Here is an example, to encourage you.
I took an interest in photoreading back in late summer '05. I pursued it for a time, and set it aside. A couple of days ago I realized that I really have quite a pile of reading to get through, and so I said to myself, "maybe it's time to get back into photoreading!" (with which I had extensively experimented previously, so that it is not new to me now).
Well, I have just extracted everything I need from a 190-page monograph, in 28 minutes flat. A couple of days ago, I previewed and photoread it. Just now, in 28 minutes, I went through and found what I needed. I am absolutely certain that the book was familiar to me from having photoread it, that if I had not photoread it I would have had a much harder time picking up the necessary details, the details necessary for me, now. So say total time 45 minutes. I'm finished with it. The details I need can't just be looked up in the index; they are synthetical and scattered around.
At some points in my 28-minute pass over the book I realized I was turning a few pages without really looking, and I tested the matter by making myself check-- and in fact there was nothing there. The paragraphs containing information relevant to my needs just somehow stand out.
I don't think that what I do counts as activation properly speaking. I didn't really ask questions, except to some extent for one question at the beginning. I have to improve my activation technique. I don't really enjoy making maps on pieces of paper. I like to type in what I need, my thoughts, my summary, etc. I don't like making big lines that go this way and that; and what should I do with the paper anyway? When I tried activating that way in '05 I filled up lots of big sheets of paper, and I don't even know where they are exactly. So I like the computer. I have to work on activation technique.
But there is no doubt that photoreading made the research easier. I polished off a monograph in less than one hour total time spent. It's unheard of.
