Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer 5 day Activating test

Hey,

I'm finding the 5 day activating test is really good for shorter books like Sun Tzu's Art of War and even Schaum's guide to accounting. I'm understanding how pushing through multiple passes on the information that your subconsious mind laid tracks on works when you photoread. I also understand that you're cherry picking in the book to answer the questions you have for reading in the first place. (BTW, it took about 3 months for me to get this far with photoreading. I don't even "regular read" anything anymore.)

I'd like your thoughts on this. I'm doing the photoreading 5 day test on a marketing text book. I asked the question. "How do I use marketing to create a marketing plan for my business." I was doing a day 4 activation. The book is about 600 pages. The pages are 8" x 11.5" I can get through about 140 pages in one 20 minute pass. This is what I noticed. The first 5 chapters give you a broad overtone of marketing principles. (the first 140 pages I could activate in 20 minutes.) It explained what do to create a marketing plan. However, the rest of the book goes into more detail about how and what strategies to use when marketing your product. When I go back to activate the book, I start after the first 140 pages that I already understand because I'm trying to learn the strategies that are being given. But it's taking me about 20 minutes to activate every 90 pages after that. It's kinda like I'm activating by chapters now. I'm trying to understand if this is right or not because usually, when I do the 5 day test, I can pass through the whole book in 30 minutes. But this book is a lot thicker than everything else I've applied the 5 day test to so far. Any thoughts?

Firstly textbooks like the one yuo described always take longer to traditionally read. It's quite common for them to require 25 to 75 hours of traditional reading so activating them to the same level of comprehension as that (since they usually are subject to examination) you would expect to apply 5 to 12 hours or even occasionally 25 hours to fully activate one. So while you use the method of the 5 day test you need to allow more than 5 days or more than one activation in a day.

Second point textbooks are usually a collection of subjects and each subject needs to be considered a book in it's own right in order to activate it fully for classes.

That asside. Remember to consider your purpose. If it is for self study or interest, What is relevent to your purpose and do you really need to know it all? What parts of the book do you need to know today and over the next week? How much of it can you leave to be activated in the class or lecture?

Alex

Thanks Alex for your insight. To answer your questions in the last paragraph:

If it is for self study or interest, What is relevent to your purpose and do you really need to know it all? What parts of the book do you need to know today and over the next week? How much of it can you leave to be activated in the class or lecture?

It is for self study for a project I'm working on. I'm preparing a marketing plan for a friend and it's been about two years since I took a class in marketing. I was surprised at how well activating worked with shorter books and non-technical books. Right now, I'm skittering though different sections of the book. I would like to get through this book in about 10 hours or less. But if it is up to 25 hours on text books, I can live with that. So when you do a thick text book, and you're just reading for your purpose...I have a feeling that you're going to say that you don't need to get through the whole textbook in 30 minutes if what I'm looking for is only in a few sections?

I was challenged to come up with some marketing methods by my intructor. What I did was PhotoRead 8 marketing books and the mind map the ideas that came to mind. I came up with 17 marketing ideas that were workable for my project and managed to write 1.5 pages. Had I used the traditional method I'd probably have spent a week activating those books. In all it took me 30 minutes to PhotoRead, 10 minutes to mind map and 20 to write up neatly (final draft).

The qestion is do you need to have the whole book activated to get started on writing the marketing plan? Probably not in fact getting started writing helps to activate it. Once you've PhotoRead the book it is available to you and manual activation isn't the only method of activation where you show evidence of having understood the material.

Consider also. At any point you get stuck in writing the marketing plan you can come back to activate that section or any other books on the subject.. Considering that the mind forgets in order to make room for new information you cannot keep everything in the forefront of your mind. Keeping in mind your purpose.

Which in my case would be PhotoRead and activate the relevant parts of the book so that I can write a workable marketing plan. My mind probing questions, What needs to be in the marketing plan? Is there a layout that I can follow/ Is there a check list that I can use to be sure that I include what is needed in the marketing plan. If not then my purpose would be to mind map and create one.

Now I know no one book is going to give me all the best marketing methods, ideas or advise so I would again get a stack of books and PhotoRead the lot, considering the budget I've established the type of customer I am trying to reach.

Since acting on the information becomes activation. I like to apply it as soon as possible. Working with the 80/20 rule. 20% of your time is going to yield 80% of what you need. Look out how you spend the other 80% of the time. It's by far more useful to establish a new purpose for the book at a later stage. It becomes possible to finish the book in less than 10 the only difference is instead of having only one purpose of 'needing to know it all' having a purpose to get started, purpose for the next step, purpose of the step after that, purpose of adding a final polish.

It's a case of what do I need to know now to get ready for the next stage? Then identify what is the next stage and decide what to you need to know .

The biggest mistake in trying to define a purpose is to try and come up with one that covers the lot. The purpose really is what do I need to know first? When I know that what do I need to know ne next ... so that I can....

That is why I keep saying after a 20 minute activation, 'check your purpose'.

When you've got it it may mean the book is done or it may mean you're ready for the next purpose that builds on the knowledge you've already gained.

Alex

Alex,

Thanks, no that makes sense.

"activate the relevant parts of the book so that I can write a workable marketing plan. My mind probing questions, What needs to be in the marketing plan? Is there a layout that I can follow/ Is there a check list that I can use to be sure that I include what is needed in the marketing plan. If not then my purpose would be to mind map and create one."

Because in the first 30 minutes (first 120 pages), I activated everything I needed to know about writing the general points in the marketing plan. If I understand you correctly, that would get me started, and then I would continue to activate and dip deeper when I started to work on each section ie. General stuff that should be covered in a marketing plan: ie. Swot Analysis, Marketing Mix. Specific sections activated when I start writing: ie. How to analyze a company's Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats; and Product, Pricing, Placement and Promotion Strategies.

"That is why I keep saying after a 20 minute activation, 'check your purpose'.

When you've got it it may mean the book is done or it may mean you're ready for the next purpose that builds on the knowledge you've already gained."

Thanks Alex, this is just the advice I needed to use what I've already activated.

Cheers,
Nelson

Yep that's the idea. In fact you might even surprise yourself by continuing to write the swot, Pricing, placement because you already understand what is required. If you get stuck then naturally the purpose is to get a better understanding of pricing and make it relevant to your product. Then you go back to the book and it might be in a completely different section althogether that explains what you need to get your mind around at that point.

alex