PhotoReading

PhotoReading takes advantage of the fact that all books are not equally valuable to you. There's tremendous variation in the information value of different books. Some books are a complete waste of your time. Other books will only contain one or two useful ideas that you'll remember -- the rest you'll quickly forget.

PhotoReading solves this dilemma by training you to use a nonlinear, multipass method of reading. You don't just blindly dive in and read books word by word. Instead you'll make multiple passes through each book, going deeper each time until you reach the point of diminishing returns. Sometimes you'll finish a book in 15 minutes (if that's all it takes to extract the ideas that are important to you), while other times you'll spend 2 hours with a book that's loaded with great ideas.

Keep in mind that after you learn PhotoReading, you can still read books linearly if you choose to. If you want to read a fictional story like Harry Potter, I'd recommend that you slow-read it to immerse yourself in the story and enjoy the surprises and plot twists as J.K. Rowling intended. But PhotoReading is great for nonfiction books where the goal is simply to extract the ideas that are important to you. In that case, the sooner you can extract and apply those ideas, the better.