A New Way to Read

Part of developing Anki as a virtuoso skill is cultivating the ability to use it for types of understanding beyond basic facts. Indeed, many of the observations I've made (and will make, below) about how to use Anki are really about what it means to understand something. Break things up into atomic facts. Build rich hierarchies of interconnections

Here, we need to puzzle over notes and find the best fit. It is much more associative, playful and creative than the other tasks and requires a very different kind of attention as well. Reading, of course, is also different. Reading in itself can require very different kinds of attention, depending on the text. Some texts need to be read slowly and

Superficial reading. This stage is actually reading the book but in a very casual way. You start at the beginning and take in the material without consuming it or thinking too much about it. You don’t make notes in the margins. You don’t look up unfamiliar phrases or concepts—if there’s a passage you don’t understand, you just proceed to the next p

Inspectional reading actually has two mini-stages of its own:

Now you’re being deliberate and paced about your reading so you can comprehend better. This means slowing down—a lot. Be patient with the material and with yourself. If a passage is difficult to understand, read it extremely slowly. If you aren’t getting a sense of clarity about a certain part, stop, go back to the beginning, and reread it.