the gist of the tale and wound up enjoying it more because I used speed reading based on conventional knowledge, rather than getting impatient with it because it wasn’t as good as Ready Player One.

Tip #16: Develop Memory Systems And Practice Mnemonic Strategies

One of the coolest tools you can learn to use is a 00-99 PAO. Although I normally separate gathering information from memorizing it, when you’re reading casually and just want to memorize a few points from a book, using a number system as a kind of “Magnetic Bookmark” is a lot of fun.

In brief, the technique lets you create an image for every two digit number. If you find a salient detail on page 75, you instantly have an image for that number. You can then get that image to interact with the ideas on the page. 

For example, in Maps of Meaning, Jordan Peterson talks about episodic memory and mnestic memory in the context of Shakespeare and Freud. Since 75 is John Cale in my 00-99, it was easy for me to imagine him interacting with Shakespeare and Freud in a way that helped me remember Peterson’s point about knowledge, memory and competence. 

Of course, I didn’t just leave it at that. I followed up by writing a short summary of the book when I was done and that helped consolidate the memory. Now that it’s there, I understand this book much better and am able to speak about it at will.

There are hoards of memory strategies you can learn, including:

The Memory Palace
Link and story methods
Elaborative encoding
Peg Systems

Dive in and start exploring them.

3 Speed Reading Exercises That Don’t Suck

If you’re not convinced by the 15 points of strategy I laid out for you above, try some of these alternatives to the paradoxical and contradictory exercises you find in most speed reading courses.

Magnetic Eye Fixations

Instead of trying to reduce your eye movements, spend some time increasing them. Study how your eyes move.

I’ve spent hours doing this and find it helps me concentrate. The origin of it comes from headaches I was getting in high school. My eyes always felt like I had a hard time focusing on the page. As I explained to the doctor, it was like my eyes always slipped off the page, and this annoyed me because I loved reading. As a result of this complaint, I was given glasses. 

I don’t think they ever helped, but I wore them from around age 15 to age 20. While I was in university, I started getting headaches again and went to see an optometrist. She said the glasses I had were wrecking my eyes and told me the best thing to do would be to strengthen them by reading normally. She actually didn’t let me leave with the glasses I brought in because she was so worried about how they were weakening the muscles in my eyes. 

So I went home and within a week my headaches were gone. At first, I noticed my eyes going back to slipping off the page, and that’s when I started to work at fixating them. To this day, if I ever feel like I can’t concentrate, I take a deep breath in and then pretend like I’m shooting Superman-like lasers at the page. Within a short while, I am focused and reading like normal. 

Number-Skipping

A lot of speed reading courses suggest that to reduce subvocalization, you should count backwards while reading (or some other pattern). In reality, we know that subvocalization actually helps with understanding, so here’s what I suggest instead.

When not reading, get into your favorite meditation pose. Then count from 1-10 and back down again. If you can actually do that without your mind wandering, congrats. You’re practically a Zen Master already. 

Round Two: This time, try suppressing the even numbers. 

In other words, count 1, but just breathe while you should be counting 2 and try to think of nothing. Then allow yourself to count to 3. 

This practice increases focus and helps you experience the nature of thought so that if your mind is wandering while you read, you can easily bring it back into focus. 

3 Locations

Find three different spots to read. For example:

Park
Cafe
Bedroom

Read 10 pages in each location and make a general note of the time it takes. Pay attention to aspects like your posture, the environment and the nature of the material. 

If you find yourself distracted, take a moment to either practice Number Skipping or Magnetic Fixation and see how these techniques differ in different locations.

Also study yourself at different times of day. Try reading after a cold shower. Make note of when you ate and how processes of digestion might be influencing your focus across the cycle. 

This final exercise takes time, but will reward you. Know Thyself, as they say, and you will know more than anyone else ever can about how to improve your reading abilities. 

How To Read Fast: A Professor’s Final Word

I’ve not only taught reading and comprehension, including critical thinking courses at universities around the world. I’ve been reading my entire life. 

That is the the ultimate secret to how I’ve managed to read so much, so quickly:



I read. 

I mentioned the bankrupt Evelyn Wood origin story before, but there is one part of it that makes sense. In the fuller narrative, Wood says she observed that her professor read a paper she’d written very quickly and had an intelligent conversation with her about it. This kind of report makes sense for one very specific reason I’m intimately familiar with from having gone through this experience with my own doctoral supervisor:



He was an expert in my field and had been reading materials related to my topic for decades. If he hadn’t, he would have had no business being my supervisor. It’s not that these people are “speed reading.” They’re just highly capable of scanning for the main points and connecting it to their existing knowledge. 

The rest is strategy and mindset, so let me leave you with a few personal examples from my own decades of having slogged through many difficult books.

If I don’t like something I have to read, I adjust my attitude. 

If I don’t understand something, I go back and pick another comprehension strategy (like reading aloud or the Feynman Technique). I go in with a stack of index cards and Memory Palaces when they are warranted and am prepared to split the information gathering from the memorizing and allow understanding to come later. 

Above all, I assume that I won’t understand a new book because it is new. And as much as possible, I go in with a goal and a schedule. 

I personally don’t like the term “speed reading.” I think it preys on gullibility and desperation. Yet, I know from experience and having seen friends who swear by these techniques that if you already have familiarity in a particular field, blazing fast speeds are possible. 

But even then, the best readers I know are always humble. They think critically, scientifically and understand that the ability to comprehend information is a multi-layered process.

This is because language is a shared medium and it never exists in just one brain. Language is how we “hyperlink” with one another, and that’s why the real way to learn faster and remember more will always be to increase the links. If it takes a bit longer to create more connections thoroughly and well, then who would you rather be? The tortoise or the hare?

Arthur Worsley On Getting Traction And Discovering Your Why

It is no secret that we are all constantly in a state of self-examination.

While some people may be more “self-aware” than others, no matter where you are on the spectrum, there is a constant need, a persistent desire to “Know Thyself.” 

The greatest task in that knowing, above all else, may be the biggest question, and, more complicated therefore, to answer, the question of “Why?”

Today, more than ever perhaps, we are being challenged to slow down, to examine our priorities, to reflect on who we are and what motivates us.

Whether that is an intentional choice, or the current state of the world has given you the gift of more time in the form of working from home and eliminating your commute, or governmental measures have encouraged a “safer at home” mindset, now is no better time for working towards that answer.

My guest today is Arthur Worsley. He is the man behind The Art of Living blog, the author of the TRACKTION Planner, and the Moments app. He is an entrepreneur, graduate of Oxford where he studied psychology, philosophy, and physiology. 

Thumbs up for the Tracktion Planner!

We discuss his mission of guiding others to find their motivation, through practical, executable, analog tools.

Arthur provides a real, honest look at a difficult situation that became his catalyst for self-discovery, and, through coaching, and his own journey, the roadblocks that others faced that were similar, and how they, and you, in turn, can also overcome them.

He even shares his own experience with answering that big question of “Why?” as he applied for Oxford. In his words, it was “terrifying” to see one’s future residing in such an empty space. The question of why was intentional, providing a blank canvas, open to interpretation.

He learned how to navigate and fill that space for himself, and with the tools and methods he has created, you can also learn to answer that all-important question of “Why?”

If you’re struggling to find your motivation for your everyday….

Or maybe the bigger challenge of your life’s purpose…

Just take note of where you’re starting from.

As you begin to answer that question, and, unavoidably, the others that arise, know you are enough. 

That self-doubt? It can serve you. That questioning is good. That questioning means growth.

And why then wouldn’t we take that opportunity as we ask that very thing of ourselves?

Press play now above to listen in as Arthur shares:

How physiology, psychology, and philosophy can not only live in harmony as disciplines, but how they actually, in fact, intersect and can help you improve your focus
The evolution of the Pyramid of Needs for modern day society – what’s missing, and why
The gap that exists between effort (what you do) and motivation (why you do it)
What loss of religion means practically, and the problem that “lack of faith” can create
The reason behind the current resurgence of Stoicism, and what questions that philosophy can answer.
Why meaning must be found in purpose, and not purpose within meaning
The relationship (that’s necessary) between decision making and data collection
The pros and cons to the novelty effect
The most common reasons planners fail, and how you can overcome them with just a few simple tools
The problem with perfectionism and its relationship to procrastination
Why reading isn’t always beneficial – and how you may need to tweak your reading style (were you aware you had one?)
How problem solving can be addictive, and what mindset is required to achieve cyclical solutions
Why connection is such a critical why – even for an introvert

And even more!

Further Resources on the web, this podcast, and the MMM Blog:

The Art of Living

The Wheel of Life

Book Recommendations

Book Summaries

Arthur Worsley on the Nomad Podcast

Optimizing Evernote and Other Productivity Software for Better Memory 

Olly Richards on Crazy Language Learning Goals and Mastering Motivation

Mindset, Memory and Motivation with Sam Gendreau 

Dr. Bruno Furst’s You Can Remember: Does It Work?

Dr. Bruno Furst created a number of memory improvement courses and You Can Remember! is one of the most famous. 

He was a German lawyer and his full name was Johann Franz Bruno Fürst. 

People familiar with the long tradition of memory techniques will probably think he chose to go by “Bruno” to attract the attention of people already familiar with memory techniques.

It’s impossible to know, but I personally find it hard not to think about one of the most famous memory teachers, Giordano Bruno. Since “der Fürst” can mean “prince” or “ruler” in German, I have often wondered if the entire name is invented to say something about Giordano Bruno’s constant influence.

Given that this Bruno Furst fled Germany after Hitler came to power, this idea that he may have changed his name is plausible. Very little is known about him. The only Wikipedia page about him is in French and the New Yorker has their article about him locked in an archive. But the fact that he has a profile in that magazine gives us a clue to his prominence during his era.

The question is… does his memory training work? 

The answer depends on you, your goals and your willingness to go on what Furst calls, “Adventures in Memory and Concentration.” 

This printed pamphlet is an advertising piece designed to increase your desire to become a memory master. Notice the many dated professions and conventions of the era Furst was addressing.

This pairing of memory with concentration is important because you really can’t have one without the other. 

The good news is that improving one naturally improves the other. So with that in mind, let’s take a deep dive into this flagship memory training from Dr. Bruno Furst. I hope you enjoy this You Can Remember review. 

You Can Remember!: Everything You Need to Know

First, it’s important to realize that Dr. Furst recycled his material often. That means you might be disappointed if you already have these books: 

Stop Forgetting: How to Develop Your Memory And Put It To Practical Use


The Practical Way To A Better Memory: A Simple, Easy-To-Use Method of Training Your Memory

I love collecting memory books and courses. You Can Remember! by Dr. Bruno Furst is quite unique.

Although these books do have some differences in them, what makes You Can Remember! unique is a method of segmenting the different skills into ten sessions. 

These sessions are split up into ten small booklets of about 30 pages each. The package comes with four separate envelopes, each packed with “examinations” or “model answers.” The exams typically ask you to spend 20 minutes reading a magazine. You then quiz yourself and self-assess your accuracy.

Inside, you’ll find simple questions on typewritten sheets.

Finally, the box comes with the “Number Dictionary.” This small booklet is packed with words that fit the Major System from 00-1000.

 

Overview of the 10 Sessions

Bruno Furst faces the same challenge all memory experts run up against:



There is no perfect place to start learning memory techniques. 

But I feel that Dr. Furst made the best possible choice by starting where I also introduce students to the art of memory, with the Memory Palace technique. 

Session 1:

In his work, Dr. Furst uses the terminology of his era: The Memory Checkroom. Instead of calling each stop in the Memory Palace a “Magnetic Station,” he talks about coat hooks, each with a number. 

So that you can remember the numbers of each “hook,” you learn the Major System.

The session concludes with a test of how you interact your different hooks with daily chores.

Session 2:

Furst extends the Major System in this session and helps you extend it to three digits. He shows how you can use it to memorize “telephone numbers, price lists, addresses, formulas of every kind – in short, everything connected with numbers in practical life.”

The session ends with showing how flexible this number system is by sharing various mnemonic devices you can apply to different kinds of information.

A historic image of Dr. Furst shows that he likely taught even more advanced uses for numbers in his live training sessions. You see him with specially printed playing cards that include 3-digit numbers, for example, but I don’t know exactly what he had in mind for these. Encoding past 00-99 is not covered in any of his material I’ve read.

Session 3: 

This session goes further with extending your Major System and explains how to remember prices. 

Session 4:

Here Dr. Furst discusses applying the techniques to memorizing information from newspapers and short stories. You are given a number of still photographs to work with. You also go through scenarios where you might want to remember an anecdote and how your mnemonic devices can help trigger the memories. 

Session 5: 

Dr. Furst explains the different types of memories and then extends the techniques to memorizing faces and then names. He explains how to apply the techniques at parties.  

Dr. Bruno Furst discussing how to memorize faces.

Session 6: 

Here, you learn the “chain method,” which is essentially the same as the link and story method. He touches on how to use this method to memorize a speech. 

Session 7:

In this session, Furst covers memorizing historical dates, geography and memorizing contest winners and information related to the tax code. This is probably one of the most dated parts of the Bruno Furst memory program, especially since there have been many advancements in how to use memory techniques in the past decade alone.

Session 8:

Dr. Furst starts ramping things up in this section by discussing adding facts to people. He discusses remembering names when you don’t actually know the person (such as artists, authors, historical figures, etc). You also learn how to tackle memorizing scripture and the US States.

Session 9:

By this point, Dr. Furst figures you are ready for some of the next-level techniques. Here, he introduces using classification systems to improve your memory. For example, if you need to memorize a bunch of items on a tray, you would isolate all the musical instruments into a category. 

When exactly anyone would need to do this outside of working for airport security is unclear, but this technique does relate to what we call the Conceptual Mode in the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass. His introduction to using this kind of “mental division” is worth practicing even if the examples he gives don’t relate to many real world applications. 

One approach that still is potentially useful involves his discussion of using the Dewey Decimal system. This strategy is compelling and with a more robust approach to the Memory Palace, it’s quite easy to see how one could “nest” a number of them together using this categorical system.

This session is one of the most important and it’s curious that more of this material doesn’t appear in the introduction. Furst waits until nearly the end to stress the importance of goal setting, planning and exposes the truth about creativity. (The truth is that real creativity in memory training involves bringing together preexisting elements, not “inventing” new imagery and associations.)

Session 10:

You learn how to memorize a deck of cards in this session and a few routines you can use to stun your friends. The course ends with Furst stressing the need for ongoing practice in order to maintain the skills you’ve gained. 

Can Bruno Furst Help You with Memory Improvement?

If you’ve been following this blog for any period of time, you know that I feel more is better than less. “One,” as I often say, “is the most dangerous number” when you’re learning any skill. You want multiple teachers. 

But whether it’s Mega Memory, Pmemory or something by one of our contemporary memory competitors (like Nelson Dellis), you should think about a few things before deciding. 

Historical recency. Furst refers to dated newspaper formats, hairstyles that are no longer in fashion and checkrooms that one rarely sees anymore. If you’re a certain age, these examples won’t bother you. But there’s nothing about dealing with the Internet or information overwhelm. Dr. Furst couldn’t have even imagined what students of today deal with and this book shows it. (That said, the amount of techniques he covers is impressive and they’re all still relevant to today’s era.)
The examples are incredibly vague and generic. We know so much more about multisensory, concrete associations these days. You will likely struggle if you use examples that may have worked for a few people in his era. 
Bad advice. Furst talks about not using rhymes for a reason that doesn’t really make sense and tells you to repeat names in conversations, which is not strictly necessary when memorizing them. He also seems to assume that everyone is an extrovert.
He breaks learning a 00-99 PAO over 10 sessions instead of just focusing on this particular skill. He may have had the learning technique called “interleaving” in mind, but I doubt it. This strategy might reduce the cognitive load of developing your Major System, but you wind up switching topics many times and he never quite develops a solid use case as he might have by gathering this mnemonic strategy in one place. 

The History Of Memory Techniques

Personally, I picked up these books and the You Can Remember! course to better understand the history of this beautiful tradition. 

Like Kevin Trudeau and Harry Lorayne, Bruno Furst was more than a memory teacher. He was a great marketer. The course I ordered came packed with the original advertising and it’s clear that Furst knew just how much convincing many people need in order to give these techniques a try. 

Testimonials for Bruno Furst came with You Can Remember! to help remind new students of the value in the program.

The use of testimonials and what he calls “proof again” testimonials and offers for free training shows that he was devoted to “education-based advertising.” Although nothing in his marketing offers the kinds of “results in advance” we focus on in the Magnetic Memory Method world, it is inspiring to see the effort that went into these “listicles via mail.” There is also an “advertorial” in Maclean’s where he teaches the Major System in passing.

It is not known whether Dr. Furst wrote these advertising materials himself, but they strike me as coming from the same author. I get this feeling because the memory training itself is written to encourage you take action, and this is common across all memory training programs. If you want, as Dr. Furst puts it, to “make more friends, and acquire greater popularity at social gatherings,” you have to take action. 

As I have done for years, he urges the learner not to be content with the examples he gives. The imperative to “try the system immediately in your daily life,” comes up as a mantra, and I agree that it needs to be repeated often. He correctly stresses that “every human activity rests in some way on memory” and shows how improving memory leads to great efficiency and pleasure in life.

Finally, it is worth noting how Dr. Furst brings memory training together with general self help. When talking about classification, he talks about applying this mnemonic strategy to your goals. He suggests breaking your five year plan into categories like your business or work, social life and family recreation. 

Practical, But Dated Memory Training

As I mentioned at the beginning, there is no perfect way to start your memory training journal. But if you want to split things across ten learning sessions and can get hold of You Can Remember!, I have no problem recommending it. 

Even where there are certainly aspects to the program I could complain about it, Furst knows his stuff and his own goals are in the right place. As he says, “Every advance in civilization and every step in cultural progress rests in the last analysis upon memory.”



This fact remains true and those of us who love memory techniques owe a debt of gratitude for his work, whether we go through his material or not.

How to Become Fluent in a Language: Everything You Need to Know

If you want to become conversationally fluent, you might wonder how many words and phrases you need to learn.

You probably also want to know how long it’s going to take to tie enough threads of the language together to speak without hesitation.

You also want the certainty that the language will in fact wind up deep down inside you and become part of your being.

On this page, you’ll discover the best way to become fluent in a language — and how to define fluency in the first place.

It’s not exactly what a lot of people think. In fact, when you define “fluency” in the best possible way, you can achieve goals in the languages you want to learn with incredible speed and efficiency.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2TOa...

Here’s what this post will cover:

What Does It Mean To Be Fluent?
The 5 Stages of Language Fluency
When Are You Fluent In A Language?
How To Become Fluent In A Language Fast: 8 Powerful Tips
Becoming Conversationally Fluent Is Easy And Fun

Let’s begin.

What Does It Mean To Be Fluent?

Let’s start our definition by ruling out what fluency isn’t.

Fluency is not:

Being 100% accurate every time you speak
Knowing every single word in a language
Mastering grammar

Think about your own mother tongue.

Do you say things 100% perfectly every time you speak? Of course not. We all stutter sometimes or forget simple words we’ve known our entire lives.

Likewise, any honest person who looks through a dictionary will find hundreds of words they do not know in their mother tongue.

As for grammar, I remember showing off in German to my friend Olly Richards in Berlin several years ago.

When I asked someone I was speaking to if my grammar was correct, the native German speaker shrugged and looked at me as if I was insane for asking such a question.

Here’s the point of this story about asking a native German speaker if my grammar was correct:

Very few native speakers actually know much about their mother tongue. And that means in order to become proficient in a language, you don’t have to either.

The Better Definition You Need When Becoming Fluent In A Language

A better definition of fluency is this:

The ability to complete goals while using another language.

And the main goal?

To use words and phrases to:

Convey thoughts, ideas, emotions, or commands
Understand thoughts, ideas, emotions, or commands

Ideally, you’ll be doing this in pleasant interactions with people you enjoy speaking with — though this is not necessarily always the case.

For example, I’ve dealt more than a few times with immigration offices in Germany. I spoke in German and was able to convey and understand the necessary details in order to accomplish goals completely using German. (But it was not my idea of fun.)

The 5 Stages of Language Fluency

As you start learning a language, you’re going to go through phases or stages.

These can be broken down into:

1. Zero knowledge of the language.

You literally don’t know a thing. You might not even know what the language is called in the language you’re learning. (For example, German is called Deutsch.)

2. Basics of the language, like the alphabet.

In different languages, you’ll face different demands depending on the character set and any symbols you need to learn. Obviously, Asian languages have bigger demands than Russian with Cyrillic, or you might lose a few letters when learning a language like Italian.

3. Starting to speak.

In this stage, you will perhaps have a few words and phrases you can use. You may be practicing entirely on your own or with a teacher.

4. Reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

In this stage, you’ll ramp up your efforts by using what is called The Levels Of Processing. You need to combine multiple forms of input and output in order to consolidate what you’re learning.

5. Flying solo.

This is when you are able to hold conversations that flow — or at least accomplish goals. You’ll usually find this incredibly pleasurable, but all that matters is that you can understand and be understood pretty much on demand.

You can start understanding interesting aspects of a language at all of these levels. You really don’t have to wait for the fifth stage to understand innuendo, for example. Even just knowing a bit about how certain letters are sounded can give you access to the psychological experience of the language.

You can also work on your accuracy at each stage. In fact, you’ll want to keep coming back to hone the accuracy of each stage over time.

For example, I’ve been studying Sanskrit for three years, and I still learn new things just about the alphabet.

When Are You Fluent In A Language?

How long does it take to become fluent in a language? The answer to this question is either 1) up to you or 2) based on a test you take to assess your progress.

In Europe, you might consider being tested based on the CEFR levels. For a language like Chinese, you might take a formal test based on HSK 1-6. (When discussing how to learn Chinese, I give an example of a journey to passing level 3.)

I suggest you find a “sweet spot” between your own definition of fluency and an external exam.

Again, native speakers rarely know their mother tongue all that well at a technical level, so you probably want to judge the fluidity of your conversations and the ability to accomplish goals in the language above all.

Studying to complete tests can be very useful along the way, but ultimately life itself is the real test.

How To Become Fluent In A Language Fast: 8 Powerful Tips

You came here to understand how to learn a language fluently, so let’s get into 8 things you can do to reach fluency fast.

1. Create a Vision Statement and a Learning Plan

Realize that there are good rules of thumb but no one path that suits everyone. It’s important to accept this simple fact.

Your journey will share some common characteristics with other learners, but ultimately it’s your path to follow.

To ensure you have a path to follow, I suggest you write out a Vision Statement and craft a learning plan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFz31...

For example, you can get a journal to document your journey and start on page one with a statement like this:

I will be fluent enough in German in 90 days from now to hold my first conversation about my interests and future plans.

Can you see how powerful this simple statement is? Instead of saying, “I want to learn German,” (or whatever language you’re learning) you now have a clear and crisp goal. It is concrete and specific.

You can also develop a plan based on this goal thanks to its specificity. You know that you need to learn words and phrases around interests and plans. This allows you to create highly targeted learning missions.

To do that, I suggest writing out the exact times of day and locations you will study your language.

For example, you can create a calendar in your journal and set mornings from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. for learning.

2. Gather the Best Possible Learning Materials Using Limits

A lot of language learners overwhelm themselves with too many study materials. In today’s world, it’s easy to make this mistake — it seems like every minute there’s a new book or course you can take.

Instead, follow the advice my friend Olly Richards gave me years ago. Pick just:

One language textbook
One language course
One language teacher

In the beginning, you might not know which are the best for you, so be willing to experiment. Generally, your research will be worth every minute and there are lots of reviews you can read.

Personally, I think Pimsleur audio programs are decent in the beginning for the course you choose. A book should have a nice vocabulary list and sample conversations with full phrases. And a teacher should be responsive to your vision statement and your learning plan.

Simple, right?

It is, just so long as you don’t fall for “shiny new language resource” syndrome and abandon the resources you’ve already invested in. Be a completionist and you’ll be well rewarded.

3. Pick a Memorization Strategy

When you’re just getting started, remembering new words is one of the most difficult challenges. You have to remember sound, meaning, spelling, and in some cases characters or new alphabets.

Mnemonics are your best bet for moving quickly. These include:

The Memory Palace technique
Story and linking methods
Pegword method

To learn each of these in one swift course, please consider completing Memory Palace Mastery:

You’ll also want to consider combining the Memory Palace technique with self-created flash cards.

For example, these cards have linking associations and are themselves linked to a Memory Palace:

4. Book Sessions With Your Teacher In Advance

As part of planning your personal learning sessions, it’s important to spend time with a native speaker.

There are at least two ways to do this:

With a paid teacher
With a tandem partner

Personally, I recommend you get a paid teacher. Sometimes you can find good tandem partners, but they always want at least half the time for their language. Plus, they are rarely trained teachers.

That said, paid teachers are not without their pitfalls. This is why having your vision statement and specific goals laid out for them is a must. Otherwise, they will often take you in directions that will not get you to fluency under any definition.

And the reason to book your sessions in advance is so you have them scheduled. When you have already paid and just need to show up, you’re much more likely to put in the time.

For finding teachers, I recommend italki and Tandem.

5. Use This Tip With Native Speakers

One of the best things you can do is book many sessions with a native speaker and sit with a magazine. Flip through the pages and simply ask, “What is that?” Repeat this question and record everything.

I share a really fun and easy tool for doing this in this best language learning software article.

When you get home or after you end the session, go through the recording and capture the words and phrases you want to commit to memory. Then use your favorite memory strategy to learn them permanently.

When you next speak with your partner, make sure to repeat the new words you’ve learned. Don’t expect your teachers or speaking partners to always monitor this perfectly. Take charge to make sure that you are in alignment with your vision and goals.

6. Read Stories

I first read Kafka and Brecht in German while in university, in 2001. I quickly learned the power of stories for picking up new vocabulary and phrases.

Of course, Kafka was too complex. But Brecht plays can be watched on video with English subtitles, and this made audio exposure to the language a delight.

You can also buy DVDs that have subtitles in the language you’re learning. Watching Hamlet with the German words on the screen was hugely beneficial for me.

But don’t ignore old fashioned books. I suggest this Teach Yourself collection of stories for multiple languages as a wonderful source of graded reading material.

Beelingua is an interesting app with multiple stories that you should consider as well.

7. Translate Articles Based On Your Interests

My friend Luca Lampariello got me into the idea of translation for language learning — specifically based around topics you’re interested in and want to be able to talk about.

I’ve done this quite a bit, and picking a book of interviews with my favorite German band was a great way to develop speaking powers with the kinds of Germans I hung around with most: musicians.

Again, if you’re clear about your vision, it’s easier to think up missions like these and plan them out.

To get started, try using Google translate to find some keywords. If you’re into classical music, for example, figure out how that is said in the language you’re learning. Then search Google for articles about that topic using the term you discovered.

To translate, I suggest going word for word with a dictionary. Write out your translation by hand, which is known to help memory much more than typing.

Pro tip: I recommend that you don’t spend too long on any translation effort in one sitting. 10-15 minutes will do. Always take note of especially interesting words and phrases so you can memorize them.

8. Reevaluate Your Vision Statement And Craft New Missions

Thanks to the focus you’ve brought to the task of developing your fluency, you’ll have come a long way much faster than most who dabble in language learning.

As you set new vision statements over the years, think about the kinds of missions and goals you can set that will give you a useful boost immediately. This part of the process is important because the further into the future you set the achievements, the more you invite delay and frustration.

Be willing to break things down into smaller achievements. Even if the rewards are much smaller as a result, you’ll get more of them, more often.

And always be realistic about how native speakers actually use the language you’re learning. Think more about the kinds of people you want to speak with and think about working on missions that reflect goals like:

Improving accuracy in a regional dialect you live in or want to visit.
Developing more vocabulary inside of a specific interest area (like art, science, or philosophy).
Develop personal ways to develop your proficiency.
Consider having your accuracy and proficiency tested by external tests (if relevant to your goals). Use these to craft your missions accordingly.

In sum, we always want to create “Quick Victories” for ourselves.

It’s not really about creating motivation. Rather, it’s about laying the neurochemical basis for learning consistently so we always keep going – almost on autopilot – even when we don’t feel like studying. (Which can and will happen to everyone.)

Finally, add a bit of “Zen” to the process. By this suggestion, I mean let go of the outcome.

A lot of learners chase away success because they cling to unrealistic goals or otherwise make a poorly conceived outcome a must. When you can relax and focus on having fun, learning a language is not only more fun and much easier, it also feels like it’s just happening naturally.

As some people say, no one “learns” languages. They are only acquired. For that to happen, you just have to rig the game so you can.

Becoming Conversationally Fluent Is Easy And Fun

As you can tell, the exact definition of “fluency” is flexible. I suggest you mix things up by crafting your own personal standard and working towards at least one external evaluation.

Whatever you do, please don’t confuse using apps as actual language learning practice.

I haven’t included anything about them in this article because they’re not really how successful language learners operate. At most, they might use Anki or some related SRS program, but I have found in my many years of speaking with polyglots that it’s not the tool.

Instead, it’s the strategic use of the tool in a context that gets you plenty of speaking practice with real humans that matters.

When it comes to making sure you can speak with natives, one of the most powerful tools is the Memory Palace technique. It lets you rapidly pile up your arsenal of words and phrases.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to use it for language learning, register for this free training series now. It will take you through the most effective and efficient way you can learn any language much faster, simply by playing a kind of game in your mind as you use a focused set of resources.

It’s also the best tool I know of for rigging the game neurologically in your favor because of how it gives you those “quick victories” practically on demand.

Plus, we have studies that show how powerful these techniques are for experiencing the brain-preserving benefits of bilingualism.

And let me know: Which of these tips helped you the most? What language or languages are you learning at the moment?

Focus Your Mind: 3 Powerful Concentration Secrets

Do you need to focus your mind?

And while you’re at it, would you like to increase your concentration power?

If so, I have 3 simple tips for you that are more powerful than a fistful of focus vitamins or a scientifically questionable brain training app.

And I’ll even reveal what happened when I was attacked personally in an examination and needed these tips in order to keep focused so I could get my Ph.D.!

Want to know the focus secrets that will help you perform even under the most hectic of situations?

Here’s what this post will cover:

1. Focus Your Mind on the Body

2. Focus Your Mind on the Breath

3. Focus Your Mind… on the Mind?

How Do You Mentally Focus?

Let’s get started.

1. Focus Your Mind on the Body

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-zTk...

 

Did you know that you can’t effectively work on your mind without also working on your body?

 

It’s critical to start here because a lot of people think their mind is somehow different than their body. In fact, your mind is produced by your brain, a clump of physical cells located in your skull.

The quality and health of these cells directly shows up in your ability to focus and concentrate.

To start improving, learn to relax your body every time you sit down to study. You can do this by performing muscle relaxation exercises, breathing exercises, and daily meditations.

Let’s look at how to combine all three in a quick morning ritual:

Get a foam roller or lacrosse balls to help relieve shoulder pain
Use trigger point therapy to get knots out of your shoulders
And release a tight IT band

(Be sure to check with your doctor or a physical therapist before taking on any new exercise or physical program.)

I have been using rollers like these for years, and they really set the stage for much greater mental focus than I thought possible.

We all hold far too much tension in our bodies, and this is a simple way to help release a TON of it.

Perform these exercises every day for five minutes before you read or study, and you will undoubtedly note a huge difference.

And if you are a student attending lectures on campus, consider getting a therapy massage cane — you can easily put it in your backpack along with your lacrosse balls for use before lectures.

If you can’t carry such items with you, a simple body scan and deliberate squeezing of your major muscles is another possibility.

For example, before I sat for my dissertation defense – arguably the biggest exam of my life – I moved from my feet all the way up to my forehead, squeezing and releasing my muscles. No one noticed at all, and I waltzed into the room completely relaxed.

In addition to muscle relaxation, I had two other secret weapons that enabled me to focus in the heat of battle where I was attacked personally and managed to do better than survive. Thanks to relaxation and memory techniques, I recited quotes and page numbers and pulled all kinds of abstract knowledge from my head.

In fact, even after I was grilled intensively and even aggressively by one person on the committee, the head examiner said, “Anthony, the only guy cooler than you is Miles Davis.”

What was my second secret weapon?

2. Focus Your Mind on the Breath

My second secret for how to focus right now is breathing.

My favorite breathing exercise is called Alternate Psychic Nostril Breathing.

It’s called “psychic” because you imagine in your mind that you’re inhaling through just one nostril — unlike Alternate Nostril Breathing, where you actually use your hand.

But I didn’t have the concentration and focus skills for that level of kinesthetic visualization in the beginning. So I just started with the regular version.

When you’re ready to switch over to the “psychic” version, just pretend that the nostrils are blocked as you go back and forth. With practice, you’ll find that you can do it all day.

And even if you don’t, you can drop back into it during a moment of tension or stress.

For example, when I was told during my doctoral dissertation that an entire chapter I’d written on Nietzsche had no Nietzsche in it, I didn’t get stressed or choked or panicked.

I just squeezed the muscles in my hands and feet and imagined I was inhaling only through my right nostril and out through my left. By that point, I’d been practicing the technique for a while, which is why it took such immediate effect.

Don’t expect to try it once and suddenly be as calm as a Shaolin Monk!

After this examiner made this accusation and I’d quickly centered myself, I calmly remembered the page number my Nietzsche chapter started on and asked everyone to turn to that page.

Then I quoted Nietzsche in German, one of the most important passages he wrote about friendship, which I’d written about in my dissertation. That quote helped me establish the theoretical grounding I’d laid out, not just in that chapter, but throughout the massive document everyone was now focused on.

But I didn’t have to look because I knew exactly what I’d written and exactly where in the document the passage was located.

One thing I was reminded of that day: people attack each other for a reason, and one of them is because they know how easy it is to break your focus and cause you to make mistakes.

But I don’t care. All that matters is that I was prepared by practicing these focus and concentration techniques.

One key to my success with these focus strategies is to be F.R.E.E. That is, literally:

Frequent practice in a state of…

Relaxation and a spirit of…

Experimentation and always letting these focus and concentration rituals keep you…

Entertained

These two strategies I’ve shared so far using the F.R.E.E. model – when practiced in advance – will help ensure that you’re not so quickly shaken. You might not be “as cool as Miles Davis,” but at least you’ll be moving in the direction of calm focus, cool clarity, and modesty too.

Anyone who has the first world problem of focus and concentration issues while attending university (or reading books they bought off Amazon) can also bring in a bit of gratitude as a strategy too.

Most of us just don’t realize how blessed we are. And that’s because we lack observation skills. This leads us to the third strategy for greater focus…

3. Focus Your Mind… on the Mind?

Let me cut to the chase:

There are lots of kinds of meditation, and tons of confusion out there. I won’t pretend to know the best kind of meditation for you, because it’s not as simple as systematically relaxing your muscles.

But we do know that scientists have found that four times a week minimum is required for greater focus and concentration effects to take place. These don’t have to be hour-long marathons, either. Just ten to fifteen minutes of meditation will do.

I suggest that you do some muscle relaxation and breathing first, and then just set a timer. Tim Ferriss advises that you should set your timer for two minutes less than you think you can sit for.

For example, if you think you can sit for 10 minutes to just watch your thoughts, set it for eight.

And that’s really all you need to do in the beginning. Turn off all the apps and other distractions. Sit just to sit.

There are a variety of meditation techniques – including concentration meditation and visualization meditation – so try them on for size and see what works best for you.

One of my favorites on Gary Weber’s channel is his Kirtan Kriya practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehvok...

This simple meditation has been shown to help with memory, focus, and concentration. Kirtan Kriya also enables you to bring in a small amount of movement and sound. It’s also a step in the direction of longer meditations where you work with self-inquiry questions.

But remember, research shows that you’ll want to practice at least four times per week to notice an effect.

And be flexible with yourself. I have bad shoulder impingement issues and bursitis and sadly can’t sit for long meditations at the moment. I have to lay down instead or do them while walking.

But thanks to muscle relaxation, breathing, and meditation, the pain is just something that appears in consciousness. And it’s a heck of a lot less painful than having a bratty professor in the room who just wants you to fail.

And like that professor, both those attacks and this shoulder pain are something frequent meditation helps me simply observe, without getting emotionally tied up in them.

Things in the world are just like waves of the ocean, rolling in and rolling out. They really don’t disturb the shore, which gets stronger and stronger the more you practice these three techniques.

Before we wrap up, I have one more suggestion to help you focus your mind.

How Do You Mentally Focus?

If you’re having a hard time getting little rituals like these into action, here’s the solution that works best for me:

Do all of these three exercises for better focus before you turn on the computer in the morning or look at your phone.

Sometimes I’m not successful at doing that every single morning, but usually I am. If you’re new, even just a 20% success rate across a few weeks is a start.

You can put your phone in a cupboard and make sure your computer is completely turned off. Designate a room in your home or spot where you can focus just on rolling out your muscles, practicing your breathing, and meditating.

Anchor this place in your home with a mental image like the Buddha or Alan Watts, Gary Weber, or something you find peaceful like a tree or flower. Then go to that spot and practice.

Later you can open the great avalanche of the connected world, and you’ll enjoy it with much more focus, concentration, and gratitude because you’ve completed these simple exercises.

And if you want to learn more about my memory techniques – including meditations to help you focus your mind – grab your copy of my book, The Victorious Mind.