Reading faster helps you to be happier
Have you ever been bored and tired from having to stay long hours in the office? Has it happened sometimes that you cannot leave office at 5 PM because you are behind your schedule? For most of the people the answer to both these questions is „Yes”.
Long working hours itself are not always frustrating. If you are working on a job assignment, which is interesting for you to perform or if it is a critical task, which will give you an award after being completed then it may happen that you work long hours intensively and you even do not notice how the time flies. And if you can succeed in your task then you will feel you self satisfied and relieved despite the long hours and fatigue. Unfortunately, not all long work days do provide you success. It can happen that although you spend long hours on your assignment, but you are still not able to complete it.
In many cases the fact, the you have to stay long at the office is caused by the fact you have been working slowly that day and probably you have wasted lots of time on unnecessary tasks. It may be the result of poor time management, for example you do not have clear work plans or schedule, or you have procrastinated a lot because you did not have a clear vision, how you should perform you tasks.
Besides poor time management, working slowly can be caused by the fact that lack of skills or knowledge is slowing you down. You may waste time because you are unfamiliar with the new software package, new legislation or Spanish language. But you may be slow because you are a slow reader.
A typical office worker spends about 25% of his/her working time on reading. So if you are a slow reader, it will really matter. If you work slowly you have problems with keeping up with the deadlines and it is likely to generate stress. You have to work longer hours, which means that you will get more tired by working.
In addition, reading faster itself can make your working more pleasure. If you can read faster, then you can think about the topics you read faster. According to a study by Emily Pronin and Daniel M. Wegner http://www.photoreading.co.uk/2006FastThinking.pdf the thinking speed affect persons mood and happiness. In this study, there were made experiments with people, who had to read given statements at different speed. The results indicate that when the survey participants read the statements at faster speed then the participants were more likely to experience positive mood.
If you read and think faster then it can give you more confidence. You will feel that you have the control and you are less stressed by the fear that you cannot finish on time. Fast reading and fast working may create excitement.
So, it means that speed reading skill will first give you an opportunity to save your working time and prevent you from working late hours. Second, it will give you a possibility to get more happiness from the work process itself.
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My name is Kristjan-Olari Leping. I am a speed reading trainer. I have an associated professor position at the University of Tartu, am a policy analyst in a policy research center, I am a trainer and I am involved in many other business projects. 