T I m e m a n a g e m e n t

T H E AV E R A G E
businessperson today is reading thousands
of words of e-mails, reports, news stories, business informa-
tion, magazine articles, and other data. To be successful
today, you have to keep current with your reading require-
ments. We live in a knowledge-based society, and one key
piece of information can have an immediate effect on your
work and your decision making. 
Take some time to be selective about what you read.
The best time saver in the world of reading and keeping
current is the Delete button on your keyboard. Use it early
and use it often. Resist the temptation to spend time read-
ing things that are not of immediate value or relevance to
your life and work. 
American Management Association / www.amanet.org

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Learn to Speed-Read
You cannot avoid all of the incoming information, but you
can sort it and go through it at a time and place that makes
sense to you. One of the most important skills you can
develop is to learn to speed-read. If you have never taken a
course in speed-reading, you should do it now. This one
course will allow you to triple your reading speed and level
of retention, probably in the first two lessons. The technolo-
gies that have developed in speed-reading are quite phe-
nomenal, and anyone can learn how to read 500 to 1,000
words per minute with high levels of comprehension. 
Bunch Your Reading
When you come across valuable items, summaries, or pieces
of information on the Internet, print them out and put them
into a file, or put them aside in a separate digital file on your
computer for reading later. Instead of “task-shifting”—that
is, switching away from the work that you are doing to read
a recent piece of information—put it aside to read at a later
time. Once you get into the habit of doing this, you will be
amazed at how much more you read, and how much more
attention you can give when you do read that material.
With regard to newspapers especially, you can either have
the most important information published in newspapers
come to your computer on a daily basis, or you can read the
paper version. In either case, skim quickly and read only
what is relevant to you. In news reporting, the most impor-
tant information is usually in the headline and the first para-
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T I M E M A N A G E M E N T
American Management Association / www.amanet.org

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graph. Very often, you do not need to read all the details in
the story to understand exactly what has happened.