[andyy]

- Take a pen with black finish and run it under the letters, you’ll read at 1,5 speed (and it’s not a trick, it’s something children dp with their finger when they learn to read so it's quite natural).

- Stop saying words aloud in your mind when you’re reading.

- Try to catch two or three words instead of one.

Now, none of this is bullshit or skimming, I'm doing it and have same retention as I'd be 'spelling' in my mind word by word, I believe human brain is smart enough to process more than one word or you think it's a crazy idea? hehehe if so then good luck ;)

It's not about skimming or reading whole page in a matter of a couple of seconds (I don't think you can have great retention with that unless you have really great/photographic memory), but about basic skill which you can improve (just like riding bicycle or doing tricks on skateboard). There are some 'bad habits' of reading and eliminating this would improve your reading speed.

btw. I also know couple of mnemonic techniques that lets me remember things permanently and very quickly - again, no bullshit, just a technique as old as ancient Greece.

[DanBC]

That's not speed reading, that's reading.

[wjnc]

If there are techniques available, generally not thaught in school, that speed up reading quite easily. Why not call that speed reading? Perhaps x10 is not attainable to most (if any), but +50% is a massive time saver for anyone.

Same goes for mnemonics. The easy tricks are pretty easy to learn and worked for me as well (remembering lists by visualizing a house with rooms). Might have been natural to you, but a learning moment for me.

Obviously don't tunnel your life's savings into any scheme. But in the basics learning more of the skills you use most.. is pretty efficient. (Ever seen your accountant, or doctor type for that matter? Most nurses I saw recently single finger type..)

[andyy]

I agree, if you speed up by 50% I guess that's an speed improvement... as for mnemonic techniques I've learned them from books, didn't cost me more than £50 and three months of 2 hours practice per week.

Roman Room (remembering lists by visualizing a house with rooms) is one of more popular ones. The other popular one is 'chain' method where you remember just one element connecting to another and this leads you to whole list.

There are mode advance ones like 'mnemonic tables', the idea is simple - you remember 100 elements perfectly with their number in the table (they're just images/slides whatever coded to numbers in your head), once you know them perfectly you add adjectives to extend the table to 1000 elements so... number one would be a pioneer, 101 would be wooden (or whatever) pioneer, number 1101 would be let's say wooden pioneer riding on a tiger (riding on a tiger is for 1k).

That's how you can use it to remember for example dates - at point of most practice I was able to remember around 40 historic within two-three minutes (permanently).

Why it works for everything else than dates? because memorizing things is a process of creating and connecting new neural paths and as we repeat this paths becomes stronger and that's one of the things that leads information from our short term to long term memory.

Mnemonic tables are great because you already got something in your brain you know perfectly on/to which you 'hang'/'connect' the new information so half of the job is done - just as Roman room, a bit more advanced, but I guess you could make a hybrid technique where house rooms have numbers ;) The key is to make these images in your head as funny, vivid or emotional (can be scary or any other strong emotion) as possible. That will make sure your brain will have better chance of making strong neural paths.

Sorry, wrote to much stuff off-top, but maybe will be useful for someone.

[ldonley]

Do you have any book recommendations for these techniques? I tried the "memory palace" or the method of loci and had a small degree of success, but never found it practical. I'd love to give it another go though.

[andyy]

Check out books of Tony Buzan, use your head etc. as well look for some books on mind mapping. As for that mnemonic system I cannot find it :/ but similar thing is GMS from 'Phenomenal memory', look it up on google & you shall find it... :)

[ldonley]

I'll check them out, thanks!