Happy New Year All! New year, new chance to grow.

Dr. Seuss once wrote, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

I believe in constant education and personal growth to best serve my family, my business and YOU all. A large part of growth is reading. I try and read all the time. I am also a student of time management and anything I can do more effectively I will strive to do. So Ive done this exercise and it worked for me. Maybe it can work for you.

Here is a system where you can at least double your reading speed in 20 minutes. It may take a little practise at first like it did me, but if you invest 20 minutes you will be able to read more, learn more, grow more, faster!

First, reading has many proven benefits. Here are three:

Creating good habits: Making sure you read a little every day not only trains you to read but trains you to create and keep habits. Whether its reading or making your bed, it takes 32 days to create a habit. If you can teach yourself to read every day, you should be able to teach yourself to bring your heart rate up every day, practice the piano every day or whatever you want in your life. Everyday habits are what create long lasting results.

It can fight off Alzheimer’s disease: Putting your brain to work is the best thing for it. Your brain is like a muscle, it needs flexing. Engaging in more reading can make you 2.5 times less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who spend their down time on less stimulating activities.

Brain Boost: Just like flexing you arm makes it strong reading improves your memory by giving your brain a good work out. Frequent brain exercise was able to lower the rate of mental decline by from age by 32 percent, reports The Huffington Post.

Now grab a book, flip to the middle and try this exercise. Like I said, I did it and improved 200% instantly and have been practicing ever since.

If you want to measure your progress use the technique after the four steps after the exercise. Your reading WILL be faster.

Step one:

For two minutes read with a finger or a pen following your words under each line as you read as fast as possible. You’ll notice your eyes starting and stopping fast. These visual snap shots are how we read. Using a visual guide while reading prevents regression.

Step Two:

For three minutes continue reading but begin each line focusing on the third word in from the first word on the line and the third to last word in from the end of the line.  This utilizes peripheral vision otherwise wasted on margins. Meaning even though your focal point is the third word in, the sentence is still “read” just with less eye movement. Move in from both sides further and further as it gets easier.

Step Three:

Once comfortable indenting 3 or 4 words from the outside of each line, read for two minutes and try and take just two snap shots or fixations per line on the first and last indented words.

Step Four:

Now for three minutes practice reading too fast for compression with good technique for 5 pages with the above techniques. This will heighten perception and reset your speed limit. Much like how 50km/h feels slow after coming off the highway going 100km/h.

To measure progress (other than smashing through books) you add up the words per line in 10 lines and divide by ten to find the average words per line. Multiply this by lines per page and you have the average words per page. Read for 5 minutes, count the pages read, divide by 5 and multiply that by words per page. This will give you your reading WPM (words per minute). If you are over 1000 words per minute you are in the top 1% of the world’s fastest readers.

Happy reading

Brendan