Read like a jet pilot and double your speed
Inez de Lambert | June 16, 2021
What does a jet pilot, strapped into their seat and moving at half the speed of sound, have in common with you at your desk, wading through your workday’s pile of reading?
Not much? You could share something in common, though. You could tap into the vision training that can form part of a pilot’s wider instruction, and learn to read faster. Much faster. Twice as fast, or even more.
What would you do with an extra hour or two in the day?
So, mentally clamber out of the cockpit and return to your desk. And think about how long you spend reading each day. Three hours? Four? What if you could halve that time?
Reading is a task that’s never done. Image by Karolina Grabowska / Pexels licence
How would you use that extra hour or two — or more? More reading, to get through the pile faster? Or go home on time for once? And what on earth has that got to do with jet pilots?
Recognition at 500ths of a second
Years ago, pilots used techniques to learn to visually recognise key features — targets, landmarks, enemy aircraft — very, very fast. At a 500th of a second, they could tell whether another aircraft was friend or foe. They trained using a machine called a tachistoscope that flashes images faster and faster, enabling the viewer to recognise information with incredible speed.
Then someone asked: If our eyes can recognise information so fast through the cockpit window, why do we read — taking in information — so slowly? And the beginnings of Advanced Reading training emerged.
Measure your reading speed — then work to increase it
At Write’s Advanced Reading workshop, over three mornings, you’ll learn to use your eyes differently. You won’t use a tachistoscope. But Advanced Reading has its own unique tools and proven exercises to put rapid reading theory into practice.
Shrink your ‘to read’ pile. Image by Bernd Klutsch / Unsplash licence
You’ll test yourself time and again, so as your reading changes you’ll see your speed and comprehension progress. And you’ll learn strategies to adapt your reading to the task in hand.
Are you a little curious? Why not measure your reading speed? Then think about what you’d do with an extra hour or two in your day.
Test your reading speed and find out more about Advanced Reading
Find out how fast you read with our speed reading calculator
Read more about the Advanced Reading workshop