You’ve tasted it. The freedom of speed reading. The thrill of doubling your reading speed and getting through your workload faster than ever before. You know the techniques. You’ve experienced the benefits.
But then something happens.
You’re reading a dense article, a textbook, or even a simple email, and suddenly you realise you’re back to the old habit. Reading slowly and linearly (possibly on word at a time), hoping to absorb it all. You sigh. “Why am I doing this again?”
Here’s the truth: speed reading isn’t just a technique. It’s a mindset, a habit, and a lifestyle shift. Forming this habit takes intentional effort. But once it’s embedded, it transforms not just how you read, but how you think and learn.
Let’s explore what it really takes to leave old habits behind and make speed reading second nature.
Forming a New Habit Begins with Conscious Use and Practice
Like brushing your teeth or driving a car, speed reading only becomes effortless after consistent, conscious repetition. Initially, your brain resists. It wants to fall back on well-worn neural pathways, the ones built by years of reading slowly, word by word.
To create a new reading habit, you need to:
- Use speed reading techniques every day, even for a few minutes.
- Make speed reading your default, not your “sometimes” mode.
- Remind your brain that it’s safe, effective, and more efficient to read this new way.
Your first job is to interrupt the old pattern. The second is to replace it with the new one again and again until it becomes automatic.
Previewing Creates the Mental Framework for Speed
The most powerful technique to prevent regression is previewing. In traditional reading, we start at the beginning and crawl forward, hoping the meaning will emerge. That’s like trying to understand a city by walking every street in order.
Previewing, however, lets you see the whole map first. You get a sense of structure, hotspots of key information, and the overall flow. It gives your brain a head start.
Spend two to five minutes flicking through the book or document. Look at headings, chapter titles, summaries, images, and keywords. Identify what matters. Ask: What is this about? What am I looking for?
This shifts your reading from passive absorption to active exploration, and that alone breaks the old habit of sequential reading.
Reading with Purpose Keeps You Focused
Reading aimlessly is an open invitation for old habits to return. Without purpose, the brain seeks familiarity, and the familiar is slow, linear reading.
Having a clear, written-down purpose activates a different part of your brain, the goal-oriented system. When your brain is looking for something specific, it filters faster, ignores irrelevant information, and pulls what you need to the surface.
Examples:
- “I need three key arguments for this essay.”
- “I’m scanning for new research methods I haven’t seen before.”
- “I’m looking for statistics to support my conclusion.”
Even a five-second pause before you start reading, asking “What do I want from this?”, can dramatically improve focus and speed.
Environmental Cues and Anchors Support Habit Formation
The physical environment has a surprising impact on how you read. That means:
- Good lighting
- An upright chair and clear desk
- A well-ventilated, distraction-free space
But it also includes environmental cues, objects and routines that anchor the new behaviour.
Try:
- A sticky note at your workstation that reads: “Preview. Purpose. Skim. Zoom in and out.”
- A brightly coloured bookmark or visual reminder on your screen
- A designated reading space that you associate with fast, focused reading
- Keep Speed Reading Faster prominent on your desk or where needed
The more consistent these cues, the stronger the mental link. Soon, just sitting in your reading chair or seeing your visual cue will trigger the speed reading mindset.
Build Momentum with Repetition and Variation
Repetition builds habits, but variety keeps your brain engaged. Use a mix of techniques from the Spd Rdng system to keep things fresh:
- Super-duper reading: One second per line across ten pages to push your brain to process faster
- Underlining: Using your finger or pen to guide your eye and control pacing
- Concentration training: Focus your eyes on a central point and expand peripheral awareness
These techniques act like training drills in a sport, building muscle memory and mental agility. And remember, you don’t have to use all techniques at once. Mix and match based on the material. Flexibility is part of mastery.
Expect More From Yourself
Set high expectations. If you believe that you’re a slow reader, you will act like one. But if you believe that you are fast, flexible, and intelligent with how you absorb information, your actions align with that belief.
Expect to:
- Read more in less time
- Retain more after a single pass
- Skip what you don’t need without guilt
These expectations create a powerful self-fulfilling prophecy.
Tip: write down three empowering beliefs about your reading. Post them where you’ll see them daily.
Celebrate Success to Lock It In
Progress deserves to be noticed. Celebrate success, not just for motivation but to deepen the neural connection to the habit.
Some ideas:
- Track how many minutes or pages you speed read this week
- Log one insight or action you took after each reading session
- Reflect weekly on how your reading habits are improving
- Share your wins with a friend, study group, or online community
The emotional buzz from celebration makes the brain crave more. That’s how habits stick.
Reflect, Refine and Recommit Regularly
Habits aren’t ‘set and forget’. Every week, check in with yourself:
- Did I use speed reading techniques consistently?
- When did I fall back into the old way, and why?
- What helped me stay focused and fast?
- What will I adjust next week?
This simple reflection loop keeps the habit alive, fresh and evolving. Think of it as updating your internal software.
Speed Reading Is Not Just How You Read. It’s How You Live.
This is about more than words on a page. Speed reading trains your brain to look for meaning faster, to make decisions quicker, and to feel more in control of your time and energy.
It teaches you to:
- Focus with precision
- Ignore the irrelevant
- Prioritise purpose over perfection
And when this becomes second nature, the old habits have no space to return.
Stages of Habit Formation
This image beautifully illustrates the journey of habit formation through three essential phases: Determination, Persistence, and Patience. At the beginning, forming a new habit—such as speed reading—requires a steep rise in effort driven by determination. This is where motivation is high, and you’re pushing yourself to try new techniques and override old habits.
However, the most challenging part comes next. The line flattens, representing a plateau. Here, success depends entirely on persistence. The first red X marks a critical moment: this is when it’s just about to become easier, but many people give up because they haven’t seen this chart and don’t realise how close they are. At this stage, you don’t need more determination—you just need to keep going with persistence.
After some time, the habit begins to settle in and the effort required starts to drop. The second red X is another crucial point—again, things are about to become easier, but people often quit here, thinking it’s not working. What’s really needed now is not persistence, but patience. Let the new habit take root. According to the timeline at the bottom—ranging from 2 to 60 days—this graph reminds us that while motivation/determination starts the journey, persistence and patience are what complete it. Never give up.