I was all set to comment on BECKY's note, but when I dropped down the thread I saw that I would just be echoing JENNY100's reply. But also, I think that a bit of background in mathematics would help one deal with, e.g., base whatever problems such as are found in RAMA.
I have a little battery-operated piano keyboard which I pull out when I need to remember tunes. I can then write them out in musical notation and repeat them at will. That is sometimes very convenient.
I used to regularly use graph paper to draw out mazes, back in the days when it was either R, L, or straight ahead. Now that you can go off at various angles, it is much more difficult for me since my drawing powers are rudimentary, to say the least. As far as drawing is concerned, I am devoted to HyperSnap, which takes pics which can then be massaged to bring out faint writing and figures as well as allowing me to annotate them. I can then print them out and use them to aid in solving puzzles or avoid lengthy copying of documents, to say nothing of adding to the completeness of my game journals. I don't know what I would do without that most useful program.