“Create more than you consume”
It’s been a year since I started speed watching videos and I noticed that recently I’ve been watching at 3x the speed.
I was introduced to watching at higher speeds when I watched this video about learning faster. At the time, I was faced with the daunting task of watching numerous video tutorials and I dove right in.
Since then, I have speed watched everything from movies to tutorials and even “slow” songs to make them more dance-worthy.
When I’m watching a video, I also like to increase the speed until the point where I don’t comprehend what’s being said. This is a handy trick of making sure I am being as efficient as possible.
Many people are skeptical when I tell them that I watch at these speeds and that it might spoil the experience of watching a movie or a TV show.
The one thing that I’ve taken away from this is that the brain adapts. It became second nature after a while because I got used to it. It actually feels slower when I’m watching at the normal speed. (Fingers crossed that Netflix adds a feature for setting the video speed soon)
I don’t watch movies at 3x but I definitely speed them up to around 1.5x. The trick is starting the movie at a higher speed and then lowering it until you can comprehend what’s being said.
I use the Video Speed Controller browser add-on which is available for both Firefox and Chrome. It has some handy keyboard short-cuts for adjusting the speed.
We live in a consumerist world where there are a million things asking for our attention. It could be a tutorial, some sports highlights, a movie or even Instagram. For that reason, it’s important to make sure that we cut time wherever we can.
It’s been proven that it might not be possible to speed read but speed watching is definitely possible. Give it a try.