Things to keep in mind.

From reading the speed reading books, I have picked up a couple of techniques that are so to say universal. These things are not about technically reading faster, for those things you have to look up these books yourselves, but rather things to facilitate your reading and recollection in general. One important thing to keep in mind - and something I often forget - is that you have to develop the two skills of reading fast and remembering what you read separately. I'm no expert yet, but I intend to apply these ideas in the future.

1. Always ask yourself why you are going to read something, what your purpose of reading is. Is it important to remember something? Are you looking for something in particular? (In that case, formulate a question that should keep in mind while reading.) Are you just reading to pass time?

2. Always browse through your material before starting to read it. Look at every page for four seconds, noting the different chapters and so on. This is not something I would do for fiction :-) And, it is way easier to do for separate chapters. I guess you could say you that you are preparing your mind for what you are going to read.

3. When you have read something, always take a couple of seconds to think back on the chapter, article or whatever it was, noting in your minds or on a piece of paper what it was about - without looking back! This is intended to improve your memory.

4. When taking notes, don't write blocks of text or lists; make mind maps. Try to avoid using full sentences and avoid using the words of the author. One good mind map pattern is a treelike structure. Draw a horizontal line on a piece of paper and write the topic of whatever you just read on this line. Draw branches coming out from this line for every main thought and smaller branches coming out from the main branches on which you add information. Always write from memory, don't copy from the book.

I think these were the main points but I have a feeling I've left something out...