Reading is (at least sometimes) boring! And that means that a lot of us pick up bad habits to keep ourselves a little distracted from the boredom. Tapping a foot or pencil can both keep you from abandoning the book midstream and moving on to something else instead.

Unfortunately, these small motor movements are preventing you from speed reading! They’re slowing you down, keeping you distracted, and preventing you from giving your full attention to the reading matter in front of you. What that means is that if you want to really increase reading speed, you have to stop moving. Sit still. (It sounds like kindergarten all over again, doesn’t it?)

I used to do a lot of jiggling when I was reading–I was always tapping a foot or tapping my fingers. I’m a really active guy and even though I like reading more than most people, I still much preferred being on the move to sitting still and reading. So I was rebelling against the “sit still” rule and it was costing me reading speed.

When I decided to just practice giving my full attention to the reading materials in front of me, I found it was really hard at first and I’m sure my reading speed decreased instead of increasing! But, I stuck with it for about three weeks and one day, I noticed a dramatic increase in reading speed–I was finishing pages about 10% faster which, added up over a book meant *hours* saved. Now I can spend more time being active because I’m spending less time on my work-related reading.

So, give it a try. Sit still. Give the reading materials your full attention. And make sure to give yourself several weeks of practicing this new habit before you re-measure reading speed. Then, take a speed reading test and see how much your reading speed has improved.