You know already that when I'm banging on about better business writing, I focus relentlessly on the needs of the audience. I do this because I know that clearly written, well-structured content improves comprehension and enables audiences to read content more quickly and efficiently. In my ideal world, all content would be clearly written and well-structured. In the real world, of course, it rarely is.
So one of the things frequently on my mind is what to do when you are a reader (rather than a writer) and you are faced with a mass of poorly written unstructured content (or indeed a mass of well-written but poorly structured content) and you have no choice but to wade through it.
Speed reading is a solution that's been floating around on the edge of my universe for some time, but if I'm honest I've always been a little sceptical. Could it really work? Anyway, a few months ago, I finally decided to take the plunge and give it go - and I'm now convinced it does work.
My guide on this recent journey has been Alex Garcez, also known as the Speed Reading Coach.
Here at Pacific Blue, we've decided to team up with Alex and over the next few weeks he will be a guest blogger, bringing us some background information about speed reading and providing a series of speed reading tips to introduce you to his proven techniques.
When you stop to think about it, the benefits of being able to read faster are blindingly obvious. You can look at it two ways. Either you could take the view that reading faster lets you get your reading done more efficiently and frees you up to do more of the things you want to do. Or you could take the view that reading faster enables you to absorb more knowledge and expertise than you are currently able to.
Interestingly, Alex tells me that a joint study by the US Department of Labor and Yahoo has identified a link between the number of business books people read and their relative earning power. The study concluded that people who read a minimum of 7 business books a year earn around 2.3 times more than those who just read one.
Whatever your motivation for wanting to read faster, it seems to me it's a bit of a no-brainer. So watch out as Alex reveals some of his speed reading tips over the coming weeks.
And if you can't wait, we are now running speed reading courses with Alex.
