Nov 24, 2025 Dec 3, 2025 2025-11-24

For over 15 years, the Assess-Decide-Do framework has used a consistent visual system. Three colors and three symbols, each one supporting a specific function.

If you’ve used addTaskManager or worked with ADD materials, you already know them: red for Assess, orange for Decide, green for Do. Then for the icons: a plus sign, a question mark, a minus sign.

These weren’t arbitrary choices. They create a visual language that mirrors how traffic signals work—a system everyone already understands. But I’ve never published the reasoning at the theoretical level, only within the app implementation itself.

Given the momentum my framework is getting these days, including AI integrations, the time has come for a detailed explanation.

Red for Assess: Stop and Capture

Assess is red because red means stop. Just like you stop your car at a red light, you stop in Assess to offload information from your mind into the system.

The plus sign (+) represents what’s actually happening in this realm: you’re adding to the system. Assess overloads the system with data—thoughts, tasks, ideas, dreams, possibilities. Everything gets captured without immediate commitment or action.

Red creates the pause you need to externalize what’s in your head. It’s the signal that says: don’t keep driving forward with all this mental cargo. Stop. Unload it. Get it out of your mind and into a container where it can be examined later.

Orange for Decide: Get Ready

Decide is orange because orange means prepare. Just like an orange traffic light tells you to get ready before the green, the Decide realm is where you prepare yourself by making conscious choices about what matters.

The question mark (?) represents the core activity here: pondering. You’re asking questions about each captured item. Is this important? Does this align with my priorities? What context does this need? When should this happen? Do I have enough resources for it right now?

Orange creates the transition space between capture and execution. You’re not passively collecting anymore, and you’re not yet in full action mode. You’re actively planning, assigning context, setting commitments.

Green for Do: Move Forward

Do is green because green means go. Just like you move forward at a green light on a crossroad, you move forward in Do without distraction or hesitation.

The minus sign (?) represents what happens in this realm: you take items out of the system by completing them. Each finished task is eliminated through execution. The minus doesn’t mean deletion—it means transformation from intention to liveline (ADD treats every completion not as a deadline, but as a liveline).

Green signals committed execution. When you’re in Do, you’re not capturing new things or reconsidering priorities. You’re executing on what you’ve already decided matters.

So Simple It Just Blends In

The traffic light metaphor does more than make the framework memorable. It taps into a pattern you’ve internalized since childhood: red-orange-green as a sequence of behaviors.

You don’t need to think about what red means. You don’t need to remember that orange comes between red and green. The system leverages existing mental models rather than requiring you to learn something new.

The symbols reinforce the function:

• Plus (+) for adding to the system
• Question mark (?) for evaluating what’s there
• Minus (?) for completing and removing

Together, the colors and symbols create immediate visual feedback about where you are and what you should be doing. When your Assess list is overflowing with red items, you know you need to move things through to Decide. When everything’s stuck in orange, you’re in decision paralysis. When Do is overflowing, you know you might be in a burnout.

The system shows you the imbalance without requiring conscious analysis every single time.

Why I’m Publishing This Now

This information has lived on addtaskmanager.com for over a decade, embedded in the implementation documentation. Anyone using the app could see it. But it existed only at the practical level—in the tool itself, not as standalone theory.

The other day I was testing several LLMs (Grok, Gemini, ChatGPT), asking them to create infographics using the Assess-Decide-Do framework. Every single one hallucinated the visual system. They invented blue for Assess, gave me lightbulbs and compasses, created combinations that looked reasonable but were completely wrong.

Until I directed them to addtaskmanager.com. Then they got it right, because the information was there in the implementation docs.

That’s when I realized: I’ve kept this at the implementation level for 15 years. It worked perfectly for people using the system, but it wasn’t available as theory. Anyone wanting to work with ADD conceptually—to teach it, write about it, build their own tools—had to either use the app or guess.

So here it is: the visual language of Assess-Decide-Do, separated from any specific implementation.

Red means stop and capture. Orange means prepare and decide. Green means execute and complete. Plus for adding, question mark for evaluating, minus for finishing.

It’s a system designed to work with your existing mental models, not against them.

Sometimes the most useful documentation is the stuff you thought everyone already knew.