Color Code to Get Organized!

oWhat if there were a way to know at a glance what you had to do, where you had to be, where to find something, where to put it back when you’re done, even who left their wet towel on the floor, AGAIN?

There is, and that’s color-coding. As its name implies, color-coding is a system for displaying information by using different colors.

Color-coding is my favorite organizing technique. I use it every day in my personal and business lives, and I recommend it to all of my clients.

There is strong science behind the technique of color-coding. For people who have executive function challenges, meaning that they have difficulty with categorizing, sequencing, planning, prioritizing, initiating, and following through with tasks, creating a system using color makes it easy to match an action to its desired outcome. The use of color can stimulate the under-stimulated pre-frontal cortex of someone with executive function challenges, engaging the person in an activity that would otherwise cause boredom, frustration, and avoidance.

Color-coding helps to differentiate individual items from an amorphous whole. Imagine looking at a big pile of miscellaneous “stuff.” Now imagine pulling out only the items of a certain color. It was easy to see them, right? Thinking of that one color focused the brain on something specific, filtering out the rest of the clutter (either physical or mental).

Another example: Someone is facing a long To Do list of various activities, has no idea where to start, and doesn’t know what to do first. Taking that list and assigning each task a color based on certain criteria breaks the list down into smaller parts that are easy to see and can then be addressed. This assigns a logical order to a group that appears to have no clear structure. Sometimes an outside party can guide and teach someone with executive function challenges to go through such a list and tackle it in this way until the skill is internalized.

A successful color-coding system has certain characteristics. It uses a limited number of colors; I suggest five to seven at most. The colors make sense to the person using the system. The system is used consistently; a system works only if it is used.

I suggest using color to organize EVERYTHING. Here are just a few ideas:

· In closets and drawers, arrange clothes in rainbow order.

· Assign a pen color to each family member and record everyone’s schedules on the wall calendar in the kitchen, or assign each member a different color calendar in Google or iCal.

· In a file system, use different colored folders for categories of information, like green for financial and red for health.

· Students can use different colored notebooks for different subjects, colored pens for notes, highlighters for information, and bags for equipment for different activities.

Color-coding is visually appealing and easy to implement. It saves time, energy, frustration, and confusion. It makes us feel calm and in control, which lowers our stress levels.