This post follows An Intro to Pacing Systems and The How of Pacing: Pacing Part 2
Now we get to the meat (or lentils) of the system: how we track our spoons and how we use that information.
Create Your System - Experiment to Find What Works
I mentioned this before: it’s important to realize that no one system is going to work for every person. It may be possible that a system that works for you now may not work for you 6 months from now. That’s just the way that our brains operate, and it’s okay for us to shift and adapt as we need to.
How I personally track my spoons is in a paper daily planner. I list out my meetings, my tasks, and then, as I complete each task, I put the number of spoons it costs me next to it. I’ve made stickers for things that I track every day, like my meal prep and how many spoons that costs, my morning routine, etc. That way, I’m not rewriting them daily.
Other ideas in the analog realm could be a weekly planner or using just a simple notebook, kind of like a bullet journal. If you’d rather go digital I suggest starting with the tools you already use. I used to use ClickUp to track all of my tasks. It was particularly helpful for me when I was working full time and was tracking projects. I did attempt to add a field in there for spoons so that I could use it for tracking. I found this didn’t work for me because I didn’t want to have to pop open my computer every single time I accomplished a task. For people who spend the majority of their day already on their computers, this could be a very functional way of doing it: taking a task tracking software that you already use and figuring out a way to convert it to track your spoons.
Warning - don’t get so wrapped up in building the perfect system that you never actually use the system. I may be talking to myself there too...
Track Everything
We need to count everything as much as we’re able to. I track my morning routine, which includes washing my face, brushing my teeth, and pretty simple daily tasks. For me, they can be very difficult and hard to do consistently. I track those. I track how much energy I spend preparing my meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner - even if it’s just reheating leftovers. Even when I’m not doing a full-on meal prep, I am expending physical energy and sometimes mental energy because decision-making can be costly.
On the other hand, I’m a parent and parenting costs spoons but I don’t track them every day. I could. Some may say I should. But I only track it if it’s been a particularly rough day. Because my son is a teen and relatively self-sufficient, I can get away with not tracking this daily, but for those with babies and toddlers, I would suggest tracking that shit. Same concept applies to all tasks we complete regularly that are just acts of daily living. Track them where it makes sense, if they’re a significant energy load, but don’t fall into the perfection trap. The important thing is to create your system as one that you will use.
Find Your Baseline
Another thing to keep in mind as you experiment with a tracking system that works for you: you need to be able to easily go back and reference this information because it will help you understand your energy better. This helps in determining your baseline. Our baseline is the average number of spoons we spend daily, which gives us an idea of how many spoons we have to use. My first baseline was tracked over two weeks and included two days where I absolutely overdid. It was an inflated value. However, because I can easily refer back to my spoons totals, I can recalculate my baseline at the end of every week if I want to - and change the range of values I use to calculate the baseline (2 weeks, a month, 6 weeks, etc.). You don’t have to update your baseline weekly, but I do recommend recalculating your baseline at least quarterly. The number can change based on lifestyle changes, hormonal changes, the impact of any therapy or treatment you’re receiving, medication changes, etc.
Perceived Daily Allowance - What You Need to Know
Going back to reference your past spoon patterns is also where we get into perceived daily allowance and reducing flares and crashes. Your perceived daily allowance is the level of energy you feel like you have first thing in the morning. It’s 100% subjective, but it’s your body. You get to determine what you feel like your energy for the day looks like. I count mine on six levels, ranging from very low to very high. Most of my good days sit between medium-high and high, and my logged spoons for those days are between 80%-100% of my current baseline. So I know that if I wake up in the morning and think that the day is a medium-high day, I should limit myself to 80-90% of my baseline spoons to avoid overdoing and risking a flare. I can look back at days where I completely overdid and also see where, 24-48 hours later, I crash. The numbers show the pattern.
What a Day of Tracking Looks Like for Me
I start my morning by assessing what my perceived daily allowance is. Let’s say, in this example, I’ve decided that my perceived daily allowance is medium-high, which means 80% to 90% of my baseline spoons.
Then I determine what tasks and projects need to get done for the day and prioritize those, keeping in mind that I’m only going to have a certain number of spoons for that day. I make a list of what I think I can accomplish in the day. This gets placed in my paper planner, either as meetings at specific times or to-do items that I can do at any point in the day.
I can use the information on how many spoons certain things cost me in the past to determine how many things I can realistically get done. Here’s the thing: I don’t track the spoons for what I’ve planned for my day until I’ve accomplished that task, because some days, as we discussed in one of the previous posts, a task may take only 1 spoon, other days it could take 3. It just depends.
At the end of the day, I total up my spoons and log them so that I can keep tracking my baseline.
Your baseline is a number. It’s a reference point, information for you to use to have the most successful day possible. It’s not a measuring stick. It’s not a target. It’s a tool. To create your system, pick one resource you already have (notebook, task tracking system, etc.), track for a week, count what you can, and get a rough idea of your baseline. Don’t make it overcomplicated! Just start, and you can iterate and refine your system as you go.
What’s one thing that you do every day that you’ve never given yourself credit for?
