Sorry for the crappy title, I'm not sure how to phrase this.
I decided to make my yearly ritual of trying to learn photoreading. I started by checking newsgroups via google, and found a group that seemed to discuss photoreading, and so I posted my question there. Now that I've found this forum, and read a bit more on the group I posted to, I suspect that wasn't the best place. Oh, well, more noise on the usenet. :-)
Anyway, below I've cut-n-pasted my question:
I want to learn photoreading. As a child, I was a very good reader -
nothing stellar, but I enjoyed reading and had good comprehension of what I
read. Then I went through a period of illness, and now I find reading
somewhat cumbersome and boring.
Ok, so I've played with photoreading (book and course w/the tapes), read the
einstein factor, toyed with drawing on the right side of the brain, and
probably a few other related things I'm forgetting about. All for naught -
I still don't photoread, and I read a lot less then I used to and want to.
I know the problem, or at least part of it: I'm a very time-conscious
person. I don't usually wear a watch, because if I do I become compulsive
about checking the time. Even without a watch, I'm the type of person who's
almost never late, has a good grasp on how long things take, tends to finish
tasks early, and wakes up just before the alarm goes off. No, I'm not a
walking swiss chronometer, but I'm pretty good about keeping track of time.
Unfortunately, I think this is what gives me problems with all the fun stuff
(like photoreading) that I've tried: my natural, thoroughly-ingrained
attitude is to maintain awareness of how much time I'm spending, and that
pretty much ruins the shifts of focus I need in order to do things like
photoreading.
Tangent time - I've been writing a lot recently, mostly in the form of
emails and arguments on forums. Writing was never a strong suit of mine, so
it's only in the last few years (maybe 5-10) that I've been really putting
effort into it. Well, oddly enough, I've noticed that I'm always late when I
write, and that it always takes much longer than I think. Maybe I have 5
minutes to go before some world-shattering event - like the next episode of
Buffy - and all I've got to do is dash off a quick email to some friends;
yet somehow, I'm in front of the TV late, having missed the first 5 or 10
minutes. Unheard-of for me, I'm never that sloppy, yet this is consistent,
observable behavior.
So, for those of you who've plowed your way through this, my questions would
be:
1) Do I sound like I'm on the right track - that being overly-conscious
about time would pose a problem with activities like photoreading, and if
so,
2) How would you suggest I go about correcting this? Especially, how can I
leverage the fact that I can lose track of time while writing to help me do
so in other areas?
Thank You,
-Jeff
, that is the whole reason I started this.