By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. The ability to focus is at the core of nearly everything you’re asked to do in school. You can’t read a book if you can’t focus. You can’t follow along with a science lecture if you can’t focus. You can’t solve …
5 ways being a disorganized student makes school harder than it needs to be
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. Being a disorganized student makes school so much harder than it needs to be. School is hard enough, is it not? But it gets so much more difficult when you can’t find your notes to study from, you turn in your …
24 productivity tips for students
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. The following post contains 24 productivity tips for students. They all apply to students in high school and college, but many can also increase the productivity of students in middle school. Students spend nearly seven hours a day in classes. After …
How to organize a school binder: Tips and examples
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. There are multiple ways to organize school materials using binders, notebooks, folders, and accordion files. This guide will teach you how to organize a school binder. It also includes tips for students with ADHD. The binder set-up I teach below can …
9 tips for using a calendar over the summer
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. This is a post full of tips for using a calendar over the summer. Calendars help us stay organized, remember important dates, show up on time, and function as reasonably adjusted humans in society. Students should begin using calendars in middle …
5 life skills all students need to be functional adults
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. In high school, I learned how to hem my own pants (a handy skill considering I’m 5’2”). In fact, I learned many life skills outside basic content areas, skills that smoothed my transition to being a functional adult. Some of these …
How to make decisions: 4 decision-making strategies for students
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. Various sources suggest that the average person makes around 35,000 decisions a day. That’s bananas. While the majority of our daily decisions are minor, such as choosing what to wear or what to eat, we occasionally face bigger decisions that have …
What to do when you’re confused in class
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. You’re sitting in class, paying attention (or not), and all of a sudden you have no idea what the teacher is saying. Or you’re doing your homework at home, and it hits you that you’re totally confused about the material. It …
8 goal-setting tips for students
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. This tutorial offers 8 goal-setting tips for students, although many of the tips are solid strategies for goal-setting in general – for anyone. Goal-setting is all the rage around the new year, but I think most of that is simply traditional …
ADHD and procrastination: 5 tips for task initiation
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. Procrastination is normal, everyone does it, and it essentially serves a fundamental purpose: to avoid pain. But procrastination is also a self-destructive behavior that can lead to troubled relationships, poor academic performance, low confidence, and anxiety. ADHD and procrastination go hand-in-hand …