Ultimately, this life hack is about investing your energy in what most matters to you. If you know what the term ‘spoonie’ is, you know what I’m about to talk about. If you don’t, you’re in for a hell of a ride.
How I found the life hack
I’ve been sick all my life. I have good days and bad days. And I’m never, ever going to get better. Sometimes that really sucks.
I have so many goals. I have to give up on some, because I physically can’t do it.
It’s so frustrating to have my body refuse to let me do what I want to do with my life.
I have two options:
- Don’t try to achieve anything because the risk is too high. I’m way too much of a workaholic to do this.
- Pick the most important goals and dedicate the energy I had to achieving them. Dump the rest.
One day my mum told me about this awesome life hack: spoon theory.
The origin story behind spoon theory
An amazingly helpful writer named Christine Miserandino wrote a blog post about it.
In the article, she describes the time her best friend asked her what it was like to be sick. She grabs some spoons and gives them to her confused friend.
Each spoon is a unit of your energy levels for the day.
Healthy people can get some spoons (energy) back by doing some more relaxing activities. Eating and drinking refills energy if you’re healthy.
Sick people don’t regenerate their spoons. If you’re a gamer, being sick is a status effect that can’t be cancelled with any status-clearing item.
You might have any number of spoons.
If you have 20 spoons, you’re feeling pretty energetic for the day. But you can’t waste your energy on stuff that doesn’t matter. If you manage it well, you’ll go to sleep feeling okay but tired.
If you have 7 spoons, you’re running low and have to conserve your energy as much as you can. You might have to borrow from tomorrow’s energy. If you do, though, tomorrow will be harder.
If you’re so low on spoons that you’re borrowing from several days, you have to rest. Spending any spoons will only make you sicker.
Getting out of bed costs a spoon. Getting dressed costs a spoon. A shower will cost at least one spoon depending on the condition (for me, it’s always 3, if I’m lucky). Cooking costs a spoon. Eating long meals costs. Working. Talking to friends at a party. Commuting. Watching TV.
I’m gonna stop now. You get it. Your favourite thing to do in life drains your spoons if you’re sick.
You can never not think about it. You can never take time off from these constant choices. You can never be impulsive.
Let’s say on Friday you invite me to dinner on Saturday evening. I can’t commit to it because something unexpected might happen that means I physically can’t attend.
Because there are no spoons left.
So many times people get angry with me about it. I understand. If you’re hosting, you need to know who’s coming. I can’t say if I am or aren’t coming until I’m getting dressed and am on my way to you.
And every day, I have to think about the chance that tomorrow might be awful. I might go over a bad pothole in my wheelchair and go flying and injure myself. I might get a serious infection. I might have some sort of commitment that I can’t get out of.
As bad as today is, tomorrow could be worse. I need as many spoons as I can get to deal with it.
Ironically, this makes me quite good at strategy games.
Why this is a life hack for everyone
It’s a life hack for everyone because it forces you to know what is most important to you. Its brutality makes your favourite things incredibly clear.
Your most important things in life are what you’re prepared to sacrifice your spoons for.
What matters so much to you that you are fine with making yourself worse?
What is worth putting above everything else?
What is worth the energy you’re putting into it?
Spoon theory might be a way to explain what being sick is like, but it’s also a killer prioritisation strategy.
If you’re sick…
…Spoon theory helps you understand your condition better.
Write down everything that makes you worse (drains spoons) and everything that makes you better (refills spoons).
That information helps you know yourself better. Use it as a way to guide your decisions.
Invest your limited energy into what matters.
And as for the people that complain to you, “I never see you enough, it feels like you don’t care”. Tell them, “I do care. I care so much that I am willing to make myself worse to spend this time with you. That’s how much you matter to me.”
Spoon theory gives you some control back from your condition. Yeah, it gives you a handful of spoons to live an entire day.
But when you know how it works, you can make the right choices.
Be proud of being a #spoonie.
If you’re healthy…
…Spoon theory helps you understand your sick friends/family and helps you invest time in things that matter to you.
If your sick friends/family make a commitment to you and have to pull out at short notice, try to understand:
- They can’t easily or accurately predict how many spoons they’ll have that day
- If they had come despite feeling so unwell, they’d be making themselves dangerously worse
- They literally don’t have the energy to come. They’ve looked for spare spoons down the sofa and there aren’t any
- They’re as frustrated and disappointed as you are.
- That they had agreed to come in the first place shows how important you are to them
If you’re stuck between several choices of life activity to invest time in, play the spoon theory scenario.
Give yourself 15 spoons, using the rules I set above (remember, every activity is 1 spoon gone), and go through a day. How do you spend your spoons?
That’s what matters to you most.
Strategising your spoons
Healthy or sick, spoon theory is a great way to prioritise things. If you apply it, you won’t find yourself wondering, “Why on earth did I waste so much time doing that? Why did I waste so much time being friends with them?”
Instead, you’ll be spending time doing things and with people that you value the most.
Be kind to yourself, and live the life you won’t regret.
And click here to read Christine Miserandino’s original post. Share it with your friends, so everyone benefits.
Naomi the Wordsmith 
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