Two Skills to Master for Increased Productivity
While in quarantine
In April 2020, the world moves fast. People are evolving due to technological advancements, and it is up to us as a community to keep moving forward. It can be challenging finishing projects before deadlines or ingesting all the information that we have in this modern world. Every time you see an ad, social media post, or have a conversation with a family member, you are consuming more information, and we also produce more information than any other generation in human history. It can be an invaluable tool to be able to ingest and create more than those around us. Refining the two following skills will help improve efficiency in all aspects of your life.
People are evolving due to technological advancements, and it is up to us as a community to keep moving forward.
Speed Reading
The first skill can help you consume more information and retain that information for far more extended periods than ever before. Being a college student who also loves to learn outside of the classroom, I need to be able to read often. But who has all that time to read classroom assignments, while also reading books of poetry and stories about human nature, that have nothing to do with my degree plan? The solution that I came up with was to learn how to speed read. The average person reads roughly around 200–250 words per minute (wpm), but I intended to learn how to read 600+ wpm, which would make me twice as efficient as the “Average Joe.” Two main concepts helped me to read more quickly while maintaining comprehension.
The first step is to bring in the margins of my reading material slowly. By using peripheral vision, you can read more words without moving your eyes entirely across the page, which in turn saves time. Start by removing one word from your line of sight at a time from each side of the page. And once you become efficient at this, move two words in, and then three, etc. Scanning the page rapidly alone will allow you to increase your wpm dramatically.
The other idea is to hold your tongue to the tip of your teeth. This practice will stop you from pronouncing the words silently to yourself, which will remove wasted time. It’s a valuable skill set that will not leave you, so I recommend improving your skill to read to the best of your ability!
By using peripheral vision, you can read more words without moving your eyes completely across the page, which in turn saves time.
Speed Typing
Typing is another one of those skills that people take for granted. Your ability to type directly relates to the amount/ speed of content that you can produce. Being able to craft more content can open up many doors in life. For one, you will now be able to take on more tasks at one time because your efficiency will improve. Another is that you will be able to spend more time in the creative process because you know that you can piece it altogether more quickly. Now my typing journey has been a struggle. I started at roughly 55 words per minute, which is around 15 more words than the average typist; however, there was still room for drastic improvement, since many skilled typists can type into the 100+ wpm range (almost doubling me!). Typing is a skill that requires muscle memory, so improving your typing ability comes down to two factors.
The first factor in becoming a skilled typist is by bettering your technique. I enrolled in a free online typing course, which has changed the structure of how I type to improve my overall speed. The course forces me to use the proper fingers to type, while continuously making the assignments more challenging.
The second factor is to repeat the proper technique over and over again. Like any real skill that requires muscle memory, repetitions are an absolute necessity. I would also recommend improving your environment to help improve your typing ability. Create an ergonomically proper station for you to work, and this will do wonders for your typing. Increasing your production speed will help you get more work done rapidly!
The first factor in becoming a skilled typist is by bettering your technique.
In conclusion
I hope that these two practices will lead to more productivity in your life! I encourage you to put in the work upfront to master these skillsets, and the time that you will save will return tenfold!
