Note taking part 2

I've always loved highlighters and find them incredibly useful when making notes. I've come to discover that this is completely down to personal opinion. Some people I know write their notes in nothing but a blue biro. Not me though. No way Jose.

I am one of those people that you see with a highlighter of (almost) every colour as well as corresponding post it notes. I am a very visual person so my notes from lectures and reading are always brightly coloured.

Some people use one colour to highlight all their notes but I like to use several colours and have a colour code.

• Orange for quotes 
• Pink for key ideas or information 
• Yellow for any information needed for a reference; author's names, publish dates, book titles or chapter titles 
• Blue for definitions of terms
• Green for key words

This is a key that works for me and the subject I study and obviously can't be applied to all subjects. Some highlighters are used less frequently than others; my most frequent are yellow, pink and green. I find it really useful to be able to quickly find pieces of information when looking at large pieces of text/writing. Particularly when I'm writing essays, I can look through for key words relevant to my assignment by only looking at the green highlighted words. Or if I am looking for a specific the theorists work I can focus on the yellow highlighting to quickly find a name. 

The only downside is that my notes can become very colourful and this is sometimes a little distracting. What are your notes like? Do you prefer to keep them plain and simple or are you a mass highlighter like me?