I am color-coded

Main Entry: col·or-cod·ed
Function: adjective
Definition : absurdly obsessed with organization tools, especially if they involve color coding.
Eatamology: Eaten out of John Robert’s brain who first extended the application of the adjective, “color-coded”, from crazy organization systems to the crazy people who use these systems. This occurred during a random lunch conversation at the A Lunch Teacher table.
Date: Sometime in November 2009

I am color-coded. The image shown above is the Google spreadsheet that I use to manage my life. It is extremely helpful. I used to feel overwhelmed by the number of things I needed to do in order to be a PBL teacher, manage a robotics team, complete some side projects related to continued ed for myself and other teachers, and have a social life away from work. Now I get all these things done with much less stress. My color-coded To-Do list keeps me focused. When I use it, I feel like I'm playing a very fun and meaningful video game where I make the rules and set the points. For example: In October, I won the Done game by getting 275 items on my October Done list which is bigger than the number of items on my Sept Done list (=173). I think this month I will win again because I already have 270 items on my Nov Done list and there is over a week to go. One day I might even add gadgets to this spreadsheet to make these stats even more explicit ...

Related Tool: Here's a Google spreadsheet with a basic To Do list with instructions on how to save, change, and use the spreadsheet to track tasks: Link to Copy of To Do List