A lot has happened in the past couple of years. No arguments there. I’m reading a book. It was published in 2008. It’s about speed reading.
The author at the time, Abby Marks Beale, couldn’t have imagined (or maybe she did) the changes in technology that would take place in the ensuing 13 years. There is a chapter (Chapter 15) that calls out some of the technology (current at the time). Ms. Beale explains how to organize blogs, podcasts and news feeds, all delivered via a technology called “RSS feeds”. I remember RSS, do you?
Now, we have apps, delivered via either Google or Apple. We typically listen to these services on our phones! Does anyone own a laptop (or even a notebook) anymore. Even iPads (and whatever the Android equivalent is) are falling by the wayside, in favor of these magnificent pocket computers (aka “smartphones”, or now just “phones”) we all carry in our pockets.
Abby Marks Beale, and her book The Complete Idiots Guide to Speed Reading, are classic. If you still read paper books, especially nonfiction publications like I do, Beale’s guide will get you through these books, in record time–GUARANTEED! When I was only part-way through the Idiot’s Guide, I cheat-read (“cheat” wasn’t even a term in my vocabulary, until I read Beale) The Success Trap and it took (much) less than a day to get the gist. This was all really wanted to to do with this book by Dr Amina Aitsi-Selmi. I got what I needed, and I was “out” as Abby Marks Beale would put it.
I have a small stack of books in my room, next to the bed. I now have the self-confidence to say that I am certain that I will be done with this pile of books, well before they are due back at the King County Public Library branch in my home town. PLUS, I have now got a strategy, again from the Idiot’s Guide, on how to get through my electronic publications to-do list (whatever the hell I did with that!)
I’ve also gotten (not from Beale) a strategy (credits to Catherine at the Blissful Mind) for getting my blog out regularly, on a weekly basis. Bonus!
If you have anything you’d like to let me know, or if you’d just like to chat, please post in the comments below.