Reading

Although reading is fun for some, it’s not the same for others. Why? Over time, people lose interest in it. It’s not like the book is not great or the writing style is awful, they just can’t keep going and are stuck. There seem to be no motivation to read, and they simply cannot get through. This is called a reading slump and it can be frustrating.

Possible Causes of Reading slumps

Time: Once you do not have enough time to read – as you used to have, you can fall out of the process. You get accustomed to engaging in other activities and pastimes that you forget to pick up a book.
Placing so much expectation on a book: You have read reviews, the book cover is enticing, and you trust the author, but you can get discouraged when the book disappoints you. You know that feeling you get when you have placed a high expectation on a thing or it heightens your level of excitement, but the satisfaction level is low? This can reduce your interest in reading other books.
You have replaced reading with other equally fun activities after a long time: Binge-watching movies and developing other hobbies over a long time can steal your interest in reading.

On the flip side, there are newbie readers who don’t read often but the reviews they find on the internet attract them. With time, they get fed up of reading. How can they survive a reading slump?

Try reading a paperback

One tip that can help you read better is to put those soft copies aside. Purchasing and reading paperbacks can stimulate your interest in the book. There is a fresh feeling that comes with flipping through pages. It keeps your focus and you don’t have to scroll with your finger or squint when reading like you would do with a soft copy on your mobile phone and personal computer.

Set a target: a page or two per day

A page per day might work like magic! Setting targets can get you in tune with reading. You start to get familiar with the book and, over time, you would want to get past a page per day.

Try audiobooks

If the soft copy or paperback is not doing it for you, there’s an alternative: download any audiobook app to listen to books you are interested in. You don’t have to flip through pages or scroll on your phone, yet you get to enjoy the same reading benefit.

Start light: Opt for a fun, calm, and interesting read

If there’s a book that can help you recover from your reading slump, it has to be an interesting one. Opt for a book with light themes, funny and interesting. You can pick up a celebrity biography, a funny novel, African fiction, or the regular romance novel. These kinds of books are lighthearted and can help you get your groove back.

Re-read your favorite book

If you want to recover from a reading slump, your best bet is reading your favorite book again. Pick up a memorable book, go through it over again, it might reignite your passion for reading, and set your mood right.

There you have it! Want to start your reading journey, or recover from a reading slump, try out these tips.

Have you ever sat down and tried to read for work or school and wondered if there was a way that you could learn the material faster and not forget what you’ve learned? I have great news, there is! Learning these five techniques will make a world of difference in how fast you’re able to learn your new technique, and how well you’re able to make it stick in your brian afterwards.

1. Measure a smaller unit of success

Let’s be honest, when it comes to learning new things it isn’t always a breeze. You start reading information and a few times you probably comes across something that confuses you or is an area of difficulty. No matter what you do, you just can’t seem to find a way to get yourself to learn the mater.

Your first reaction may be to try and figure out what you don’t understand all at once. When you do this, you slow the learning process down. One of two things will happen: you’ll either never learn to do them well or it will take you a long period of time to do so. Instead, deconstruct the new skill or technique into much smaller components and work on them individually until you can put them all together.

2. Drill one thing until it becomes a habit, then move on

Everyone has multiple areas in their life where they’d like to make some improvements. Maybe you want to change your eating habits to be healthier, go to bed earlier, or go to the gym consistently. Even if you’re committed and have the best intentions to work towards your goals, it’s just natural to fall back into old habits eventually.

Each day, train your mind to focus on one thing at a time so you don’t lose focus. When you do this, you stop your mind from going off into a million different directions thinking about all the other things you need to do. It’s overwhelming and can be discouraging. Once you’ve made a habit or reached a new goal you’ve been working towards, then you can move on to the next one.

3. Short periods of study every day is better than long, sporadic cramming sessions

We’ve all crammed our brains with information in a short period of time, especially in college the night before a test at 8 AM. But if you think about it, how much of that information did you actually retain several days later? Probably not much.

You learn best from repetition. If you sit down and try and study for 6 hours and then come back and try to review, there’s a pretty good chance you will have remembered very little. When you study a little bit each day, you’re able to go back and review information from a shorter time span which will help you learn faster. This requires will-power so be strong!

4. When starting, test many different methods; when growing, stick with one

When you’re starting out with something new, start testing out a bunch of new methods that will help you learn faster as well as one that you enjoy. When you find it lock it down and stick to it. You may find at some point that things are beginning to level out or you’ve hit a plateu. This will be the time that you take a step back and think about the place you’re currently in. Things have changed now, you have changed, it’s time to switch things up so you can keep progressing.

5. Debrief to avoid making the same mistakes

When you’re learning new things, you’re going to make mistakes along the way no doubt. It’s difficult for some, but this is an iportant time to ask for help from someone who can show you where the mistake was made and what you can do next time to avoid repeating said mistake. When you mess up, you’re going to want a second pair of eyes on you to help you out. Find that person that will guide and help you jump over those hurdles.

Hopefully you’ve found the 5 tips above helpful. You’ll notice a significant different in how quickly you learn new things. Remember, no matter how slow you’re moving, progress is progress. Good luck!

Author: Erica Wagner

Yetunde Onafuye: You Can Overcome Reading Slumps Using These Tips