Taking notes in lectures and classes can be genuinely difficult if you're neurodivergent. Done well, notes help you stay engaged and retain information. Done poorly, they can pull your attention away from what's actually being said. This guide focuses on how to get the balance right.

• Why take notes in class?

• Making recordings

• Listen first, then note

• Keep notes brief and find what works for you

Why take notes in class?

For neurodivergent students, note-taking in lectures serves two purposes that go beyond just capturing content. Writing things down gives your hands something to do, which can help you stay present and engaged when attention drifts. It also improves retention: the act of deciding what to write, and writing it, helps your brain process information rather than letting it pass through.

The flipside is real though. If you try to write down everything, you quickly fall behind the speaker and start missing what's being said. Worse, the effort of transcribing can shift your focus entirely to the act of writing rather than the meaning of the content. You can leave a lecture with pages of notes and retain very little of it.

The goal is not a complete record. It's enough to keep you engaged and give you something useful to review later.

Making recordings

Recording a lecture so you can listen back later sounds like an obvious solution, and it can be useful. But it's worth thinking about how you'll actually get value from it.

Listening back to a full recording while making notes takes at least as long as the original session, often longer. For many students, that's not a realistic use of time. Transcripts, whether auto-generated or not, are imperfect and can be hard to read back. They're useful for checking something specific, but as a standalone record of a session they're not much easier to work with than the recording itself.

The most useful recording tools are those that treat audio as a backup rather than the main event. Apps that sync audio with lecture slides, let you timestamp specific moments, or link audio to notes you're already taking mean you can flag the parts you need to return to without having to re-listen to everything.

Before you record anything, check whether you have permission. If nobody has explicitly said recording is allowed, ask.

Listen first, then note

A useful habit is to listen to what's being said first, then write a brief note. This keeps you following the thread of the lecture rather than racing to transcribe it word for word.

This matters especially for key information about assignments, deadlines, or exams. If you're focused on getting every word down, it's easy to miss the moment a lecturer tells you exactly what will be in the exam, or clarifies what an assignment question is asking.

If you've recorded the session, you have a safety net. But even if you haven't, a few clear notes captured at the right moments are more valuable than several pages of partial transcription.

Keep notes brief and find what works for you

Notes do not have to be blocks of text. Experiment with what helps you stay engaged and capture what matters:

• single words or short phrases rather than full sentences

• diagrams, arrows, and quick sketches

• mind maps for connecting ideas

• your own questions or reactions in a different colour

There is no correct format. The right approach is whatever keeps you present in the session and gives you something you can actually use afterwards. Try different methods across a few sessions and pay attention to what you find yourself returning to when you review your notes later. That's a good signal it's working.