Note-Taking

Note-taking is a touchy subject for people with learning disabilities. If you are documented with your school, talk to disability services to see what sort of help they offer when it comes to notes. There is a chance that you can get outlines from professors, help from classmates, permission to tape lessons, etc.

For those of us who are undocumented, for whatever reason (a post for another day), I have, over the years, and with the help of some books, advice of friends, and lots of trial and error, come up with a system, and some tips:

Book Review

Currently, I only own two books on ADD.

I get others from the library when I have time to read them. The big plus about Terry Matlin’s Survival Tips For Women With AD/HD is that I can pick it up, read a few tips, then put it down and get distracted by other things.

I have, of course, attacked it with my handy-dandy highlighters, so that I can remember tips that I like, and ones that I really like get photocopied or put on sticky notes. I may post some of my favorites from time to time, but this needs to be quick because I have homework that needs doing

Color-Coding

I’m a little obsessive about color-coding. I have notebooks and folders/binders in different colors for each class, with the color of the notebook and folder/binder corresponding to the highlighter color used to mark assignments down in my handy-dandy assignment book.

These colors correspond to the color of the calendar in ICal, as well, because, well, sometimes I go too far.

This is one thing that has really worked for me, though. It is easy to think, oh right, today is Tuesday, so I need my math book and my math notebook and my math binder, and then grab a binder and notebook and get to class and realize that your Shakespeare notebook will not be a lot of help. But if it is in your head that math is pink, and you need to grab the pink notebook and the pink folder, you, and by you, I mean, I, get the right notebook, and get to know what the hell is going on in class.