When reading at work, many people find it hard to concentrate.
In my reading courses participants often don’t actually say that - instead they’ll say things like “I am easily distracted” or “I can’t remember what I read because I keep thinking of other things”.
So how can you concentrate in your work reading, so gaining the maximum amount of information in the shortest time?
<h3You need to concentrate!
The first and most important step to realise is that you need to concentrate!
Sure, some people can appear to multi-task quite effectively, reading while keeping an eye on their email notification, keeping half an ear on a conversation occurring elsewhere in the office, and occasionally also thinking about the shopping they need to do at lunch.
But you know something?
If they were concentrating on only their reading, they’d be much faster and more effective at that task!
In fact, don’t think of it as ‘concentration’. Think instead of ‘getting in the zone’. So what does that mean?
Years ago we had a painter do some work on the outside of our house. A Queensland house, it was elevated and so the highest walls were very high. Every day the painter would turn on a radio playing classical music before he climbed his ladder and started sloshing on the paint. The height didn’t seem to bother him, and the painting was methodical and went for long sessions between breaks. One day, I stopped at the bottom of the ladder and started to chat to him. But he didn’t hear a word I said.
Later, when he was having a break, I talked to him about it. “When I paint, I get into the zone,” he said. “I don’t hear anything because I am lost in the music.”
In the same way, when you are reading with concentration, you need to be unaware of anything except the material that you are reading. That’s very different to listening to conversations, thinking about lunchtime shopping and so on.
Remove concentration stoppers
So what factors can cause a loss in concentration – a breaking of that ‘zone’? The most common are interrupters.
A visitor is shown through the office and you immediately look away from your reading to glance at them. Someone at the desk behind you takes a phone call and you stop reading to listen. You have your computer monitor on and you check every email as it arrives.
Preventing these common occurrences from breaking your concentration requires action on your part.
Turn off your monitor and check your email only every hour. Book a meeting room so you can read an important document in relative silence and without interruptions. Wear earphones playing quiet music – or use active noise cancellation earphones playing nothing but instead generating magnificent silence.
Anything that breaks your concentration will reduce the effectiveness of your reading.
Read with a purpose
Do you know why you are reading the document? Or to put this another way, for what purpose are you reading it?
If you’re reading a report because your boss just told you to read it, you will be reading without direction. After you have finished reading it, are you supposed to know only the gist of the document? Or the main headings? Or know one of the areas very well and have just an overview of the other points? Or do you need to know the document inside-out, with sufficient understanding to write a detailed rebuttal of the arguments contained within it?
If you know why you are reading a document, you can adopt the reading strategy that best reflects the purpose in reading it. Depending on the purpose it might involve:
- a quick skim of the main headings (on a 50 page document, taking a minute)
- gaining an overview of the main arguments (perhaps 20 minutes)
- reading for an overview followed immediately by reading for detail (an hour)
- a detailed proof-read (perhaps 2 hours)
You can see that depending on the purpose in reading the document, the required time can vary enormously.
Reading for a purpose is like reading a document knowing the questions you will need to answer when you have finished. That’s always a far more effective approach than reading a document only to find that now you need to answer some questions you’ve never seen before.
Think about what you are a reading
When you are a reading, constantly think about the material.
Think about:
- how what you are reading affects you (or your staff or department or organisation)
- how it relates to what you already know about the topic
- whether it contains material that is new or unique
When you get to the end of each page (or, on complicated material, the end of each paragraph), review and reflect on what you have just read. Use this pause to summarise the content and to consider its context.
If your mind ever starts drifting, stop yourself. If you find that you are drifting off topic multiple times, reduce the amount you read before you pause to review the content.
For more on thinking about what you are reading, go here.
Conclusion
Reading at speed and with good comprehension requires concentration, effort and purpose. If you can get into that zone, you’ll find your abilities to read at work are massively improved.
Julian can be contacted directly or reading courses can be arranged through Anne Jenkin and Associates.
