Efficient reading vs Speed reading

I was one of those who wanted to get everything faster, be it learning, career advancement or life achievements. My mind was so obsessed with speed that I believed that I could run my whole life productively by rushing. However, life itself proved me wrong several times along the way. Speed wasn't taking me anywhere, on the contrary, it became a hindering aspect of my life.

When I was interested again in learning what I didn't in highschool I hurringly wanted to catch up with years of doing nothing. I was mesmerized by all I could learn from the Internet but I was also overwhelmed by knowing the amount of time I would need to get all the knowledge I wanted. I thought that speed reading was the solution and looked for reading methods on the Internet. My best finding was readspeeder.

What I liked most about readspeeder was the reading with visualization method it used. Basically, it was all about picturing what you read in your mind to slowly remove sub-vocalization and boost reading comprehension. My first experience with that was awesome and I loved to see its immediate results. Then I was asked to try to imagine groups of words that progressively turned longer and longer to cover more text in my reading window. This is where the method started to fail for me simply because I couldn't group words in a meaningful way. My word groups cut on points where their combined meaning couldn't give me a clear idea of what I was reading.

Readspeeder also pushed me, although slightly, to read faster and faster but that only made me feel lost and confused while reading. Speed became my enemy again so I stopped using the website and kept the visualization method which was the feature I liked. Still I had to remove my rushing habits, so in order to do that I used a business card for my mobile phone or a bookmark for physical books to cover the text underneath my reading window. That trick prevented me from rushing and let me form a sensory experience from the meaning of the words I was reading.

By the way, I've just come up with something while writing this entry. Actually, I love to experience books not just read them. That's pretty cool!