The whole Quest was a great adventure for me from the very beginning; It was equally informative as it was fun - Jim's amazing coaching abilities, deep connection to us all, as well as his sense of humour helped me go through the whole quest with completing the tasks and doing the exercises while celebrating my progress, and left me with strong motivation (or even better - a burning need!) to read every day. It has challenged me to be more inventive in finding the slots for my reading, with the result that I'm no longer bored in those long supermarket queues!
To be able to measure our progress was amongst the key motivators. I experienced an immediate improvement after starting to use the visual pacer - my base rate went from 224 to 308 and never dropped back below that afterwards.
I also found very useful to learn that using the left finger as a visual pacer stimulates our right hemisphere, which is in charge of creativity and imagination. What really amused me was Jim's story about his student, who was using this method while reading The Old Man and The Sea, and as a result could feel his feet on the sand, experience the waves, but one thing he didn’t like was the smell of the fish! (I'm now having second thoughts about reading 'Animal Farm'.. ! ;)
When Jim introduced the indentation technique, I was excited to see how much time gets saved by it: After trying it out, my WPM jumped to 448! (Exactly 100% improvement from the Day 1!)
I've also enjoyed the challenge of learning to juggle - although I'm not the fastest learner, I can already feel the benefits in being able to focus better, and Jim's quote 'As your body moves, your brain grooves!' really proves this!
Among other important points I learnt from Super Reading have been the following five:
1) Scheduling
Scheduling has lead to a great improvement of my learning path. I now read at least 10 minutes right before having breakfast. This makes it into a nice routine I look forward to, without being stressed, thinking: "Where do I find the time?!"
2) Consistency
Reading a book a week is more manageable than it seems - if one keeps the consistency! I loved when Jim said that "45 minutes a day is less than a TV show". (Or, in my case, chatting on Messenger, or browsing for stuff on Amazon..! ;)
It's so exciting to know that if I develop a daily habit of devoting 45 minutes a day to reading (especially if these 45 minutes are divided in manageable chunks!) I'll really end up realising my long-term wish, which is to be able to read a book in a week or two, and not 2 -3 books a year...! I'm starting to believe that soon I'll be able to walk past our library without that old pang of guilt!
3) Taking notes regularly
This is a groundbreaker for me, as it really embeds the information from the book in my memory. I now do it after almost every reading session, or at least once a day. I write down the most important ideas from the text, or the parts that spoke to me in particular, which also makes me practice skimming.
I think I'll be doing this with every book I read from now on, and then compile a special 'Bookworm compilation' out of all my notes!
4) 'Read - Rite - Relate'
My favourite part ever! The whole point of reading a book comes alive. I've happily noticed that conversations with my highly educated, well-read husband are becoming to improve their dynamics; most of the time it's him leading the conversation, with me just tending to chip in with occasional 'Oh, really? How interesting..!', but since we've started the R-R-R technique, the scales are getting slightly more even! I can't express how much this means for my self-esteem..!
5) Having an accountability buddy
I feel I learnt twice as much since I started communicating with my Accountability buddy. We've been messaging and phoning each other, and it's been highly stimulating and motivating to share what we have been reading. I always felt in such a flow when it was my turn to relate, and I equally enjoyed asking her questions about her book. It was also lovely and heartwarming to connect to someone on a similar wavelength. Apart from being able to practice and further our growth, we've also had a good laugh!
Other meaningful thoughts by Jim that I have found extremely helpful on my learning journey:
• If you are not uncomfortable, you’re probably not learning something new.
• Your brain thrives on novelty; Have your 'To Do' list, but also 'To Learn' list!
• When you feel frustrated, upset, and about to give up, just do a little bit more! Trust the process.
• Have intention, but not attachment.
• Success is an inside-out process.
I feel truly blessed to be a part of this amazing community. Thank you from all my heart for giving us the opportunity to be here, share all these treasures together, and pass them on to others, who will hopefully join us in our wonderful learning quest!
To be able to measure our progress was amongst the key motivators. I experienced an immediate improvement after starting to use the visual pacer - my base rate went from 224 to 308 and never dropped back below that afterwards.
I also found very useful to learn that using the left finger as a visual pacer stimulates our right hemisphere, which is in charge of creativity and imagination. What really amused me was Jim's story about his student, who was using this method while reading The Old Man and The Sea, and as a result could feel his feet on the sand, experience the waves, but one thing he didn’t like was the smell of the fish! (I'm now having second thoughts about reading 'Animal Farm'.. ! ;)
When Jim introduced the indentation technique, I was excited to see how much time gets saved by it: After trying it out, my WPM jumped to 448! (Exactly 100% improvement from the Day 1!)
I've also enjoyed the challenge of learning to juggle - although I'm not the fastest learner, I can already feel the benefits in being able to focus better, and Jim's quote 'As your body moves, your brain grooves!' really proves this!
Among other important points I learnt from Super Reading have been the following five:
1) Scheduling
Scheduling has lead to a great improvement of my learning path. I now read at least 10 minutes right before having breakfast. This makes it into a nice routine I look forward to, without being stressed, thinking: "Where do I find the time?!"
2) Consistency
Reading a book a week is more manageable than it seems - if one keeps the consistency! I loved when Jim said that "45 minutes a day is less than a TV show". (Or, in my case, chatting on Messenger, or browsing for stuff on Amazon..! ;)
It's so exciting to know that if I develop a daily habit of devoting 45 minutes a day to reading (especially if these 45 minutes are divided in manageable chunks!) I'll really end up realising my long-term wish, which is to be able to read a book in a week or two, and not 2 -3 books a year...! I'm starting to believe that soon I'll be able to walk past our library without that old pang of guilt!
3) Taking notes regularly
This is a groundbreaker for me, as it really embeds the information from the book in my memory. I now do it after almost every reading session, or at least once a day. I write down the most important ideas from the text, or the parts that spoke to me in particular, which also makes me practice skimming.
I think I'll be doing this with every book I read from now on, and then compile a special 'Bookworm compilation' out of all my notes!
4) 'Read - Rite - Relate'
My favourite part ever! The whole point of reading a book comes alive. I've happily noticed that conversations with my highly educated, well-read husband are becoming to improve their dynamics; most of the time it's him leading the conversation, with me just tending to chip in with occasional 'Oh, really? How interesting..!', but since we've started the R-R-R technique, the scales are getting slightly more even! I can't express how much this means for my self-esteem..!
5) Having an accountability buddy
I feel I learnt twice as much since I started communicating with my Accountability buddy. We've been messaging and phoning each other, and it's been highly stimulating and motivating to share what we have been reading. I always felt in such a flow when it was my turn to relate, and I equally enjoyed asking her questions about her book. It was also lovely and heartwarming to connect to someone on a similar wavelength. Apart from being able to practice and further our growth, we've also had a good laugh!
Other meaningful thoughts by Jim that I have found extremely helpful on my learning journey:
• If you are not uncomfortable, you’re probably not learning something new.
• Your brain thrives on novelty; Have your 'To Do' list, but also 'To Learn' list!
• When you feel frustrated, upset, and about to give up, just do a little bit more! Trust the process.
• Have intention, but not attachment.
• Success is an inside-out process.
I feel truly blessed to be a part of this amazing community. Thank you from all my heart for giving us the opportunity to be here, share all these treasures together, and pass them on to others, who will hopefully join us in our wonderful learning quest!