Dealing with the naming of variables

I have had a similar experience with my first Storyline presentation using variables. There is no easy way to fix this. I make them and just number them. Then I keep an excel spreadsheet with them listed. If I need to go back and add or remove slides I just add to my list. I number my presentations and use that number as part of my numbering list. Good luck I'm interested to see if anyone has a better solution. 

Rather than solutions, I'd like to recommend rethinking the problem.

If you are coding there are real reasons for local and global variables. But the way SL is set up, the only real use for variables is that one part of the program is aware of what happened in another part. The need for local variables can (and probably should) be met in less complicated ways.

Local (limited in use to only this slide) variables can be changed only in two ways. The most useful way is in response to an action on a different slide. But the only way to pass that action is through a variable that is used by both slides, and you wouldn't want to name that variable with a slide name. The other way to change a variable is in response to an action on its own slide (a user action, or a time action). This would involve changing the variable (an unnecessary step probably), then taking the desired action. A simpler method is to take the action. If later there is a need to know if the action was taken, check the state of the object.  

Take, for example, the variable  slide414_moveSidebarUp. If the learner chooses at some point to move the Sidebar up on all or various slides, that variable can be used when each slide starts to move it up (same variable and trigger on each slide). If the choice is made on each individual slide, let the learner's action move it, and if it is necessary to know later in the slide if it has been moved, check its state.

I can see a scenario in which occasionally it is necessary to know many how times a learner takes a certain action. The intuitive way to track that is to add to a counter (variable) each time an object is clicked. That is a method that is dangerous and vulnerable. For example, an action occurs when all five objects are clicked. If you add one to a counter with each click, what happens if the learner clicks one object five times? The action is taken, even if the conditions have not been met. Far better to do something like: "when object is clicked, take action if all five objects are in visited state". Visited state is a built-in state, so referring to it in a trigger creates the state and the necessary trigger to change it when clicked. Side benefit: no variable is created, changed, or checked.

(Private rant - This does not work on built-in buttons; they come with a ton of unneeded baggage.)

If all else fails, and there is no way around single-slide variables, name them using the slide name, which seldom changes, even when the number does.

I would be interested in seeing a couple of slides from this course, to see if there isn't a simpler method of creating the interactions than to use all those single-use variables.