I’ve always been curious. Whether it was books, articles, or research papers, I wanted to soak up as much information as possible. But I kept hitting a wall. My reading felt slow, and my retention was mediocre at best. I wanted to break free from that limitation.

That’s when I started researching how to speed read. I learned that most people read the same way they did in school: word by word, often subvocalizing (saying the words in their head). That slows you down significantly. This was one of the hardest habits to break. I used to hear every word in my head, which made my reading speed crawl. I practiced minimizing that voice by focusing on visual scanning — letting my eyes flow across the text without mentally pronouncing each word. I started using active recall techniques — pausing after each section to summarize what I just read. Sometimes I’d jot down quick notes or ask myself questions. This deepened my understanding and helped lock the information into memory.