Nov 10
Is it a good Idea to go straight to rapid reading experiencing difficulty with manual Activation?
Rapid Reading
Rapid reading is the closest thing to traditional reading. Unlike speed reading where one speed fits all you move through the pages from beginning to end and different speeds. For areas that you have covered by manual activation you’ll [...] [...more]
Posted: under Activation, Goals, PhotoRead, Photoreading, learning, reading.
Is it a good Idea to go straight to rapid reading experiencing difficulty with manual Activation?
Rapid Reading
Rapid reading is the closest thing to traditional reading. Unlike speed reading where one speed fits all you move through the pages from beginning to end and different speeds. For areas that you have covered by manual activation you’ll probably use speeds close to Superread and dip. For areas that are new or you haven’t covered yet you might find yourself slowing down to the average reading speed of 190 words a minute. Then picking up speed again.
Rapid Reading a short cut when having trouble with activation?
No. If you are having problems with manual activation there are a couple of other reasons you need to consider.
The danger of going straight to rapid Reading as an activation method is that Rapid Reading it closest to traditional reading. The risk for a beginner is they will just continue to use the passive reading method. With rapid reading it is too easy to become or remain a passive reader.
If You have trouble with manual activation have a look at your purpose. Ask yourself how do you plan to use this information in the long run. Once you answered that, consider what you need to know to reach that goal. Your purpose then becomes the reason you are reading the book and it helps you to stay focused on the information you need from this particular text.
Purpose is a large topic of it’s own I’ll probably write an article about that in the future.
For now know that if you haven’t established a purpose it won’t do to go straight into rapid reading
Exceptions, When it is acceptable to go into rapid reading in the early stages of activation.
There will be times when you find a book so interesting after an initial activation that it makes perfect sense to start rapid reading. It’s a perfect approach for reading for pleasure.
On the whole I recommend that beginners do manual activation first on non-fiction text. Reserve Rapid reading for novels while you work towards proficiency with the PhotoReading system.
How many manual activation passes before rapid reading?
I strongly recommend that for a book of 200 pages the beginner allow at least six 20-minute activation passes. That means you’re spending 2 hours in activation. This isn’t much time for a book that takes many readers 8 to 12 hours.
Only after doing the six activation passes allow yourself to go into rapid reading. Often rapid reading is unnecessary after multiple activation passes. However for a beginner it is good experience to help them see what they missed if anything.
If the beginner finds they missed important information it pays to spend a few minutes looking at the questions and what your original purpose was. And mentally note that this is the information you seek when activating. It provides training.
For longer books you would apply more activation passes. To work out how many passes you would apply consider how many hours the book would take using your traditional reading approach and divide that figure by three. That’s how many hours your activation passes would total. Divide by three again if you are planning 20-minute activation layers. This will give you the total number of activation passes that would be ideal before you resort to Rapid Reading.
Textbooks, treat each chapter as a book on it’s own. Textbooks are often needed for courses, so you might need to apply at least 3 activation passes to the chapter. Each pass might just be 7 to 10 minutes. Follow that with a rapid read if necessary.
Believe me that is a lot better than the approach recommended in a speed reading article I found yesterday. It said after learning to speed read don’t read three books in the time you’ve read one. Read the same book three times. If you know maths you’ll notice you haven’t gained anything by speed reading if you still need to read the text three times. However most universities do recommend going over the text 3 times. Do it three times with manual activation and once with a rapid read if necessary. You’ll be satisfying the university recommendation and still get your reading done in 1/3rd the time.
The Benefit of Manual Activation
Developing the skill of manual activation helps you to become an active reader. It will make it possible for you to finish a book in 20 to 30 minutes rather than 2 or 3 hours.
To get to that point you do need to invest more time in manual activation in the early stages of learning. It means making more activation passes until the information starts making sense.
Looking at it realistically when you start reading a book at chapter one and the book consists of 18 chapters you ain’t got nothing yet. When you spend 10-minutes on first chapter you accept the knowledge isn’t there until you’ve reached the end of the book. So why short-change yourself when you use activation?
When activating set realistic goals and stick with it. Form mind probing questions. Begin activating when you have one question in mind. If you don’t know where to start look at the table of content and turn the chapter heading into questions. Do any of those questions sound like questions you need answers to, to reach your purpose?
Once you find an answer, form another question. Something in the text might have sparked your curiosity. Much like having a conversation or interview with someone (the Author is a person) learning something new sparked another question or raised a point that needs clarification. There you have found another question something you want more information on.
Build it in layers. Manual activation works best when you keep it short. 5 to 20-minute passes.
This is where rapid reading will set you back. Once you begin rapid reading often you will go longer than 20 minutes. The disadvantage of that is the longer you read the slower you get. Even with rapid reading breaks are important.
It Gets easier
Activation has the benefit of increasing the speed at which you rapid read. If you applied three activation passes to a chapter of a text or 6 activation passes with a book. Answering mind probing questions. You have already have an understanding most of the information in the book. Then speed at which you can rapid read the text is greater than when you give up on activation too soon or used rapid reading as a first phase of activation. With the sections you haven’t activated chances are you already Superread it at least once if not more.
I know activation can seem daunting. I have been there myself. Where it felt like I was getting nothing from the book for the first three 20-minute passes only to see it start to come together on the fourth. The interesting thing is when it starts to come together you’re almost done. One or two passes more passes and you’re done. So don’t fret if it doesn’t make sense in the first two or three. Persist with mind probing questions and it has to come together.
If you have a nagging doubt that you want to know more but are not sure what it is you want to know after you’ve done a reasonable number of activation passes. Then use rapid reading.
Remember your purpose. Is the time you’re planning to invest in Rapid Reading worth it? Consider the 80/20 rule.
© Alex Viefhaus originally published December 2005
Sep 30
In my previous post I introduced some insight into the abilities we have and the flawed thinking that PhotoReading is something mystical that only a special few can learn.
In this post I want to show the stumbling blocks of our thinking and beliefs that can prevent us from learning the PhotoReading system.
There are a couple [...] [...more]
Posted: under Activation, Change, Persistence, Photoreading, frustration.
Tags: belief, comprehension, learning, Photoreading
In my previous post I introduced some insight into the abilities we have and the flawed thinking that PhotoReading is something mystical that only a special few can learn.
In this post I want to show the stumbling blocks of our thinking and beliefs that can prevent us from learning the PhotoReading system.
There are a couple of other stumbling main blocks that affect the belief of the learner. One is the stories and videos of expert PhotoReaders. The ones who flip the pages of the book or scroll the computer screen and then answer questions about the text. First it must be understood that they are experienced in PhotoReading. They would have been unsuccessful in the early days of learning to PhotoRead as any beginner now learning PhotoReading. They had build the non-conscious to conscious mind connection and trust by applying the full system and applying it often. Something the beginner has trouble believing they are capable of.
This creates a paradox. If you don’t believe you can do it and then test the system, you’re going to score as you believe. The way to do what the expert does, is use the system enough to own the system. This means shifting out of limiting reading and passive reading habits that you learned in elementary or primary school.
This brings us to the second stumbling block. The passive reading habit. The PhotoReading system is an active reading system. By active I mean you need to know what you want from what you are reading and be able to recognise when you’ve consciously grasped that. The techniques are straight forward and the activation step when applied quickly help the beginner to get through their reading material 3 to 5 times faster in a live seminar. However the deceptive simplicity of the activation step leave the beginner to believe they don’t need to work on this part of the system. They believe they aren’t getting the PhotoReading step right when they don’t see instant results at the beginning of activation.
Here again we run into a problem of habit. It’s habit that keep us in the passive reading approach. By applying the PhotoReading system a beginner can get their reading done three to 5 times faster. However because they measure themselves against the PhotoReading experts they hold the belief they cannot do it well enough. Their belief that it’s difficult keeps them stuck working with one book for 12 to 18 hours because they think the experts get through all their books in 3 to 20 minutes. They see 4 to 6 hours as a failure to apply the system. Their belief that they are failing because they don’t match the expert time becomes a barrier to learning. 
What you see and the success stories are exciting experiences however even experts spend more time with the books they really want to know. In fact the more books they have used the full system on the better their conscious - nonconscious mind connection that such demonstrations become possible.
I offer my own experience here to help the beginner.
I consider myself an expert PhotoReader and a book of about 350 pages that I really want to understand and expect to learn something important from would take me 30 to 120 minutes. It depends on my reading purpose. By the same token there are many books I only spend 5 to 15 minutes with to discover they have nothing of interest to me. These books I have put on my mental bookshelf. I can always come back to them if my circumstances change and it does become important.
If you can believe that you can read you have the necessary skills to become proficient at PhotoReading . You won’t be demonstrating the PhotoReading skills you might find on the web overnight. The only person you should be measuring your progress against is your own. If it takes you 18 hours to read a book and in the process of learning a system you could reduce that to 9 hours with the same or even better comprehension isn’t that progress?
Focus on believing it is possible for you to learn PhotoReading. Don’t compare yourself with others and give up. Aspire to progress to that level.
© Alex K Viefhaus Sept. 2009
Jun 19
I learned how to PhotoRead but I suck at activation
Lets check your activation technique and discuss some of the experiences you might have had.
Begin your activation by revisiting step one of the system. This is probably more important than most people realise and often overlooked. Check in with your purpose regularly make sure you are [...] [...more]
Posted: under Activation, PhotoRead, Photoreading, Purpose, comprehension, confusion, expectation, frustration, motivation.
I learned how to PhotoRead but I suck at activation
Lets check your activation technique and discuss some of the experiences you might have had.
Begin your activation by revisiting step one of the system. This is probably more important than most people realise and often overlooked. Check in with your purpose regularly make sure you are on track. Then select one of your questions and review your trigger word list. From there you want to select the first question you want answered.
Remembering that the book was written by a human who wanted to pass on information imagine that you are entering into a conversation with that author. You are about to ask them a question. As look for the answers to your questions you will also find other questions coming to mind. If your question hasn’t been answered write the new question down.
As you find answers you may want to mind map them. Its very easy to dismiss the results of your first activations. You may feel like you’re not really getting anything and get ready to quit for the old fashioned way of reading. Before you do that lets consider this.
When you begin reading you just read. You hope information build as you follow word for word what the author has written. In 10 minutes you may have finished the first chapter. How much do you really know? Is that even important information in relation to your purpose or studying?
The purpose of activation is to build trust in your body mind connection. How often have you set out to learn something only to realise you already knew most of what is being taught? An interesting experience my students often have. “I discovered something else I want to know more about and my original question turned out not important.
It saddens me when beginners negate this experience. I think its brilliant and yet they think no, no its not right. I should be able to form the perfect question in the first place. In my mind it was the perfect question. It got them started and lead them to the next question that they wanted answered even more. Isn’t the next question always more important than the one that was before it? Its brilliant it got the ball rolling. You started a conversation with the author. The more you do use the PhotoReading system the better you get at it naturally and you learn to recognise you already know the answers.
It’s the same when they say to me. I did badly. I ran out of questions but felt I was missing something so I rapid read to check and sure enough that I found that very important piece of information that I missed. I am no good at activation.
What? No good at activation?
What you did was activation. It was listening to that feeling, thinking, knowing, small voice within that told you, you were missing something. It didn’t help you form a question and yet guided you to rapid read to find the answer. That’s how you activate, you follow your gut and strengthen your body mind connection. That something “wasn’t right” is a powerful activation signal that your body mind has given you and you write it off?
My suggestion is make note of it and mentally tell yourself that in future you expect to pull that information during your activation layers. Your body and mind has done everything right. It might have taken longer this time and will always take longer if you write off this very special communication you just had from your body and mind.
If you want to perfect your PhotoReading skills take every experience as just that an experience. Its neither good nor bad. An experience is something to build on. The better you leave behind the judgment and negative self talk the sooner you will be able to recognise yourself as a proficient PhotoReader. See my post on Noticing even small gains.
© Alex K Viefhaus
Jan 17
When we learn something new. We start out not knowing something and not having any ability in that skill. Then we set about learning it. Our experience as we learn it is still slightly short of our expectation. Then we take away that skill at the end of the course and we have expectation that [...] [...more]
Posted: under Activation, Blip page, PhotoRead, Photoreading, comprehension, learning, learning curve.
When we learn something new. We start out not knowing something and not having any ability in that skill. Then we set about learning it. Our experience as we learn it is still slightly short of our expectation. Then we take away that skill at the end of the course and we have expectation that is higher still than out current skills. At the same time, while we know what to do, it is not what we know we are capable of. It’s not what we did in the during learning or we felt we did far worse than we give ourselves credit for. We expected that our skill would be even higher than it is at that point in time. The distance between our ability and our expectations is at it’s greatest.
This can create confusion or frustration. Frustration asks, ‘What am I doing wrong? Why isn’t it working? I can’t do it there is no point. I am hopeless. I give up.’ It’s like facing a wall not realising you can change direction only if you change your thinking.
Confusion looks at, ‘What can I do? What is working? What if I keep trying? There is a way because this is the natural learning curve and I did it at least partly and it can get better than this. What can I do to stay motivated?’
Look for ways to stay motivated. Simplify the actions and give yourself more time. One of the things that will happen when you are out on your own is the first couple of 20 minute activations are more confusing and seem unsuccessful compared to a live seminar activation. Look at it logically. There you spent 2 days honing your skill learning it testing it step by step and had someone to bounce your purpose off. The successes you had were because of the work you did before. When you get home you don’t have that, you don’t have someone to press you to check your purpose works. You don’t have the time keeper, you’re riding on your own. And if you did it with just the self-study course you also need to be the timekeeper right from the start.
So, understand the first two or three activations can seem sluggish and slow for a beginner and yet that’s only 40 minutes if you used a timer set for 20-minutes each. Remembering that your old reading style takes can take up to 10 hours for a book and most readers would be happy just to double their reading speed and get their reading done in 5 hours you haven’t even spent that much time with the book. Give it an extra activation or four. Even with six 20 minute activations you will have only spent 2 hours with the book. You haven’t finished activating until you’ve finished and get that sense of being finished. Knowing what you need and want to know. So in the beginning a book can take 2 to 3 hours where it used to take 10. That’s 1/3rd or 1/5th the time it used to take. Just don’t short change yourself on the activation steps because nothing seems to be happening at first. Drop the little bits you find onto a mind map and continue to build it and in less time than traditional reading you’re done.
One other thing that often holds people back is the lack of a purpose. Discover your purpose you discover your motivation. That’s a topic for another time.
If you’ve put PhotoReading aside for a while and want to get back into it. Just PhotoRead 2 to 3 books a day for a couple of weeks. One or two of those books will probably get you curious to know more. Activate those books playfully. Using the 5 day test. Yes give yourself the space to fail the first few times.
© Alex Viefhaus January 2007
Sep 15
When I first learned PhotoReading I started with the PhotoReading book. The first page suggested following the path of the little Einstein graphics.
It was about halfway working with the little Einsteins that I figured what was going on. Here the author was telling me what I should read and what I can safely skip. [...] [...more]
Posted: under Activation, Goals, Purpose, expectation, reading, success.
When I first learned PhotoReading I started with the PhotoReading book. The first page suggested following the path of the little Einstein graphics.
It was about halfway working with the little Einsteins that I figured what was going on. Here the author was telling me what I should read and what I can safely skip. It was brilliant I thought. But how do I know where I have to read. Other authors don’t provide those little Einstein’s That’s where the PhotoReading step came in.
Some but not all of a book is immediately relevant. Students often say, ‘ But I need to know it all for my instructor. I won’t pass the exam otherwise.’
No, you don’t need to know it all in one step and you don’t even need to know it all. Authors are repetitive. You only need to know it once. The right example and you’re done. With PhotoReading you’ve got it all in your head anyway.
Secondly you don’t need to know it all in one drop. Learn it in stages. Follow the course outline to discover when you need to look at the book again. That becomes your little Einsteins.
The information builds in layers. Like the little Einstein in the PhotoReading book first comes one pass, then another and then another as necessary to get the information you seek.
But you want to know what the secret to successful activation is?
Stick to it. Stay with it until it gels. You learn what works and doesn’t work with each activation pass. So keep your curiosity high and stick with it.
© Alex K Viefhaus 2005
