For non-fiction, I almost never read every word in order, from start to finish. I think about what question I want to answer, and how I can get that answer quic

For non-fiction, I almost never read every word in order, from start to finish. I think about what question I want to answer, and how I can get that answer quickly. The table of contents tells you how the book is organized, and the index shows you what's in it. I usually look at those first, then flip to the parts I want to know about and read them. For research papers, I almost always start by reading the abstract and the conclusion, then reading related sections to answer questions I have about that. I'm not editing papers, or checking their validity: I just want to know what they're going on about. Another thing is to ask whether you're reading the right document. For that GFS paper, I wonder if it's the right place to start learning about GFS. Ideally, you'd come to it with enough knowledge already that you don't need puzzle over every word. Are there introductory explanations? Youtube videos? Go over those first and come back later, and the paper probably won't be as cryptic. For fiction, the best advice I ever got from an English professor, which changed my relationship with books, is this: if you don't like it, and nobody is making you read it, then stop reading it. Read something you can't put down instead. In general, I think you haven't actually read something until you've read it twice. So, read it through once quickly, to get the idea, then read it again more slowly to understand it.