FrugalKaizen

Speed Reading Through Kaizen

2010-02-08T10:30:00.000-05:00

I've wanted to learn speed reading in the past, but never took the time because it seemed time consuming. I recently picked up a book on speed reading and figure I give it another try. This time, I picked up Speed Reading For Dummies and I will use the Kaizen methods and learn it one step at a time.

The 4-Hour Workweek mentions how speed reading can improve your productivity and thus all facets of your life. Many other success and productivity books mention this as well.

So what are some basics to speed reading?

Speed reading is silent reading. Vocalizing slows things down.
Speed reading is reading more than one word at a time, often 5 to 10 words at a time.
I'm still reading at a third grade reading speed according to this book.
Read at the speed you think, not speed you talk.
Training yourself to not vocalize when reading is one of the most important speed reading skills you can acquire.
The larger your vocaculary, the faster you can read. Perhaps listening to our English teachers may have sped this process up.
Speed reading = comprehending.
Speed reading can increase reading comprehension, not decrease it, since you are taking words in its full context.
Speed reading = concentrating. Stop multitasking.
Aside from concentrating, you don't need much to learn to speed read.

Test yourself in 4 steps:

Read an article, this blog post or a newspaper/magazine article will do fine.
Time yourself from beginning to end.
The first time, read all the words out loud.
Then the second time around, read groups of words as fast as you would without sounding any of the words out.
Compare the time you read the article the first time to the second time. My speed was about double.

If you are like me, you tend to sound out some of the words in your head. At times I can "skim" and skip less relevant words. This is all part of learning to speed read. I'll write more about speed reading in an upcoming post.

Have you learned to speed read? What tips do you have for me and others who want to learn to speed read?

Related Books:

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Kaizen Books

2009-11-25T13:14:00.001-05:00

If you are interested in some Kaizen related books, here are three good ones.

Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense, Low-Cost Approach to Management (for the Kindle Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense, Low-Cost Approach to Management)
One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way (ebook for Amazon Kindle One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way)
The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation (ebook for Amazon Kindle The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation)

Rebuilding Economic Wealth Kaizen Style

2009-03-16T08:00:00.002-04:00

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

I watched the above video recently and it explained the current Credit Crisis so well, in plain English! Helping everyone to understand the problem is the first step. Helping to rebuild the world economy is no small task. In my opinion, even throwing Billions or Trillions at the problem cannot solve this problem.

Stop The Blame Game

Many people are still out to blame someone else for the problem, whether it be bankers, scammers, sub-prime mortgage borrowers or even that noisy dog down the street ruining the peace and quiet of the neighborhood! Once you watch the above video, and hopefully get a better grip on the problem, it's time to figure out what each of us can do!

Like everything in life, you need to set a goal and you need to know your strengths. If you are not sure, find a life coach, start a diary, start a blog! Do something that helps you think and get your thoughts out on paper or any other medium other than your "grey matter"! It took over a decade for this whole mess to build, it all started from the Dot-com boom. That's when everyone started pouring money into real-estate. So guess what, it will take even longer to get out of this crisis.

Take Control!

Feeling helpless will not help you! Doing something about it will. I'm not asking you to be superhero, just a hero! Do it in small steps, Kaizen style! Take a first step to help your friends, family and neighbors. Whether it's helping them find a job, just listening to their gripes and working them out or lending/giving them a few dollars to help them through the rough patch. Make sure they are responsible and will pay back, we don't want to start another personal lending crisis do we?

If done right, these simple Kaizen steps toward rebuilding community and on a larger scale the world economy, will make the world prosper more than ever. Like all things Kaizen, it will take time and lots of patience. The key to Kaizen is small steps to improvement. Likewise we need to continue moving forward, review our progress, and continue to improve on what we can do and offer to help others do.

Save The World

It's time to start healing the world. Don't wait for someone else to do it for you. The only person who can make a difference is you! So get going, and change the world for the better!

So what will I do? I will continue to provide my technical support services to businesses and individuals that need them. I will continue to blog! I will continue to develop my own interests and build better community. In my own neighborhood, I will help keep the streets clean and help my neighbors!

I hope you will all do the same and start taking Kaizen steps to turning this Crisis, into the biggest opportunity to come along in a long time! What will you do? What are your plans to get through this economic crisis? What single step can you take today to get closer to your plans and goals?

For additional links and tips follow me on Twitter. If you would like to contribute to this blog or to any of the FrugalNYC blogs in any way (guest posts, articles, ideas, interesting links, advice, financial assistance, or anything else), feel free to contact me via email.

Clearing Clutter Using Kaizen

2009-03-10T06:00:00.002-04:00

Clutter is something many of us deal with nearly everyday. It is not something most people think too much about. Most people will do "Spring Cleaning" and get rid of a ton of "stuff", then feel like they accomplished something big. That is one way to do it, but let me present an alternative that may be much easier and applicable to anyone who has one minute of free time.

Perhaps you don't like to make a full day project out of your clutter cleaning habits. Doing it using the Kaizen method will allow you to make this an ongoing task, but your journey and results may be more manageable - and perhaps even more meaningful. After all, we can all make "ONE" minute of free time a day.

Example

To start, I will go clean out some paper, junk mail and other knick knacks collecting on my desk. If you take the concept of Kaizen and apply it to clutter, then the smallest step you can take is to remove one item from your clutter.

Removing One Piece Of Paper

Look at the contents, it contains some notes I wrote a few days ago.
Decide if I still need it, in this case I don't.
Put it in the paper recycling bin.
If you need the paper, then file it where it belongs.

That's it. Was that so hard? Why don't you try it. Find one thing in your clutter and remove it. If you still need it, file it away or put it where the thing belongs. All this took was one minute, or less, of your time.

Repeat this step daily and you will have a much less cluttered work space. Most likely, you will not stop at removing only one piece.

The Catch

If you have failed to keep this good habit in the past, I ask that you determine how many pieces you want to remove DAILY and keep to it. The key to this is to form a daily habit that you will do over and over. After a week or two, you will notice a big difference in your life and how you deal with clutter. Keep it up for a month or two and you will have formed a life changing habit.

Do you deal with clutter? How have you tried to deal with the problem?

For additional links and tips follow me on Twitter. If you would like to contribute to this blog or to any of the FrugalNYC blogs in any way (guest posts, articles, ideas, interesting links, advice, financial assistance, or anything else), feel free to contact me via email.

Photo: country_boy_shane

Learning Photography The Kaizen Way

2009-03-06T06:00:00.008-05:00

Something I've taken up in the last year or so is digital Photography. I'm not very artistic, but I have seen so many great photos and snapshots that have given me inspiration to give it a try.

I started to do this on a regular basis since last summer. Lately, I have stopped, partly due to my taking more of my free time to work on my blogs FrugalNYC and FrugalTech. Now that I have started this blog, I am inspired once again. This time I will take the Kaizen approach and I know that it will be a lifetime habit. Here is what I will do, and I hope you will do the same if you are interested in photography.

Daily Photos

Take my point and shoot camera with me daily.
Take at least one snapshot daily, no matter what it is.
Have a spare set of batteries for the camera

That's it. Simple right? There is not much room for failure, plain and simple.

I wanted to mention my friend Jeff, who inspired me to start taking photos on a regular basis. Lately I've been inspired by Henie of the blog Hennartonline. You can find a great video about how we see things and photography on Ted Talk. I also wrote a post on FrugalNYC called Digital Photo Resources.

Above is a recent picture I took thanks to an idea from Henie!

Do you practice the art of Kaizen? How has Kaizen helped you? How do you apply Kaizen to your life? Share your thoughts in the comments.

For additional links follow me on Twitter. If you would like to contribute to this blog or to any of the FrugalNYC blogs in any way (guest posts, articles, ideas, interesting links, advice, financial assistance, or anything else), feel free to contact me via email.

Photo by me

Welcome To Frugal Kaizen

2009-02-25T06:00:00.000-05:00

I recently read the book One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way and was reminded once again that I should take smaller steps and take them more consistently. I wanted to see how much I can contribute to the Kaizen way of thinking and to document my progress. What better way than to create a blog!

So what will I talk about in this blog? Posts will reflect acts of kindness, helping the environment, and anything that will better our community and planet. Yes, these are broad topics, but they will all have one thing in common. I will put my thoughts on each topic and list one tiny step you can take daily to get us all closer to making our planet a better place to live. Here are some ideas for some upcoming posts.

Reuse Plastic forks
Reusing Plastic bags
Single side used paper
Double side used paper
Paper towels
Excercising – start walking, one city block at a time
Excercise: One pushup at a time.
Getting Enough Water: one sip at a time

I did say they are tiny steps right? :) This blog is a culmination of everything I've experienced, done, read about and wrote/blogged about in my life (so far). I really believe that we should all give more than we take from our planet and from others. If everyone did this, we would all live in a much better and more advanced society.

As a start, I encourage all NYC residents, especially Queens residents to sign the petition to prevent funds from being cut. You can read more about it on my post Sign The Petition To Save Our Libraries! on FrugalNYC.

For additional links follow me on Twitter. If you would like to contribute to this blog or to any of the FrugalNYC blogs in any way (guest posts, articles, ideas, interesting links, advice, financial assistance, or anything else), feel free to contact me via email.

Photo by Joshua Davis