Tips and Tricks: Take Notes While Reading

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If you are anything like me, you read your Babywise, Toddlerwise, Preschoolwise, etc. book quite often. I find this helpful for several reasons. One is that there is only so much information I can absorb at at time, so much of it gets left behind the first time. Then next time I read, several things are just part of my life, so I have room for more information in my brain. Another reason is that many times things don't apply to my life at the moment--this is especially true in the toddler and older books. One example is the addiction to choices talked about. The first time I read the book, that didn't even make it on my radar. A year later, however, that clicked because my son was experiencing that addiction.

A practice that has spilled over from my college days is to take notes while reading. I have tried different things in my Babywise readings, and the notes has been my favorite. I have marked key pages with post-it notes. It is nice, but only tells you which pages had something of interest. You could also highlight, but then you are doing the same thing as the post-its. Both of those have their value, but taking notes really takes it up a step for me.

While I read, I have a small piece of paper and a pen on hand. I summarize every point I find interesting and/or want to implement into one sentence and then add the page number I found it on. When I am done reading, that piece of paper stays in the book. That way when I think "What did it say about xyz?" I can just refer to my notes and quickly find it. I can also think, "Okay, I have that down, now what is next?" and then refer to my notes and see what else I wanted to work on. Here are some examples of my notes:

Notes from Preschoolwise

• Do not have your child do physical organize sports before he is ready; he will likely fail and therefore be wary of new things (p. 22)
• Do not play games beyond emotional preparedness (p. 23)
• Play by the rules or don't play at all (p. 23)
• Train the child to interrupt you politely (p. 36)
• Parent the whole child, not a single category of emotions (p. 41)
• When child does something he shouldn't, ask "where are you supposed to be" or "what are you supposed to be doing" (see chapter 4)

Those are a sample of some of the notes I took when I read Preschoolwise over 6 months ago. Sometimes I will just read through my notes so that I can be sure I am on track and remind myself of my goals. It really does help. Each time I read the book, I add to my notes if needed. Happy reading!