In This Edition:
1. Last Year in the Decade
2. Keeping Pace with the Race
3. Skimming, Scanning, and Speed Reading
4. Parting Thought
The Last Year in the Decade
As 2009 draws to a close, based on the viewpoint of many people (i.e., the
year 2000 as part of the 21st century, not the 20th century), a new decade
will arrive in January 1. Regardless, this decade is flying by!
Keeping Pace with the Race
With each passing year, the information bombardment accelerates
without missing a beat. Regardless of your profession, it seems nearly
impossible to keep up a reading schedule that covers all work-related
requirements. By speaking to supervisors and business professionals
throughout the country, I have learned that reading is almost universally
regarded as an important component of the job and career. Yet there is
seemingly no time, or precious little, allotted for this task.
In addition, the number of quality business, career, and management
publications has more than doubled since the mid-1990s, an increase that
reflects the growth of market-specific information demanding your attention
in the modern world. Add in a daily avalanche of reading materials, Internet
information, listservs, subscriptions, e-mail, and junk mail and you've got
quite a burden building up. Is staying abreast hopeless, or is there a way
out of this information overload morass?
The first step to managing your reading is to pare down the list of
required texts. Redefine, or, perhaps more accurately, define the type of
information to which you need to be exposed, and what type of information can
be readily discarded or ignored. You can almost certainly ignore much direct
mail material, as well as merely interesting web sites, e-mail, come-ons,
and other time-consuming enticers. Key publications and sources of
information that specifically supply what you need to know are to be
preferred over passive sources, like the daily paper and general interest
periodicals.
If you're skeptical about how much time can be saved and re-allocated
for active reading by picking and choosing your information sources, test
yourself over the next 30 days. Listen only to relevant and intelligent
radio and TV reports instead of catching the latest updates on the hottest
story of the moment. Set limits on how much time you spend cruising the
Internet. Everyone needs some pleasure reading, but the question is how much
and when? Think carefully about what papers are worth perusing. You'll
appreciate the extra time, and so will your career.
Skimming, Scanning, and Speed Reading
If you didn't master "skimming and scanning" in high school or
college, it's not too late to learn.
Skimming involves perusing the first one or two sentences of a paragraph
within an article to see if the paragraph is relevant to your immediate
quest. The basic payoff is that skimming enables you to quickly determine
whether or not to invest more time in the article or the publication.
Scanning is a technique used with large volume materials. Scanning
involves reviewing the table of contents, index or site map, list of charts
and exhibits, and occasional paragraph leads to determine what, if any,
material is of interest. The availability of high-speed photocopiers and
printers greatly facilitates the scanning process, since you can immediately
make a hard copy of the specific information that you need.
Speed reading can enhance both of these techniques. By moving a
pencil under the text as quickly as your eyes can follow, you can almost
double your skimming and scanning rates. You can learn to read even faster
if you enroll in a speed reading course.
Parting Thought
Another year, another year older for each of us. Betty Freidan, in
The Fountain of Age, concludes her book with these words:
"I realize that all the experiences I have had, as a daughter,
student, radical, reporter, battler for women's rights, wife, mother,
grandmother, teacher, leader, friend, and lover, confronting real and
phantom enemies and dangers, the terrors of divorce and my own denial of
age, and even a kind of ostracism from some of the organizations I helped
start, all of it: mistakes, triumphs, battles lost and won, and moments of
despair and moments of exultation is part of me now."
"I am myself at this age. It took me these years to put the missing
pieces together, to confront my own age in terms of integrity, and
generativity, moving into the unknown future with a comfort now, instead of
being stuck in the past. I have never felt so free."
