Ask HN: Hacks to Read 10x Faster?
Here's my hack: I started adding books to Readwise that I have not read. I get the top quotes from those books in the daily digest. If I really like the quotes, I plan to read that book in full. If I don't like the top quotes, I know I don't have to bother with the book. This way, I can skim through 10x more books than if I tried reading all of them.
What are your hacks?
7 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 29.4 ms ] threadThere's absolutely no reason to read 10x faster. It becomes hyper-consumption of vacuous talking points...
Plus it means absorbing knowledge in a more hasty, flimsy, way, while also giving false self-ideas of understanding.
If someone wants the cliff notes, or a bullet list, they should read the notes / a bullet list. As a practical advice for the 10x thing, those things do exist (websites who summarize all kinds of books and cliff notes versions of books, e.g.: https://fourminutebooks.com/summaries/).
They shouldn't skim a book 10x faster and then go on as if they've actually read it. That can somewhat be done with books full of filler (e.g. most self-help books). It's a non starter on literature (misses the whole point, which is not the "plot"), and on serious non-fiction.
That's when you read normally. When you read 10x as fast you forget closer to 100% of what you read.
First because you don't read the repeated arguments but skim them (so instead of reading a prolonged passage about X and have X suggested in 10 different ways, you just read a smaller paragraph/phrase with just X -- foregoing the repetition and different ways of expressing the same thing which would have helped your memory).
Second because you combine this X with tons more skimmed information coming in (since you now read "10x more stuff"), so it all become a jumbled mess, which you didn't take tame to absorb/study individually, and of which you just have a proverb-like conclusion/summary of, and not the whole context.
>2. Most written material can be tldr'ed down to a fraction of their length
They can be tldr'd down if you read them carefully to identify the tldr points, and be able to express them nicely and succintly (which is a difficult art in itself). If you read/skim them at 10x you can't properly tldr them. You're better off reading the tldr made by someone who actually took the time and read the book.