Homework/Organizing Apps for ADD College Kids?

[goldberry]

DD is a senior and is still flying by the seat of her pants with organization.  She has a paper planner that she uses hit and miss, not consistently.  I know if she could find the right app it would be a help to her.  She needs something simple though, or she won't even try it.  It needs to have a way to enter homework and test due dates with reminders. That's the primary function we are looking for. 

 

Lots of the apps seems to have an overload of features that make DD not want to spend that much time looking at.  Any recommendations, especially personal experience?

 

ETA, we're android.

Edited March 14, 2017 by goldberry

[JeanM]

I've been encouraging DS, who is also a senior, to use google calendar as much as possible. You can enter events with due dates, and you can put in multiple email or pop-up reminders.

 

For full disclosure, I must add the ds hasn't necessarily been taking my advice. He keeps everything in his head, which I have to admit has worked reasonable well for him, but I'm convinced it will crash/burn at some point.

 

 

[school17777]

Ds has been using his phone reminders, but he recently decided that it isnt helping and he had me get him one of those big desk calendars to try because his friend uses that and it works for him. He hasn't started using it yet, so I don't know how it will compare to the phone reminders.

 

I need to use a paper planner. The online things aren't helpful to me. Maybe part of it is the act of writing it down.

[Hoggirl]

This isn't what you asked for, but I MADE ds take a white-board calendar to school with him. One that hung on the wall. A desk calendar is the same idea, but I'm sure ds would have buried it. Lol! We hung it up with one of those 3m hooks. I don't think he thought he needed it, but he sent me a pic of it in May of his freshman year. It was extremely helpful to him during that busy time. I need something BIG and visible on the wall. Those whiteboards allow me to get a visual of an entire month at once. I can see when things are going to ebb and flow. But, I know young people are techy. It's just too compressed for me. What does that dot on that date represent?? Kwim?

[AMJ]

Ds has been using his phone reminders, but he recently decided that it isnt helping and he had me get him one of those big desk calendars to try because his friend uses that and it works for him. He hasn't started using it yet, so I don't know how it will compare to the phone reminders.

 

I need to use a paper planner. The online things aren't helpful to me. Maybe part of it is the act of writing it down.

 

 

Some people are much more writing/reading oriented -- I'm this way.  Over the decades I have managed to train myself to use more computer and smart phone tools, but I still retain things in my memory better when I actually physically write them down, and I am much quicker at capturing things down on paper than I am navigating the details of an app.  (I also happen to remember things I read better than things I hear, which encourages my tendency to write stuff down.)

 

What I do now is use multiple means of capturing things, and I periodically sit down to coordinate between the various means to make sure all are up to date (I try to do this weekly, but don't always get it done each week -- it's better when I do, though).  

• We have a year-at-a-glance calendar (laminated) in the hallway I use to track the upcoming stuff -- everyone in the family can see it, and it's somewhere I cannot lose it.  When I'm booking appointments over the phone I'm usually standing in front of this calendar and noting things there first.
• I have the calendar app on my phone and use it whenever I'm away from home to check my calendar (bonus is I can also see DH's calendar) and make appointments when I'm on the go.
• I have a teacher's planner in which I work out lessons for my kids ahead of schedule -- this must have any known appointments, breaks, trips, etc. so I can schedule accordingly.
• I have a weekly/monthly planner in which I keep track of what we actually DO each day homeschool-wise.  This gets updated with calendar stuff, too, because sometimes it's the first calendar I'm paying attention to in a day.

My multiple calendars are specifically geared to meet specific needs -- coordinating/communicating with family, having the information portable and with me, and putting the information in front of me when and where I am likely to need it.  I also use the sticky note app on my phone to capture "written" stuff when I don't have pen and paper handy.  It only takes a few minutes to synchronize these disparate elements if I stay on it each week, which is actually easy to do if I have it set as part of a routine.  My main trouble comes when something interrupts or upsets my established routines -- that's when things get left undone or forgotten.

 

One of my DDs is ADD.  I am likely ADD but undiagnosed (there are too many similarities between myself and DD's diagnosed issues).  Unlike me my DD is NOT reading/handwriting oriented, so only some of my hard-learned strategies work for her.  We are working it through and she is figuring some of it out on her own, but setting and following routines and having set places in which to note stuff down DOES help.  Her routines and set notation places simply differ from mine, as they are being built to fit her and not me.

[AMJ]

This isn't what you asked for, but I MADE ds take a white-board calendar to school with him. One that hung on the wall. A desk calendar is the same idea, but I'm sure ds would have buried it. Lol! We hung it up with one of those 3m hooks. I don't think he thought he needed it, but he sent me a pic of it in May of his freshman year. It was extremely helpful to him during that busy time. I need something BIG and visible on the wall. Those whiteboards allow me to get a visual of an entire month at once. I can see when things are going to ebb and flow. But, I know young people are techy. It's just too compressed for me. What does that dot on that date represent?? Kwim?

 

 

I LOVE my whiteboards!  My kids have smaller ones they use like slates.

 

I have a laminated calendar on the wall I use in much the same way, though mine is year-at-a-glance now.  When I was working in an office I had projects scheduled on a whiteboard, and poster-sized monthly calendars for other things.  Big, visible, vertical surface (horizontal ones get buried), and easily reached with plenty of elbow room for when writing on them -- priceless!  I just wish I had more wall space at home so I could do this better there, too, in my actual work spaces.  My only wall space available for such calendaring and my whiteboard is in one narrow hallway.  Still, the calendar poster and whiteboard are there!

[AMJ]

I LOVE my whiteboards!  My kids have smaller ones they use like slates.

 

I have a laminated calendar on the wall I use in much the same way, though mine is year-at-a-glance now.  When I was working in an office I had projects scheduled on a whiteboard, and poster-sized monthly calendars for other things.  Big, visible, vertical surface (horizontal ones get buried), and easily reached with plenty of elbow room for when writing on them -- priceless!  I just wish I had more wall space at home so I could do this better there, too, in my actual work spaces.  My only wall space available for such calendaring and my whiteboard is in one narrow hallway.  Still, the calendar poster and whiteboard are there!

 

 

Quoting myself to mention:  we also use the window of our back door (and sometimes other windows) as whiteboards, too.  The back door is where we note anything someone MUST see before they leave the house (this is the family's main entrance/exit).  For opaque doors a whiteboard hung either next to the main door or on the back side of it (visible upon approach when leaving) can serve a similar purpose.  Our windows get pressed into service when we need more temporary note surfaces -- class/study notes, trip prep, etc.  Window notes are usually harder to read and more easily accidentally wiped off.  Our door notes are easier to read because we have glass-encased mini-blinds on our windowed doors, so the mini-blinds create an opaque background.

 

Since our back door is also metal we use magnets for any papers we must remember to take, too.  Mail, forms for a doctor visit, you name it.  A basket or wall bin could also serve this purpose.

 

 

ETA:  Ofttimes the skills college students need to put into play aren't simply "college life skills" -- they are life skills in general, tactics that will remain in use long past college years.

Edited March 14, 2017 by AMJ

[Mom22ns]

Being an electronically organized person, I tried hard to get ds to use homework apps, calendars, timers and more and they all failed. Instead he uses a big desk calendar (wall would work too) and a paper planner. He talked to disability services at his college and those were their recommendation and he has done so much better after implementing them!

 

In fact both of my kids carry paper planners. I can't believe it! If it weren't for "calendar" on my phone and computer I'd be lost. I never thought my kids would revert to paper!