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Only four hours after studying you will forget over 40% of what you learn. Over 40%. As the worlds fastest reader, I have learned the importance of accelerated memory skills for retaining information.

The same memory skills that enable me to retain details at even 80 pages per minute, will also help you retain essential school information. Let us see what makes things more memorable.

Centuries ago the Greeks discovered one of the major secrets of memory. They found that powerful emotions glue information into the permanent memory. Just how do powerful emotions glue information into permanent memory? Information already stored in your permanent memory is similar to hangers in a closet. In the same way that hangers enable the storage of clothing in a closet, mental hangers in your permanent memory empower your brain to store new information. An emotional glue instantly links your new information with stored information already in your brain. Your ability to remember is directly proportional to the powerful emotional responses the image elicits. In short, effective linking requires you to create a unique image that produces extremely powerful emotions. Let us see exactly how this works with the following simple drill.

Using your traditional memory technique, memorize the following 5 items in less than one minute: (1) screw, (2) two by four, (3) sneakers, (4) tomato soup, and (5) window cleaner. In less than a minute, using your traditional memory tool this list can be difficult to permanently remember. Using the emotional anchors discovered by the Greeks you will remember this list in a flash. Furthermore, you will be able to remember it backwards, forwards, or perfectly in any other sequence. Additionally, you will effortlessly be able to accomplish this more difficult task. Hard to believe? Let us do it together.

The first step is to use a list of objects already familiar to you. Objects previously stored in your permanent memory. These objects will become your memory hangers. The parts of your body meet all the necessary criteria. Your body parts are highly familiar to you, and are already stored in your permanent memory. Let us use the feet, shin, knees, thighs, and stomach which are in a convenient order for remembering new information.

Our next step is to create a highly emotional image that links the objects in your list to your familiar body parts. The first object is a screw, and the first body part is your feet. Imagine a sharp, rusty screw, going through your feet and out the top. Ouch! This is certainly a powerful emotional image. When you think of your feet what object immediately is recalled? The screw. Congratulations, you have just memorized the first object on your list.

A two by four is the second object on your list, and it must be linked to your shins. Picture your shins being shattered by a two by four. Thinking about your shins, instantly makes you remember the two by four.

Next you need to link sneakers to your knees. To create this emotional image requires a bit of imagination. Picture Dirty Harry wearing a pair of sneakers, kicking and shattering your knees. Imagining your knees instantly helps you remember a pair of sneakers.

The fourth object in your list is tomato soup, and your next familiar object is your lap. This is an easy image. Think about a boiling pot of tomato soup spilling onto your lap. Contemplating your lap you instantly remember tomato soup.

Your last object is window cleaner, and it must be linked to your stomach. Think about drinking a bottle of window cleaner and having it drain into your stomach. Pondering your stomach immediately makes you think about window cleaner.

Now you are ready to instantly remember the five objects on your list by recalling the emotional images linking them to your five body parts. I will give you the name of a body part and you picture the object linked to it. Ready? Begin: (1) feet, (2) shins, (3) knees, (4) lap, and (5) stomach. See how easy it is to remember items when using emotional anchors. You can use this same technique for memorizing information for school. Incidentally I used painful images because every agrees on what is painful, while our concept of pleasure can vary. Nevertheless strong positive emotions are also effective in anchoring information into memory.

.About the Author:

Howard Berg is known as the “World’s Fastest Reader” as documented in

the 1990 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. He has taught

thousands of people all over the world not only speed reading but

advanced learning techniques to help them succeed. Get a free lesson

directly from his website here: www.HowardBerg.com

In your last two articles, I have shared with you the importance of schema in making text meaningful. Now we shall learn how to use schematic clues to increase reading speed.

Consider this very important statement: author’s publish text for a group of people, but you must read that text as an individual. A writer offers all the information they believe that anyone reading their text might require, because a writer can’t anticipate what every possible readers’ map of a subject might contain. On the other hand you tend to read text on subjects that are relevant to your work or hold special interest to you. This mean that you often have a map of many of the important points found in many of the texts you must read, and you can use this map or schema to reach incredibly high speeds in much of your reading.

Ironically, many individuals actually slow down when encountering familiar or easy material. It is human nature to seek out and feel comfortable with familiar surroundings. For example, what might happen if you were reading a really complicated, boring, and challenging Chemistry text, and then found a really interesting, familiar, and easy section in that text. Would you be in a hurry to finish this easy and interesting portion of the text so you could focus upon difficult and boring information, or might you spend more time that you should staying in this comfortable and familiar text? Most people make the mistake of wasting valuable reading time focused upon things they already know, rather than productively using their time to learn new and necessary information. You won’t make this mistake ever again. In the future, as soon as you spot familiar or easy information, you will increase your reading speed and use your time to learn new, unfamiliar, important information. There are many significant applications of this point in business that I would like to share with you.

Imagine you are reading your daily newspaper. In business, it is essential to stay on top of timely and important information. Yet, you often hear the news on the radio on the drive to work, or perhaps view it on television. By the time you read the newspaper, much of the information it contains has already been learned. Spend more time on the news that you didn’t know about, and you will find yourself becoming a more productive newspaper reader. This is a skill I’ve shared with companies like Prudential Realty. Information changes daily in real estate, and good brokers search for leads in the newspapers, while keeping abreast of economic changes and changes in the law that can affect their industry. They know that failure to keep abreast can hurt their bottom line just as using that information correctly can increase their profitability. This same principal holds true for newsletters, and magazines that often contain sections of very familiar information.

Your daily mail, and e-mail are another area where you can put this reading strategy into practice. Many executives have their mail screened by others, because they don’t have the time to pour through a pile of unopened mail. How often has someone made a poor judgment call and not shown you a piece of mail that you would have judged important? Scan you mail swiftly looking for things that require your personal attention, or letters that are responding to your personal requests. Look for mail that can be tossed, postponed, or delegated to someone else. Using schematic clues you will find yourself quickly getting through your mail more efficiently than any assistant could possible accomplish. During a recent program I gave in Montreal for Cisco systems, I was told how they were receiving as many as 300 E-mails a day that seriously compromised their time and efficiency. Learning to speed read their e-mail greatly cut down on this waste of their time. Ironically, many of the e-mails were sent simply to notify people that a letter was on the way. You can significantly cut down on this waste in your company by making people aware that they should either send their letter by e-mail, or use the. regular mail. Have them stop cluttering up your associates’ time by sending e-mails announcing that regular mail is on the way!

The schematic technique we have just learned works well for familiar or easy material, but not everything you read is easy or familiar material. We need a different strategy for speed reading unfamiliar information. It is important to remember that only about 40% of a text is information, and that the rest is explanation. Explanations take the form of stories, anecdotes, examples, and illustrations. Writers use these structures to clarify, simplify, and exemplify the information they are offering to you. However, you will often find that you understand points made in text and don’t require any

additional assistance. When this happens, you can quickly skim these embellishments and move onto the next new and significant point in your text. Only when you find yourself confused or unable to understand a technical point should you take advantage of the extra information the writer included to help make difficult text easier for you to learn.

.About the Author:

Howard Berg is known as the “World’s Fastest Reader” as documented in

the 1990 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. He has taught

thousands of people all over the world not only speed reading but

advanced learning techniques to help them succeed. Get a free lesson

directly from his website here: www.HowardBerg.com

Let me give you an example of how to use schema to speed up your reading in unfamiliar material. One of the most successful books ever published is the “Power of Positive Thinking.

” The structure of this book is often used by other self-help book authors. First, there is a paragraph describing a potential problem. Next, there is a paragraph describing how to solve this problem. Finally, there is a 28 page story about someone who has the problem and successfully used the solution. Do you really need to read these 28 pages if you already understand how to solve the problem? Absolutely not! You won’t waste your valuable and limited learning time doing this either. Instead, only use this additional help if and when required. You will find new zip in your reading speed with essentially the same comprehension. Next we shall deal with the secret to maintaining an alert, focused, and positive cognitive state that is essential for successfully conducting business.

ESTABLISHING A POWERFUL LEARNING STATE

No matter how well you learn material, you will not benefit from your knowledge if you become too tired. There is a simple technique developed by Marcus Conyers, one of the graduates of my Mega Speed Reading Program, that will enable you to instantly tap into the unlimited energy necessary for successful business operations. To get optimum results from this exercise it is important that you stand up and also imagine that your energy is increasing as you perform each of the following steps:

touch you left hand to your right shoulder

touch your right hand to your left shoulder

repeat these steps 3X

touch you left hand to your right knee

touch your right hand to your left knee

repeat these steps 3X

raise your hands high over your head

scream out enthusiastically “I feel great

scream out YES while squeezing your right thumb tightly and pulling it towards your right side

repeat all of the above steps 3X

This really can turn up your energy when done properly. Why does it work? It is based upon the time honored principle of classical conditioning from Psychology. Think back to school when you learned about how the great Russian Psychologist Pavlov conditioned a dog to drool while hearing a bell ring. Pavlov consistently rang a bell each time the dog was fed. Eventually, just hearing the bell elicited a drooling response from the dog. In exactly the same way, squeezing your thumb and saying “I feel great, YES,” each time you create a high energy state will make this gesture a powerful stimulus for releasing high your own limitless energy.

This is an incredible tool for you to use when you need instant energy. Imagine having to work late at night, or attending a long demanding meeting, and suddenly needing some extra energy to accomplish your task. Squeezing your thumb and saying, “I feel great, YES”, (inside your head silently) will release a flood of much needed energy. This is one of many tools we have developed to help you create a peak state for successful business practice. Next we shall learn an important technique for remembering and recalling essential information.

.About the Author:

Howard Berg is known as the “World’s Fastest Reader” as documented in the 1990 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. He has taught thousands of people all over the world not only speed reading but advanced learning techniques to help them succeed. Get a free lesson

directly from his website here: www.HowardBerg.com