Before I share with you tips on HOW TO GET FOCUSED WHEN READING, I would want to quickly paint a picture of the wonderful things reading has done in my life. Reading made it possible for me to travel to places across the world. I have been to the USA, UK, Nigeria, South Africa, Dubai and many other countries all without visa.
Interesting right!
You may be wondering what way reading made this possible. Let me share with you the secret.
I have travelled to these countries back and forth and I still do all the time learning a great deal from the amazing things happening around. Interestingly, I travel to these places at a cost less than $15. Sounds funny and very impossible, right! How much is plane ticket, hotel accommodation, and the others and $15 does the magic for me?!
How possible?
There is a secret to everything. By the time you get to the tail end of this article, you will uncover my secret.
One of the things I used to have difficulty doing was READING. I won’t shy away from the fact that reading is not an easy exercise especially when you really don’t understand its benefits. I had difficulty reading not because I didn’t like it. No! My favourite genre of books are inspirational books, business books and some of the time, relationship books. I read them a lot because of my love for entrepreneurship and desire for a near perfect relationship life with my partner.
The reason is this; I didn’t know how to focus to be able to read effectively. I read yet couldn’t recap anything I read and so found no joy in reading. Some way somehow, the table turned. I began to experience great love for books when I developed the skill of reading. Books have become one of my great sources of inspirations and ideas.
With just one benefit shared with you about reading, it is important that I share with you the skill of developing a focused mind to be able to read effectively.
Here’s what I have been doing over the years.
CLEAR YOUR MIND
The human brain is attuned to distractions already. Today’s world makes it even worse with what happens around us with the tick of the clock. Every direction you turn to, there is almost something that needs your attention not to talk of the one in your mind. Many are the things you really don’t want to pay attention to. Reading is to gain, retain and utilise knowledge. One of the ways to do this is to build and maintain a focused mind through the process. Spend about two minutes to clear your mind from any thought that could serve as distraction. It could be difficult to clear the mind sometimes.
In those times, here’s what I do. I go to a quiet place and spend time with myself. It helps me clear my mind from any form of distraction. Another thing I do is to be in the washroom. No matter the worry, once I grab my tablet (mobile device) or paperback book and lock myself in there, my mind becomes blank slate to distractions. I don’t know what magic is in there but it works a great deal for me. Try it sometime. When it works, reach out and let me know how it worked for you too.
SET YOUR READING GOAL
As you pick that book, how many pages or chapters do you want to finish before putting it down?
It is very important to set a reading goal when you pick up a book to read. Back in high school, the maximum time period for reading any book I laid my hands on was three days. And I did achieve my reading goals.
What I did was to break the chapters into the three days which made me know how many chapters to read in a day. I subdivided the number of chapters in the day into the number of free hours I had in the day so as to know how to finish my day’s reading goal. Amazingly, this helped me finish many books aside my academic books. It was an awesome experience.
The surprising thing was, I developed this reading tactics unknowingly and so in the same vein, I didn’t realize it immediately when I stopped. What brought it to my knowledge was that I wasn’t even completing one book in a month. I would use about one month to read about 15 pages and it didn’t make my reading enjoyable because I couldn’t finish books.
When I went back to my reading tactic, sometimes, I get to finish about a 100 pages’ book in a night.
YOUR READING ENVIRONMENT MATTERS
Where you sit to read plays a significant role to your FOCUS on what you are reading. The result of reading at a quiet and serene environment is not the same as at a noisy environment. Research by Cohen, Glass and Singer (1973) has proven that a healthy reading environment aids betterretention.
Studying in a noisy place has a cognitive impairment effect compared to a quiet environment. It makes it difficult for you to think.
STAY AWAY FROM THE NOTIFIERS
You have a total of 1,440 minutes in a day. Staying away from your mobile phone or email notifications or your laptop for 120 minutes won’t harm you. When reading electronic books (eBooks), simply be sure to turn off all notifications or to make it simple, put your gadget on flight mode.
I relate well to paperback compared to electronic books. What I do to keep my reading momentum undistracted is to stay away from the phone at my reading period. But when reading about a 30 pages book on my electronic gadget, I simply put it on flight mode to stay away from seeing any sign of incoming WhatsApp message, emails or phone calls.
When you start your reading race, keep the momentum till the end.
TAKE A BREAK
As you read, don’t forget to take a break. It is important. After every 50 minutes of reading, use 10 minutes to shake off boredom before you continue. Put your snacks or water and other materials you would need for a pleasurable reading experience around so you don’t move about. Too many movements around to pick up something can reduce your FOCUSthreshold. So take a break.
DECIDE TO FOCUS
My friend, Richard Botchwey, BEFFTA award-winner and author of The Orphan’s Tale and My Shoes Don’t Fit shared an interesting view on his Facebook timeline about a funny yet very serious issue about commuting the city of Accra on a trotro “… time wasters in Ghana; number 1 are Trotro drivers …”
Interesting, right! I am sure it is same in Lagos
If you commute with trotro most of the time for your daily activities like I do, then you have the exact idea your time that get wasted compared to you commuting in your own car or a taxi. For years, my productive time in trotro was spent at looking around town or simply pressing my phone. Most people are caught in the same web. When I discovered the magic of moving around with a book, I get to read at least 5 pages before I alight at my destination depending on the distance.
Now, I shared in a point above that your reading environment matters and a serene one does the magic when it comes to retention. In trotro which is always noisy, you simply have to decide not to get distracted.
Just like the psychologists have established that one can attenuate attention and decide which event we give our greatest attention to, In trotro, just like I do, I attenuate the greatest part of my attention to the book I am reading and I train my mind to refuse distraction. Yes! It a decision I take to FOCUS that is why I get to read in trotro and guess what, my journey always becomes shorter compared to when I am not reading a book.
Coming up with your own reading tactic coupled with the few I have shared in this write up would do you good.
Back to how I am able to travel around the world with only $15 anytime and any day. It is not special magic. I simply grab a book and read and the journey to which ever country starts.
Yes! It is simply just that. I grab a book.
Physically, I am yet to step foot in any of the countries I mentioned above but mentally I travel there and engage with the great minds that I may never have the opportunity to meet in person. Reading a book is a mental conversation with the author. Mind to mind; soul to soul. Once you are reading, it has a psychological magic of drawing you into the world of the writer and you are able to see through the lens of his/her eyes and see what he/she saw and what he/she sees about the future.
Show me any great man or woman in the world today who doesn’t read! Barack Obama, Warren Buffet, Helen Keller, the man from Zimbabwe; President Robert Mugabe, Dr. Mensa Otabil, Bishop David Oyedepo, Richard Brandson, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. They all do because they know what reading does. They are what they are not because they are special than you but because they took to reading to learn from other great minds.
Like I always say to my colleagues, if this great men and women of influence are still reading books like rookies, why are you not doing same with your empty pocket and inexperience to be like them?!
Reading is fun. It grows you. It makes you join global conversation. Go grab a book and read.