I’m looking for some tips on digital reading. My issue is that I need to learn how to scan documents. I’m a slow reader at the best of times, and chemo brain has done nothing to increase my reading speed. Part of my reading challenge is that I feel the need to read every-single-word in a document. Even when I know the section isn’t that interesting, I still struggle to skip past it and just jump to the interesting parts. Part of me has a severe form of FOMO (fear of missing out). If I skip over a section, I might miss that one perfect quote that is in the document. So, instead, I read every painstaking line, even if the document is of little or only peripheral interest. The problem is, I cannot keep this up. If there is any hope of me getting back to my PhD and getting it done in a timely fashion, I need to learn to skip over parts of the text that are not relevant. I need to learn ways in which to scan text.
Now to add to this complexity is that I read most of my text on my tablet. I read all my articles on my tablet, as well as long documents like dissertations. I do have a few paper books, but I reserve that form of reading mostly for bedtime and for books where I expect I’ll be jumping back and forth looking for quotes. Or text where I think there is something to be gained by reading them in print. Otherwise, all my reading is done in the digital format.
So, I’m asking all my blog readers out there, what are your tips for reading or scanning digital documents? What do you do to ensure you are reading the important parts, but not wasting time on the parts that don’t need to be read with that same level of attention? Any suggestions?
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