Speed Reading: Can it Change Your Life?

by Kim Allarie

You might have read the hype about speed reading being able to transform your life by enabling you to take in information considerably more quickly than usual, thereby enhancing your skills as well as upping your value as an employee.

For a number of people, increasing their reading speed is the main objective, while for others, it is more essential that they develop their ability to comprehend and retain what they read. A high-quality speed reading program can do both, and consequently amp up both your personal and professional life.

The typical reading speed is around two words a second with standard comprehension. For ordinary reading this is probably sufficient, but with the help of a good speed reading program the average rate could be boosted to four or six words a second with similar comprehension.

But there are those who have very particular reading requirements and wish to improve their reading speed to ten-plus words per second with better than normal understanding. A comprehensive speed reading program with lots of practice and testing can help them reach their objective.

Many speed reading programs train students to rapidly search through the text to ignore irrelevant information and pick out the pertinent parts. The idea is to be able to gather the essence of the material through reading entire sentences or phrases as a block, instead of just individual words.

Improve Speed, But Don't Lose Comprehension

Sometimes individuals who undertake to learn speed reading encounter difficulties with the practice of sub-vocalization. This is the tendency to mentally sound out each word while they read. In speed reading, a primary focus is on developing the ability to not sub-vocalize while you read. In its place, you are taught to concentrate only on the words that have significance to the general context. You will become skilled at intentional reading and will therefore increase understanding at the same time as speed.

There are various ways of teaching speed reading, as well as different ways that each individual learns. One method might work better for some students than another. Basically, speed reading endeavors to guide the brain to distinguish only important words without sounding them out mentally. If you have difficulty with one approach, find another speed reading course that teaches these skills in a way that will assist you to progress more efficiently.

Just like learning any new activity, you need to continuously practice your speed reading techniques in order to master the art.

Learn more about the time management skill of speed reading at The Speed Reading Site.

I am going to stay in the present

"I am going to stay in the present!" I declare! And, in the time it takes me to write those words, the present is long gone.

I find myself firmly grounded in the future. I am thinking about my daughter's report that is due on Tuesday, the clients I will talk to later this week and wearily wonder when our dog will learn that although our bathroom is inside the house, his bathroom is outside.

Or, I am in the past. Why did I buy that pair of pants I will never wear and what possessed me to commit to co-chair the annual school fundraiser? Gurus, well-meaning friends and self-evolved mothers alike tell us to "be here now" and "take one day at a time." They extol the virtues of the present as though it were as wonderful as a pair of new shoes, as relaxing as a Swedish massage and as satisfying as a hot fudge sundae.

Being in the present comes with so much endorsement, I tip toe into the realm of spending some time in the "present," just to see what all the fuss is about. The first thing I can tell you is that staying in the present is mighty hard. Unfortunately, in order to stay in the present, one must be aware of each moment. This takes a disciplined mind and my mind is anything but disciplined. In fact, it needs a time-out. And the irony is, a time out is exactly what I am trying to give it!

But each time I tell myself to enjoy the moment, my mind veers off like a sleepy driver on a lonely stretch of highway. It wants to think about my to-do list. It wants to worry. It wants to hope for a better moment to come. It wants to imagine how great life would be if I could clean out the closet or lose 5 pounds. But, determined and committed, I trudge on. At first I am able to bring myself to the present for fleeting moments a few times a day. As I practice this, I am able to remember more often and enjoy more fully, the feeling of a cozy bed, the joke that my daughter just told me and the great smell of coffee brewing.

Why Proper Time Management Is Important - 5 Reasons

Do you have a problem with time management?

You need to take action to improve your time management otherwise negative impact of improper time management will ruin your personal and family life.

A number of different approaches can be taken for better time management. Some of the common techniques for better time management are goal setting, to do lists, limiting tasking, prioritizing, and outsourcing.

Top 5 reasons on why you should learn and practice proper time management

1 It Is Easy To Do

Most of the options for time managements are easy to follow and cost effective. Since it is easy for you to learn and practice time management techniques, you should do it to have better control on your life. It will definitely help you in stress and anxiety management.

2 It Is Important To Your Personal Life

If you regularly pay your bills late, dont make contact with friends, or arrive home later than normal, you may be hurting your personal relationships and often in more ways than you could have ever imagined. Friends and family members are important part of our lives and may not want to put up with this behavior for long. Click the link to read reamaining part of this article on time management

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Author of this post is working with several corporate for work place stress management and time management.

3 Simple Ways To Believe In Yourself:

Are you looking for an answer to the famous question: how to believe in yourself?

You should have faith on yourself and your capabilities.

In order to develop a strong belief in yourself, try these 3 steps:

You should train yourself to acknowledge your potential.

Basically. Your assumption creates self doubt. Do not assume that you will fail once again because you failed last time, do not doubt your capabilities because your math teacher said so 10 years back. Do not settle for a mediocre life because you’ve never pushed yourself beyond your limits.

You should revalidate your assumptions and challenge them. You don’t have to change your mind about all of those assumptions yet, but be open to the possibility that you were wrong about yourself. Change your mind and change your life is a key to your success.

You should take action and Believe in yourself.


Even worse than making assumptions about yourself is when you don’t even TRY to do something better for yourself, simply because you believe it would be a waste of time. You should make a promise to yourself that starting right now to give everything your best shot from now on.

You should not worry whether you’ve failed in the past or whether you’ve got what it takes to succeed this time around.

Simply make a promise to TRY – no matter what comes of it.

Prove it to yourself.

You should write down every single thing you believe you are incapable of doing. Then, make it a point to prove yourself wrong by going out and doing them.

You should first set a realistic goal and put an honest sincere effort to achieve the same. You should try to come out of your comfort zone gradually without doing more damage to yourself.

With every positive result you achieve, you will eventually build up a stronger belief in yourself, and you can keep expanding your comfort zones to achieve more and more! Now go on, start believing in yourself.

5 Tips to handling deadline at work place

Dead line is must for a proper goal setting. Sometines particularly in work place dead lines creates a undue pressure and anxiety within you.

Here are five key tips to help you get deadlines into perspective.

(1) There must be a deadline with each major goal. To get mximum value from your action plan you need to attach a time plan.

(2) Every baby steps in your action plan needs its own deadline.

(3) Do not put unrealistic deadline. You should set your deadline after careful analysis of your ability, available time and all the other things you need to do in your life. If you put tight deadlines, it will push you to work hard but it may be damaging for your health and over all performance. You should enjoy what you are doing.

(4) Be strict of your small deadlines, but more flexible on your big ones. Push yourself to meet your short term aims and you’ll be amazed at how much more satisfaction, self esteem and extra motivation you’ll gain each time you cross off a step along the way.

(5) Always remember that missing a major deadline is not a failure, provided you have consistently taken action from the begining.

Keep doing what you’re doing. You’ll be there real soon and never forget that wherever you are now, you’ve come a huge distance from where you started.

Are you loooking for stress management at work place?

Read my post on stress management at workplace.