My brain get bored

Productivity, Notes, Mind Mapping, Speed Reading
#1

Hi Everyone!

As the title says, my brain get easily bored… I recently discovered that while trying to re-watch my lectures (as we learned from distance this year) , I had to use the 2x speed button to stay concentrated with what the teacher was saying, I even searched for higher speed but unfortunately 2x speed was the maximum, anyway I think because of that, I can’t concentrate in normal lectures I get easily bored, and I think the same thing happens to me when revising from textbooks I get easily bored from reading slowly, I searched a lot for speed reading (including the topics here), but nothing worked, maybe I didn’t understand the methods, or I need more practice, I don’t know.

I found that subvocalization is the key to speed reading, I read some where that it was impossible to delete that voice in your head, and instead of deleting it, we should try to make it read faster, but how ?

So how do you guys do to read faster ?

Right now I read 180 words per minute which is bellow the average and i want to reach 300 words per minute

Any advice is welcome, thank you in advance.

Ps: sorry for any mistake :blush:

#2

I have managed to get my subvocalization rate between 400-1200wpm (peak close to 1200, stable at 480(if I stop training for a long time), with average training, around 800).

If you are at 180 and want to reach 300, this is a quite natural jump that doesn’t take any particular techniques and can be achieved with pure training and little other consideration.

In short

Simply try to force yourself to go a bit faster. You could use a pointer and move it at a rate that matches 300wpm, perhaps increase it as you go along so you can gradually manage quicker text. You should find that it’s uncomfortable to read at a higher rate, but this discomfort vanishes progressively. You should aim to maintain this discomfort by increasing the rate rather than get it to go away completely (in my experience this is quicker for the same result).

It’s not impossible, for example some people can’t read foreign characters. It’s difficult and won’t happen easily, you may not even be able to perceive it at some point, despite it still being present. This makes it hard to get rid of, because you think it’s not there but its still there, you just can’t really ‘hear’ it.

It’s not my place really to say this but speed is unlikely to solve this issue, it has more to do with how you perceive the text.

For example if you get shown 100 images in a row for 1 minute each, you may say you are bored, but what you are grasping from the image is the single point of meaning. If these images are shown to you at a rate of 12x, you will likely feel a lot less bored, That is because you are perceiving 100 things so to say, whereas a picture can speak 1000 words (simply to say, there is more you can extract from it and use as inspiration to think about).

For example, I could rewrite what I have just said as :

Acquired higher subvocalization rate through training.
Your case, try to read faster, improvements follow with time.
Possible to delete the voice in your head but too difficult to do normally.
Not speed but perception causes boredom, increase difficulty/thoughts/considerations and slower rates will be more fun.

1 Like
#3

You can keep it occupied by humming for example. Maybe counting (1, 2, 3… 1, 2, 3… is enough)

1 Like
#4

Thank you for the advices, I’ll try the pointer at a faster rate

So it’s impossible to get rid of it 100% :laughing: just kidding, I understand what you said

I thought that maybe if reading faster I won’t get lost in other thoughts and get bored from the main topic, that it would oblige me to keep my focus on the topic only, but maybe you’re right and i should see it differently.

Thank you very much i’ll practice more and try to achieve at least 300wpm =)

1 Like
#5

I tried the humming but i found myself concentrated more in the humming part than reading XD
Do you think by practice, jt can be effective ?

#6

I don’t know because I don’t do it :stuck_out_tongue:
But you don’t have to hum any song or anything just make noise… maybe a steady long hum.

1 Like
#7

Ok I’ll try it with a long hum XD it’s gonna be fun that way
Thank you :blush:

1 Like
#8

Or,may be,you are stressed out? May be,you need a break,take deliberate rest,recover from the burnout…

1 Like
#9

Yeah maybe that too :sweat_smile: