Prepare and The Importance of Purpose
If you've followed me on the forum you'll have noticed that this is something I consider important to PhotoReading. [I consider it an important to every area of life, however I'll steer clear of that for now :-) ] It is the same as 'If you don't know where you're going, how are you going to know when you get there?' Or in PhotoReading speak, 'If you don't know what you want to activate, how do you know when you've activated it?'
For me my purpose when it comes to reading it to satisfy my thirst for knowledge. I am usually specific on the subject when I look at a book. From a short preview I have a fair idea of what the book is about and even from a title I'll be asking questions that I expect an author to answers. My 90-second preview lets me know whether this book has a chance of satisfying that purpose. It has to be significant if I'm going to invest time in it.
If I see a book titled "Use More of Your Mind" my question is yeah, right how? What tricks do you have that I don't already know? How do you support that and how easy or complicated is it for me to apply? Do you expect me to stand on my head and wiggle my ears my ears to master how to remember a shopping list? How long does it take to learn?
As you can see my purpose to learn how to use more of my mind agrees with the title of the book. My questions are from my personal of experience and naturally colour my questions. Comparing what I already know to the text. I'm giving the author the opportunity to show me what's new to me. Naturally I'm not going to spend much time superreading and dipping stuff I'm familiar with. Those pages I'll probably gloss over with the PhotoReading speed. With a more focused vision to be aware of minor variations that may show me something that I had missed in the technique that I already know and I consider this the last 20% of the book. I want the 80% of the book that is new to me. Might be only one chapter so I aim to read that in the bookshop and save myself some $ :)
When it comes down to it, purpose is the answer to the question,"When you have information from this book; what are you going to do with it?"
Guess what? This gives you permission to dump books quickly that don't answering your questions and find the ones that do. I found that information is repetitive so it's a waste of time meandering page after page of a book reading stuff you already know. It makes your mind dull to new information and you wonder why your comprehension was so poor?
At each stage of PhotoReading you'll consider and reconsider your purpose. The impact of the preview can change your purpose as can PhotoReading it and then each activation pass you may discover something that changes your purpose. A book a friend gives you may appear dull and you get as far as deciding you'll do a short activation so you can have a general discussion with your friend about the book. This way you won't hurt their feeling. After your 20 to 30-minute activation pass you might be going wow this book is actually interesting and I'd like to read it in detail to know about. So your purpose has changed.
Next the Tangerine Technique
|