Time Management Advice No One Tells Spoonies | How I Really Manage My Time & Chronic Illness Spoons
We've all heard about batching similar tasks together to increase focus and productivity. But when you have limited physical, cognitive, and emotional energy at your disposal because of a chronic illness or invisible disability, batching together tasks that cost a lot of spoons can leave you in spoon debt for days, if not weeks.
Hey Muses! Welcome back to my channel. Are you a spoonie and tired of all the Productivity advice that's designed for able-bodied people? In today's video, I'm taking you behind the scenes to see how I manage my time as someone with multiple chronic illnesses and mental health issues.
Watch the video below, or read on for the full transcript.
Spoiler alert: it involves a bunch of stuff that our society deems both unproductive and unhealthy, but these same "unproductive" and "unhealthy" behaviors have honestly made me the most productive and healthy I have ever been.
If you struggle with chronic or mental illness and are tired of feeling alone, this is the place for you to be. You're not alone anymore. Subscribe to my channel and hit the bell to be notified when I post a new video every Tuesday.
One of my clients in my coaching membership was struggling a lot because her morning routine was setting her up to burnout early in the day. I helped her adjust her routine and lo and behold, she now has more energy and feels better during the day. So let's talk about morning routines first.
One: don't get out of bed for at least 30 to 60 minutes when you wake up in the morning.
This one is super important if you have chronic illness or chronic pain, because our bodies take longer to transition between states. Society tells us to jump out of bed when our alarm goes off and immediately start engaging in an intense morning routine involving all sorts of things, including:
Meditation
Reading
Exercise
Healthy breakfast (i.e. very often eating disordered breakfast if you ask me)
Planning
Prioritizing
And all sorts of other things.
But when you have a chronic illness and therefore less usable hours in the day, your first priority needs to be NOT doing things that will reduce your total number of spoons for the day. And one of those things is getting out of bed right away when you wake up.
Side note: if you really need to pee when you wake up, take it slow and go pee, but then crawl back to bed and stay there.
Think of yourself like an old Windows 95 computer. It takes you longer to boot up than an iPad Pro. So give yourself all the time you need in the morning to adjust to being awake, and to slowly transition from lying down, to sitting up, and then finally to standing. Your body and your nervous system will thank you.
Two: don't batch together tasks that involve physical labor and or lots of spoons.
We've all heard about batching similar tasks together to increase focus and productivity. Is it a good technique? Definitely. But when you have limited physical, cognitive, and emotional energy at your disposal because of a chronic illness or invisible disability, batching together tasks that cost a lot of spoons can leave you in spoon debt for days, if not week. Which is why it's really important to spread tasks that cost a lot of spoons to separate days so you can have adequate rest in between.
What does this look like? For me, it looks like this. It looks like limiting myself to one cognitively intense task a day and spending the rest of my time on less cognitively taxing things like administration or self care.
It looks like doing a structured workout only once a week and not doing any other physically strenuous tasks on that day when I work out, and also not doing too much cognitively intense work on that day.
I mean, could you imagine working out, then doing household chores, AND writing a coaching workshop on the same day? I would die!
It also looks like me doing work in a comfortable, supportive position while I'm doing cognitively intense tasks so my body isn't also working while I'm thinking so hard. Specifically for me, this means working from bed with my feet up most of the time.
And since transitioning to that method of working, I am doing so much better.
So comment below and tell me if you've tried batching before, and if so, how it went for you. Did it put you into spoon debt like it did for me back when I first tried it out?
Number three: limit your priorities each day and "eat the frog."
"Eat the frog" is a common piece of productivity advice. It means to do the thing you dread doing the most first, so that it's over and done with early in the day. And you can move on instead of being anxious about it all day.
This is great advice, and I want to add another layer to it for us spoonies because of our limited physical, cognitive, and emotional energy each day. It's important that we do the most important thing first each day in case that one priority costs us all of our spoons.
It's possible that this is how you already operate, but I want to emphasize it here in order to normalize it for you. If you are someone who has to spend all of your spoons on that day's top priority, and then spend the rest of the day resting and recovering. that's okay. You're not doing anything wrong. You're not broken. You simply need more rest than able-bodied people, and that's not your fault. You don't have to push through it. It really is okay.
And lastly, number four: estimate tasks to take three times as long as your initial gut reaction.
As someone with limited spoons, it's really important to adjust our relationship to deadlines. It's perfectly normal for tasks to take us spoonies three times longer than an able-bodied person or more.
Adjusting my relationship with self-imposed deadlines has helped me so much. For the most part I disregard setting deadlines altogether in favor of consistently putting in time and effort on things, and trusting that I'll reach the finish line eventually.
And when I do have to set deadlines, I give myself lots more time to do them. Knowing that I, and what I'm capable of, are WORTH that extra time.
If you are new to estimating how long things will take you to do, please err on the longer side with your estimations when planning. The point is to give yourself enough time to accomplish something that you're no longer stressed by your self-set deadline.
You've got enough stress in your life as a spoonie, and this is just one of the many ways to reduce your stress so you can get stuff done and still have spoons left over to live your life, too.
There you have it. Four "unproductive" and "unhealthy" pieces of advice that actually make me more productive and more healthy as someone with chronic illness.
But what about mental resistance you're may be wondering?
I taught a Masterclass on what I believe is the single best weapon against resistance and procrastination. In it I share three transformative mindset shifts along with a simple three-step system to help you overcome your resistance. This Masterclass is free to you, and all you have to do to get access is to go to this link and sign up.
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I'll be back next week with another video. See you then. Bye.
P.S.
I've got some good news and some bad news. I went and bought myself a teleprompter. This magical device - I swear - I just bought myself spoons. I was able to film that last video under 10 minutes. It's magical. But now, no outtakes. So... I mean, maybe I'll mess up more in the future. Maybe tonight was a blessed fluke in which I did not embarrass myself continuously. That being said, I'm not going back to the old way! Because this is so much easier and it costs me less spoons. So to all you spoonies out there: if you have the means, do not hesitate to buy yourself some spoons with some convenience. Talk to you later. Bye!