The Importance of Color-Coding Your Due Dates
A color-coded due date spreadsheet keeps many King’s students in line with their due dates throughout the semester.
By: Nadine Jetrude Ragas
To create a spreadsheet seems only enjoyable to a few. Many, unfortunately, do not enjoy creating spreadsheets, let alone color-coding them. Nevertheless, a color-coded due date spreadsheet keeps many King’s students in line with their due dates throughout the semester. Therefore, it seems important to share.
Some students put it in their planner or on Google calendar. Others just jot down dates as they are announced in class. This method can work. However, many of the best students I know consolidate all their important deadlines in a single space and keep this tab always open on their browser for reference.
It is visually stimulating, organized, and somewhat comforting to look at when raw data is color-coded. As a visual person, I thrive best when the material is presented where I can see quickly where I must look. Although this is not a substitution for looking at the syllabus and the course schedule for each class, this comprehensive spreadsheet is easily accessible and much nicer to look at.
This process requires me to sit down and stare at my syllabus more than I’d like for a day’s work, but when I get deadlines mixed up as I’m caught in the heat of the semester, this is my lifesaver. My columns within the spreadsheet consist of Due Date, Time Due, Course Name, Assignment Type, Assignment Name, and a “Check Box.”
After that, the most strenuous part is over! The most enjoyable part, then, commences …
I assign a color code for each course. Highlighted in lilac, my macroeconomics assignments took up the most space in the spreadsheet, while I had the least number of assignments for my Islam class—highlighted in blue. The most important detail to this hack is to make sure that you sort your spreadsheet by date after you input all the deadlines in the first column. Now, you are free to check off your finished assignments as you complete them.
With the troughs and peaks the semester presents, it is easy for me to doubt and confuse myself with due dates for all my classes. Yet, this spreadsheet (and the Course Schedule, primarily, on your syllabus) will never let you down.