How I Read a Book a Week | Jim Kwik

People ask, well, Jim, how do you read a book a week? That is fantastic. I know leaders are readers, and if I could absorb all this information, and most people read only 1 or 2 books a year, 1 or 2 books a year, but they say the average CEO, someone who's leading an organization, creating jobs and fixing challenges and solving problems, that they're reading about 4 to 6 books a month, which equates to about 1 book a week. So how do you read one book a week? We're gonna go through it right now. Well, the first thing to do, and you can do this even without speed reading, is just break things down. I think a lot of people don't achieve their dreams, whether it's that— the body that they deserve, or the business that they deserve, or reading all those books, because it's too big and they procrastinate. They put it off. So really, one of the best techniques to break and smash procrastination is breaking things down into little chunks where they're more manageable. And if you can get started, you're gonna get started anywhere really, it'll take you to where you wanna go. There's something called the Zeigarnik effect with a psychologist that noticed that waiters and waitresses, they would remember everyone's order until it was delivered, and we don't like open loops. If we start something, we wanna finish it. So follow through every single day, and you'll see tremendous results. But going back to how do you read a book a week, break things down. When I went to Amazon, I wanted to break it down. I wanted to find out what was, on average, the amount of words per book, and I saw somewhere it said 64,000 words. Now, that's a really big number. How do you break that down? Well, the average person, let's say, reads about 200 words per minute. So let's say you're not a quick reader. You know, that's the average reading speed. But now some of you are up to 400, 500 words per minute, which is outstanding. I don't consider that quick reading. I just consider that normal reading. That's the reading speed we should have been reading at when we first learned how to read. We just weren't taught. But now here's the difference. If you're a normal reader reading 200 words a minute, divide that into 64,000 words, that comes out to about 320 minutes. In 320 minutes, someone reading at 200 words per minute could get through an average book of 64,000 words. You divide 7 into 320 minutes, it comes out to about 45 minutes a day. 45 minutes a day, that's less than a television show, you could get through a book a week, and you have the tremendous advantage of reading 52 books a year. I mean, that will transform your life. That will transform your life. That will give you a PhD practically in any subject, whether it's marketing or it's sales or it's health, whatever you want to become a real master at. So here's the thing when it comes down to 45 minutes a day. The key, as you know, is to schedule it. Because if you don't schedule it, it's not going to happen. If you talk about, hey, I want to read a book a week, and you don't get yourself to do it, usually what's missing is you haven't put time into your day that allows you to be able to do that. So you work out for maybe 30 or 45 minutes in terms of running or you're doing your yoga or what have you. Also work out your mind. And the best form of exercise, I still believe, is your ability to read. Reading every single day is the best mental exercise you could do to keep your brain younger, to stave off brain aging, to keep yourself focused and mentally alert and agile. 45 minutes a day. I was with Will Smith on set and we're, you know, I help a lot of actors memorize their lines and speed read their scripts, help them become focused, and I was like, what do What do you do, you know, to maintain your high level of energy and your performance? He was like, Jim, 2 things. Every single day I run and I read. I run and I read. You know, you do something physical and you do something mental. So make sure you set up 45 minutes a day to be able to read. Now, by the way, the reason why I'm so excited about you as a quick reader is because if you read more than 200 words a minute, let's say you read at 400 words a minute, then you're reading twice as fast as the average person. Then you could cut that time in half. So instead of 45 minutes a day, you could do it in about 22 minutes a day. How wonderful is that? Now, if you're going further than that, and then you're going reading at 600 words per minute, 3 times as fast as the average person, then it no longer takes 45 minutes a day. You could divide that by 3, and you could read in 15 minutes a day what takes the average person 45 minutes a day. That means 15 minutes a day over the course of a week will get you through a book. And don't you know this already? You started a book maybe about a week ago, and some of you have actually finished that book. So you've proven this concept that reading in only 15 minutes a day could get you through a book in about a week. So 15 minutes to 45 minutes, depending on your reading speed, you have such an advantage, and almost an unfair advantage. And I believe right now that quick reading is not even a nice-to-have skill. It is a must-have skill. skill in today's age of information, where knowledge is not only power, it's profit. We live in the millennium of the mind. You want to feed your mind with the best information, the best quality information. That's why you're going through this program, because you're sharpening the saw. If you have all this wood to cut, you know, and you have a dull blade, when do you want to be able to sharpen that blade? Not at the end. That wouldn't make any sense. You don't want to work 3 times harder than everybody else and sweat and put all that effort in to get lower results. You want to sharpen in the beginning, and then everything is easy after that. That's what you're doing right now with quick reading. So speaking of quick reading, let's do our baseline test. Get out the book that you're reading right now, that you're practicing. Get it out now. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna do a 2-minute drill. This is a reading assessment because we wanna do this together. Now, just as a review, a quick review, when you're reading, you're using your finger going left to right, and you're doing it with the indentation, always with the indentation, because you have your peripheral vision picking up information on your left and your right, so you don't have to go— All the way margin to margin. So I want you to read for 2 minutes. Remember your posture, remember the tilts of the book, remember your breathing, and remember also— let's do this together— your infinity exercises. Let's do that now. So get your finger out, and then let's do our lazy eights or the infinity sign. Remember this, you're not moving your head, you're just using your eyes to follow the tip of your finger. And you're breathing. Let's do this together. Remember, knowledge is not power. It's what? It's potential power. Only becomes power when you apply it. Breathe, and then go in the reverse. Let's do it together. I'll do it with you. You're never alone. Reverse it, go slow. Remember, the key is slow. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Okay, shake it out, pick up your book, put a mark in the margin, and we're going to time you for 2 minutes. And enjoy your quick reading. Begin now. Okay, now stop. Okay, put a mark in the margin where you left off, and what I'd like you to do, as we've done this every single day, is count the number of lines you just read. Let's divide it by 2, round up if you like, and then write that number down below. Write that number down below. And your homework assignment is this, is just to practice your reading 10 minutes a day. Always do that. Now, if you've missed a day, it does— it's not the end of the world. My challenge for you is this, is how you do anything is how you do everything. So it's okay if you miss a day. The challenge is you don't want that to be okay, because once you miss one day, it's easier to miss 2 days and 3 days. So you wanna interrupt the pattern. We had one question people posted saying, can I read multiple times a day? Absolutely, absolutely, but the bare minimum is your 10 minutes a day scheduled. If you'd like to do it, just break up your reading. Read in the morning, read in the afternoon, or read in the morning and read at night, or read in the afternoon and read at night. Break it up if you can. So your homework assignment is this: schedule your 10 minutes of reading. Make sure you do that. Check in, always put your progress down below because that's your accountability. That shows that, hey, I am showing up and I'm playing full out. Encourage each other throughout this journey, and I look forward to seeing you.