You won’t get ahead in business if you don’t have time to deal with all of the information that comes your way. For example, many people have regular meetings they have to attend; you might have some on your schedule this week, in fact. Did you get copies of an agenda, or were you e-mailed documents to look over before the meeting date? Managers notice when employees come to meetings without having read the handouts sent to them earlier in the week. It wastes time in the meeting to have to summarize that information for one or two people when the rest have read the handouts. If you’re able to quickly read a document and summarize the information for yourself, you’ll give the impression that you’re alert, capable, and on top of things.

Even if you aren’t invited to a particular meeting, you might be on the distribution list. These days, it’s easy to send things out by e-mail without going through the process of making copies, and many people take advantage of this to send out information to everyone they think might need it. Even if the material is in paper format, our modern computer-driven copiers can create a stack of fifty double-sided stapled packets of paper for distribution, using different types of paper for the front and back covers, and have them ready for you in the time it takes for you to arrange to have coffee and snacks delivered to the conference room where you’ll hand them out to the people at the meeting. Again, the down side of this is that it’s easy to make extra copies, and those extra copies are given out to anyone who “might be interested” or “could find this useful.” If that’s you, you still have to make the determination if you really do need that information, and the only way to know is to read through it before putting in your business file (or the “circular file”).

All of these e-mails, whether sent to you directly or via an e-mail group or listserv, will overwhelm you with messages in your in-box. If you don’t have time to look at all of your messages, you might miss the one from your boss asking for a quick answer to a question. Depending on the importance of the question, and when the answer is needed, missing that one specific e-mail message could cost your company money or the good opinion of an important client. In any event, it won’t help your reputation as a responsive and competent employee.

Increasing your reading speed will help you quickly sort through all of the information you’re sent daily, and contribute to your success at work.