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I defended my PhD thesis in economics a little more than a year ago and I was 28 then. It took me four years to complete my doctoral studies. Although four years is nominal duration of studies for PhD, no one had been able to finish it within this period in my faculty (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu) before. It was usual that it took at least one or too extra years and for many students even longer.

I discovered speed reading for myself at the beginning of my final PhD year and by that time I had already completed all the courses, but I had to still write my thesis. Writing the PhD thesis is a complex task and it takes a lot of time for ordinary students. Most of students reduce their workload while writing the thesis. For me there were many offers for new research projects, which offered a possibility of earning good extra income. And you may guess that I could not resist these offers.

After I had participated on a speed reading course, I began to train my reading skills regularly. I must say that after one month I had made huge progress and I was able to apply my new reading methods to my academic reading.

For writing a good PhD thesis you must have a good knowledge of the latest research results in your field. I was writing my thesis on labor economics, so I had to know what was going on there. Actually you do not have to know so much details of other authors work, but instead you have to know what their contribution to that field is and what their main results are. Therefore you have to read a huge load of material, but you do not have to go deep with most of them. I have seen many other students to spend lots of time for reading a single article or chapter, which definitely is a reason why it takes a lot of time for them to write the thesis.

The main benefits from speed reading for my PhD were that I was able to quickly find which texts were worth reading and I was able to read these texts much faster. For many articles I only read the introduction and summary or even only abstract and so I was able to work through more than 10 (sometime even 20) articles in one hour.

My speed reading skills gave me confidence that I was able to get it done and this helped me a lot. 11 years ago when I finished high school then I had excellent results on the final exams and I had strong self-confidence. But as an undergraduate student I was a bit too lazy and my results were not so good. When I started working at the university, then the first years on that job were also not so successful. My salary was relatively low and all these decreased my self confidence. When I started dealing with speed reading then it changed my life as I started to believe in myself again.

Many other students and professors have been astonished how I was able to write academic texts so fast and I still had time for all other projects. But the point was that speed reading made me very productive. What took days for other people, took only some hours for me to do. Some people wanted to stop me for taking so many work commitments as they were worried that I was working too much.

But in fact I was not working that much. I was able to finish writing the thesis quickly so I good devote time to some other projects. At the same time I was able to find time for my hobbies and friends. I did not have to miss a football match or a party due to my studies.

Speed reading has made my life much easier and therefore I have started to share my experiences to other people. I have given my speed reading trainings to different people such as managers, professors, students, doctors, military officers etc. It seems to be that everyone can learn it. And it is so enjoyable to see how these skills make people happy.

kristjan Speed Reading academic reading, benefits, reading skills, research, speed reading course