These Habits Will Help You Boost Your Reading Skills.

Parvez Sohail
5 min readJun 16, 2021

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Photo by Jared Craig on Unsplash

If you are going to watch a movie on your “Laptop or Mobile”. What if you do not like the movie. What are you going to do?. You're going to stop watching that particular movie, right!!. You don’t think about the moviemakers who have made a lot of effort to make the movie and feel sad for that 😂LOL!! And realize that, then start watching the movie No!!. Without feeling any guilt you will stop watching the movie.

The same is going to apply in reading books. Whenever we start reading any book, we may not lose concentration at the beginning, but as we go on reading for 5 to 10 minutes the intervals. We start losing our concentration, feeling bored, and start sleeping. Then we realize that we can’t even concentrate for at least 5 minutes. Start feeling guilt for that.

Lots of people start questioning themselves, Why I am not able to concentrate. What kind of books we have to read? E-Books, Physical Book, or Audio Book. What is the best time for reading? Morning or Evening.

This kind of question we ask ourselves seriously. This is not a problem.

Asking a serious question is a problem. Because we think reading a book is a task. Instead, we have to treat it as a hobbie.

When we take reading a book as a task. We make wrong assumptions like

  • Reading for a specific time.
  • Take it seriously etc…,

In this article, I am going to share with you Habits Of Highly Effective Readers.

They Do Not Take Reading Seriously ❤

Most highly successful people have one common habit, reading books. They take reading as a habit. They do not take it too seriously. They like to improve their skills and keep updated. Successful people keep reading daily without missing a single day.

For example, if we want to watch television. We are not going to think about it seriously. We may not schedule on the calendar and fix a time for watching television that I will watch television for the specific time, concentrate on watching. No, Instead we just sit on the couch and start watching casually. The same attitude should be applied while reading books. Here no willpower is need. The same goes for reading. Reading doesn't need any willpower. It needs only love power. Do not focus on scheduling time for reading. It must be done casually.

Make a habit of reading 10 pages from a book per day.

Fill In The Time Pockets 🕐

Most people, including myself, complain about one thing in common. Not having enough time to read. We have a lot of work to be done, I can’t find time to read.

To avoid those situations, use Time Pockets.

Now, What are Time Pockets?

Time pockets are the unnoticed passed valuable minutes in a day. Like spending a lot of time just dreaming about something, waiting for a friend, chatting on social media unnecessarily. Waiting in traffic etc.,

Use this time wisely, reading a book or listening to an audiobook. Reading at least one sentence in your spare time will impact more in your life without reading anything. These apply to the compound effect.

“If I am Not Reading

I am Not Changing

If I am Not Changing

I am Not Growing.”

Line from Swim With The Sharks without Being Eaten Alive.

Remember, you can’t get time to read a book daily, but you can get many time pockets daily. So, use them effectively.

Read Random 👀

The camera phone is one of the random things in the world, and it can find in everyone’s pocket nowadays. A long time ago, mobile phones are just used for calling and cameras are used for capturing pictures only.

The interesting thing is at that time when a person says let’s make a mobile phone which consists of both camera and all mobile features. Then everyone gonna laughs at that person. But what is mobiles are now. Mobile phones are used for taking photos and recording videos than making calls. Now mobiles are the combinations of both camera and calls.

History says that Creativity and Innovation are made when adding two existing elements.

For example, Camera and Phone are Mobiles, Internet and Shopping is Amazon, Taxi and Phone is Uber, etc...

To boost our creativity, we have to read books from different genres, niches.

Get The Big Picture 🎪

To become the best and effective readers, we should understand the difference between Perfection and Excellence.

Nothing is perfect in this world. Look at Apple products how they are designed, we love to buy them. Are they are perfect? No, If they are perfect, why Apple is launching a new product every two months or three months. Because they are not behind perfection, they are only on improving themselves. We often created an illusion in our minds that until this work has not perfectly done. I may not share with anyone. So, do not be a perfect guy. Just improve yourself consistently. This applies to excellence.

What is Excellence?

Excellence involves regular progression, even our work is not perfect, just improve yourself. We have to focus on excellence. If we want to submit our project to our senior executive if the work is 70% has done, just submit it and after keep improving.

When it comes to reading, we all want to read the book perfectly, slowly. This is the wrong technique. Instead, practice reading fast, these will keep and increasing our focus.

Keep focusing on reading daily, even you may find it difficult. But just keep reading.

These help in long-term success. Excellence is an infinite game and perfection like a finite game.

“A Finite Game Is Played For The Purpose Of Winning, An Infinite Game For The Purpose Of Continuing The Play” — James P. Carse

Read And Discuss 🗣

We all know the Feynman Technique which states what we have learned is remembered only 10% but when we discuss or teach to others the knowledge is multiplied.

According to Journal oF Neuroscience Research oF the University of Maryland.

An average person speaks 7,000 words per day. Let’s say in context an average novel consists of 250 words. When compared, 30 pages of the book every day. What we speak on 7,000 words that's are nothing but unnecessary things and gossip etc…. It is common to every person which is obviously not good.

“Small Mind Discuss People, Average Mind Discuss Event But Great Minds Discuss Ideas.” — Roosevelt, former US president

To remember every we had read, the best solution is, “To Talk Discuss And Repeat”.

According to Tony Buzon

What we have learned or read will be stored fresh for 5 minutes in the memory. As the time graph increases, we start losing the concept according to time. The best way to remember is to teach or discuss others.

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Parvez Sohail

Hey, I am enthusiast in Machine Learning and Data Science. I love to share my work.