The Triforce Method: Boosting Reading Speed and Comprehension

Salim reveals the triforce method to drastically improve reading speed and comprehension in just one day.

### The Triforce Method: Triple Your Reading Speed and Comprehension
* 📚 Imagine finishing a book in a day instead of spending months on the same material; this is the goal of the **Triforce Method** developed by med student Salim, who sought to **maximize his reading efficiency**.
* ⚡ The first strategy involves improving your baseline reading speed by **eliminating your internal monologue**, which can be achieved using tools like Spreeder to **visually process words** instead of hearing them in your head.
* 👀 Adding a visual tracker, such as a finger or pen, helps maintain a **consistent reading pace**, reducing the tendency to backtrack and allowing you to **increase your reading speed by another 100 words per minute**.
* 📊 The second strategy focuses on having a reading strategy, emphasizing the **80/20 rule** where **80% of knowledge comes from 20% of the book**, allowing for efficient navigation through non-fiction texts.
* 🔍 Salim demonstrates this by applying the **80/20 rule** to *Atomic Habits*, where he speeds through less critical information and slows down to **absorb key insights**.
* 📝 The final strategy is about summarizing and consolidating information; **summarizing each page in one or two lines** enhances comprehension and retention of material.
* 🚀 Additionally, taking action based on what you've read reinforces learning, as demonstrated by Salim's practice of **tracking habits after reading about them**, which contributed to his **success in medical school admissions**.
* ✍ While the techniques are primarily for learning, they can also **enhance your enjoyment of reading**, and Salim encourages viewers to further improve their skills, such as **typing speed**, by taking **actionable steps**.

Imagine if you could finish a book in one day, instead of being like everyone else spending months reading the same book and never making any progress... I'm Salim, I'm a med student and I've had to read hundreds of books in med school, 

my undergrad and my masters - and I never wanted to spend hours reading everyday like most people did, because I wanted to spend time doing things I actually cared about. So over the years I found the 3 best strategies you need to massively increase your reading speed, and I call it the triforce method.

So the first strategy of this method is to improve your baseline reading speed, and the first part to this is removing your internal monologue - and I used the free website, Spreeder (NOT SPONSORED), to help me do this.

Because the idea is, your internal monologue, that voice in your head when you read, limits you to read one word at a time and that obviously caps how fast you can actually go. So to read faster, you need to just see the words, instead of hear them in your head - and 

you might think, how? But you already do this - like when you're at a stop sign, you don't read or mouth 'STOP', you just visually process it. So websites like Spreeder let's you change how many words come 

up per minute, or let's you group words together, so that you don't even give time for that voice in your head or time for you to read out loud - but because your eyes are fast - so you'll still process and understand what you read.

and it might feel a bit weird, but I can
guarantee you it'll feel normal after a day and you'll read at least 50% faster - 
like I started at 250 words per minute and I can do over 500 now pretty easily even
without Spreeder and straight from a book

Now the last part of this first
strategy might sound stupid, but what you need is a visual tracker
- and I'll help you see why it's good so first look straight at the screen keeping
your head still and move your eyes across

it as smoothly as you possibly can - you'll
see that it's a bit jittery and not smooth now, put your finger, or a pen in front of you,
and track that - there you
go, it's better just like that

because when you just read with your
eyes, it's not that smooth because
there's these micro-adjustments,
so you end up double backing on
sentences - and if you're trying to read at 600
words per minute that time obviously adds up

But a tracker keeps your eyes moving at
a consistent rate where you don't let
yourself go back - so overtime increase
the speed that you use the tracker and
you'll see your reading easily go
up by another 100 words per minute

And now the second strategy
of the triforce method,
is making sure to have a reading strategy
- because knowing when or how to use the
techniques is just as important as the
techniques themselves - and 80% of this

strategy is understanding the 80/20 rule, 
where 80% of the knowledge comes from 20% 
of the book - and this is what saved me 
time a lot of time for non-fiction books So I’ll explain with an example how this 
works - so a non-fiction book like *Atomic* 

habits has a lot of examples for 
a relatively small bit of useful 
advice - so when I went through the book, I 
applied the 80/20 rule, I sped through most 
of the pages by getting rid of my internal 
monologue and by having that visual tracker

And, when I noticed that small golden nugget of 
advice, I slowed down the visual tracker to let 
myself think and absorb that key information 
better - because obviously reading at over 
700 words per minute is going to give me lower 
comprehension than if I slowed down to read at 500

So adapting the techniques depending on what 
you’re reading is a big part of actually reading 
what’s relevant instead of trying to absorb 
details that just don’t matter - because that’s 
effectively the same as highlighting every single 
sentence - it’s not going to help you in any way

Okay so now your reading speed’s up, and you 
have an idea of when to use those techniques, 
but none of this actually matters if you don’t 
remember what you read - like let’s see - the last 
chapter you’ve read from a book, can you summarize 
that to me in a sentence or two? because I know 

so many people that say yeah I read a book last 
week, but they haven’t actually learned anything 
from it - and if you feel attacked by me saying 
this, then that means what I’m saying is true but you’re here because you wanna improve, and 
that’s good - so, you need to work on this 

The third and final strategy of the triforce method is about summarizing and consolidating. The idea is, there's no point reading a lot if you don't understand what you're reading. You should have a good level of comprehension.

So, at the end of every page, summarize it to one or two lines. Even if nothing important was said, 'nothing important' counts as a summary. As you do this, your brain's going to naturally engage more with the text and you'll retain information a lot better.

Like, this is what I did back when I applied to medical school and did my admissions exam. I had to get quick at getting relevant information from paragraphs of text. And because I did these things, I scored in the top 1%.

And on top of summarizing, I said you have to consolidate. And it's more for non-fiction books where you should take some sort of action. Like, when I read Atomic Habits, it mentioned keeping track of every habit you have, so naturally,

it only makes sense that I actually do that and not just forget about it a day later. And I'd actually just stop reading until I've taken action for at least a whole day. Because the point to this is, learning something is about changing your behavior after you've been

exposed to something. So, if you don't change anything, you haven't actually learned anything. And yeah, I do get the difference between reading for the need of learning something versus reading purely for the enjoyment of it, like reading poetry or fiction books.

but one thing where you'd always want to use
techniques to be faster and better is for typing, and in this video here, I talk about how you can
triple your typing speed in only 7 days - so click

this video and actually consolidate what you
learn from my advice by taking action after

How to Absorb Books 3x Faster in 7 Days (from a Med Student)

Salim Ahmed

Introduction and the Triforce Method for Speed Reading

Salim, a med student, introduces a speed reading method called the Triforce Method.

The method aims to increase reading speed significantly.

The first strategy focuses on improving baseline reading speed by eliminating the internal monologue.

The use of a visual tracker is suggested to improve reading smoothness and prevent backtracking.

The second strategy emphasizes having a reading strategy, focusing on the 80/20 rule.

The 80/20 rule suggests that 80% of knowledge comes from 20% of a book.

An example using *Atomic Habits* is given, showcasing how to apply the 80/20 rule.

Adapting techniques based on the content is crucial for efficient reading.

Summarizing, Consolidating, and Retaining Information

The third strategy highlights the importance of summarizing and consolidating information.

Summarizing each page helps improve comprehension and retention.

Consolidation, particularly for non-fiction, involves taking action based on what's learned.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of behavioral change for true learning.

A distinction is made between reading for learning and reading for enjoyment.