Reading a book is challenging, to say the least. If you’re anything like most people, your eyes will strain after a few minutes of staring at the same words. Therefore, finishing a large book can be such a challenge. It’s not that you’re not smart enough to digest all its content, it’s just that reading a book is a lot more tedious than watching a movie. The average novel has around 1,667 words while a typical book has around 250,000 words. If you’re reading a book at a rate of 250 words per minute, it would take you more than 25 hours to finish a large book. Not ideal, right? To finish a large book faster, follow these steps:
Step 1: Read for comprehension only
The first thing you should do is read for comprehension only. What does this mean? It means that you’ll read a sentence and understand it, but not stop to comprehend the complexities of why the sentence was written in such away. Let’s say you’re reading a book on how to reduce your credit card debt. You would want to read through the book with comprehension only, understanding what the author is trying to say about reducing credit card debt without really examining why he or she has chosen this approach.
Step 2: Never mind the distractions
When you’re reading, there are bound to be distractions. You might catch a glimpse of something interesting and go wandering off, or someone might come up and start talking to you. Whatever the distraction is, it can break your concentration and interrupt your flow. Distractions can also make you lose track of time; you’ll find yourself reading for an hour without realizing it. That’s why it’s important to never mind the distractions! Turn off notifications on your phone, close Facebook so that you won’t get tempted to check it constantly and move away from anything that might capture your attention when you’re reading.
Step 3: Stop and take a break
The most important thing to do when reading anything is to take a break. It’s not healthy for your eyes or brain to read without stopping. This doesn’t mean that you must stop in the middle of a sentence or even a page, but you should give yourself a momentary break every 30 minutes.
Step 4: Summarize what you’ve read
Summarizing is your best strategy for finishing a large book quickly. It’s important to take notes on what you’ve read so that you can match up the information from the text with your thoughts and ideas. This will allow you to absorb knowledge quicker. You should also summarize what you’ve read to get a better understanding of it. Summarizing gives you a bird’s eye view of the information, which will help you when it comes time to review it. You should summarize by reading the last few sentences or paragraphs of each chapter before moving on to the next one. You can then write down the main ideas and points that were just read while they are still fresh in your mind. It might take some time to go back through what has been summarized, but it will make sense at some point. It might be hard at first, but once you finally understand everything, it will be worth it!
Step 5: Go back and highlight the important stuff
When you’re done reading a chapter, go back and highlight the important stuff. This is a good way to make sure that you don’t forget what you read. It also makes it easier to make references especially when you want to remind yourself.
Step 6: Figure out how to tackle the rest
The last step of finishing a large book is figuring out how to tackle the rest. Now that you’ve finished reading, it’s time to decide what your next move will be. Will you finish reading the book again? Will you read it with a friend? What about re-reading chapters or summarizing important points? Some people like to read books with friends so they can discuss certain aspects of the story. Others like to re-read chapters because they might have missed something while they were reading the first time. If you want to finish a large book in less than 25 hours, make sure you get your next steps figured out before you start reading!
Final Words
Read at a faster pace. Reading a book is a long process, so take your time and don’t rush it. You can increase your reading rate by around 10% just by vocalizing while you read. Read more than one book at once. If you have two books that are both 1000 pages or less, you can read them simultaneously without losing any content or forgetting what happened in the previous book. Take notes on the pages you read. You might forget what happened when you finish the book if you don’t take notes on each page as you go along. Use an audiobook for long car rides. This will help to pass the time quicker and save your eyes from getting tired from reading for too long at a time.