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My first bit of advice from the perspective of age is not to take advice from any older-timer. Except the one that many well-aged people reputedly made on their deathbeds – they wished they had tried and risked more. This derives from most people going through their lives confined by their modest comfort zone. Then, when they realize they are in their last stretch, they find their lives have turned out more staid than it need have.

But I have less depressing advice for those who love to read – particularly slow readers. Consider reading faster than normal through some – but not all – reading material. Just the material that is not on your short reading list. The ones you might never get around to reading because of dwindling spare time.

Consider reading just fast enough to get the gist of the material. Don’t stress over the detail that whizzes past your vision. Don’t worry about not hearing the sounds of the words in your head. Force your eyes over the text in different patterns (e.g., zig-zag, circling). Be satisfied with just a sense – an inkling – of what’s written.

Think about it. Isn’t it better to have that hazy gist than to have nothing at all? And nothing is what you would have gotten if you let the book gather dust.

You can gist many more books than you can slow read. As imperfect your grasp will be of that material, it will be a small contribution to your knowledge and may even affect your way of thinking in subtle ways.

I’m gisting books now. And I wish I had done it many years ago when I had developed an interest in speed reading – which I never succeeded at.

I also became disenchanted with the demonstrations of speed reading where the reader was tested with a few questions – fishing for random facts embedded in the reading material. Wouldn’t a better test of speed reading be to engage in a conversation with the author or with someone who has just finished reading the same material? Wouldn’t you prefer to grasp the overall logic of the material rather than mere factoids emerging out of a haze?

That’s my goal when gisting. A sense – a feeling – an inkling – a cloud-shaped thought.

Of course, if you are going for the full sense of the material, slow reading will be your best choice. But for secondary material, go for the gist. And be content with it.

Now that I’ve freed myself from the criterion of a full and instant understanding that constrained my reading, I have a voracious hunger to read. Of late, usually in the evenings, I seat myself on my couch, turn on the lamp, and read a chapter each from my stack of 5 or so books that I have going.

While mostly non-fiction, these were relatively easy books to read. Nothing highly technical which would require slow, careful study. I spend an hour or two on them. When I put them aside, I have a strong feeling of accomplishment. And I have fresh notions teeming in my brain.

The weird thing is that it feels that I comprehend the books about as well as I had when struggling thru them a 1 mph. Maybe that means I’m not reading as fast as I think. Yet it feels like I am.

To think I could have been doing that from a young age. Imagine how many books I could have gisted by now. Try not to arrive at your death bed with that regret nagging at you. With stacks of moldy books unread or ungisted.

(first published in an earlier personal website 2020 with minor trimming in 2023)