Ever had a one of those days where you’ve absolutely crushed it?
You’ve ticked everything off your To Do List, you’re buzzing with energy and feeling on top of the world. So you start thinking about how much you’ll do tomorrow and you’ll finally get some of those things done you’ve been putting off.
Tomorrow comes…
Either:
- You have another day where you absolutely smash it. And maybe this carries on for a few days, a week or a month. But at some point…
- You wake up tired and struggle to focus and get anything done.
That’s how my week started.
I spent Monday and Tuesday fixing technical issues like getting my newsletter to work, fixing my contact form, getting emails to send on my new web host, and making sure gmail pulls in all my emails into one place.
By Tuesday night I was exhausted and had to quit my weekly online gaming night early to go to bed.
Some of my friends and family live with chronic health conditions and are taught how to manage their energy so they can achieve things at a sustainable rate.
BOOM and BUST
Days where they are full of energy are rare for people who suffer from chronic health conditions. So when they get a day where they are full of beans, they want to make the most of it!
These are BOOM days.
They catch up on all their chores and go and see friends and family. But it leads to a BUST day the next day. All their energy is depleted and they can’t do anything.
For people without these conditions, that might mean giving a little less at work that day and having an early night. But for others it can mean struggling with daily activities that many of use take for granted like getting out of bed, getting washed and dressed, and preparing food that day.
There are 4 tips to stop yourself from Booming and Busting.
Manage your Spoons
Christine Miserandino, who has lupus, created the Spoons theory to help people understand why she can’t always do the same amount of things as other people.
Imagine that each day you start with a certain number of Spoons. Each Spoon represents a unit of energy. And different tasks require a different amount of spoons.
| Activity | Spoons |
|---|---|
| Morning routine | 0.5 |
| Writing newsletter | 2 |
| Fixing emails with host | 3 |
| Client presentation | 4 |
| Cooking evening meal from scratch | 1 |
| Walking the dog | 1 |
| Playing games online with friends | 2 |
The number of Spoons you start with each day vary from day to day.
Depending on your personality some things will take more or less Spoons for you than for other people.
The trick is knowing both of those numbers.
Then pay attention to what your day and week is looking and how you will be spending your Spoons.
If you run out of Spoons for the day, then you can push through, but you’ll be taking energy from the next day.
Do that often enough and it leads to burnout.
Imagine pillars of rest
Imagine your day as a bridge of activities with sleep as pillars of rest at the start and the end.
There’s only so far that bridge can stretch without any support.
If you’re running through the whole day without any additional rest pillars, your energy might collapse before you make it to the end.
So, build in extra pillars of rest in your day to help keep that bridge and your energy levels topped up.
Instead of seeing rest as a waste of time, this helps me see rest and breaks as adding in extra support to help me achieve my goals. Rest is an activity in its own right.
Avoid total fatigue
After years of ‘pushing through’ that led me to terrible burnout, I’m much better at stopping myself from pushing too much and being so tired that I can’t do anything.
There are some ways you can make sure you don’t get to this point.
Recognise the signs
Learn to recognise what the signs are for you when you need to take a break or have a rest. The ones to watch out for according to health practitioners are:
- Forgetting the words for things
- Being irritable
- Headaches
- Struggling to focus
- Saying yourself, ‘dig deep’ ‘just get through this’ etc
Set timers
I’m a huge fan of timers for helping me to focus, but they can also help with preventing yourself from overwork.
The Pomodoro technique of working for 25 minutes/5 minutes rest can help some people. Personally, I find that 25 minutes is too short for deep work and I set 1 hour on my timer then have a quick break.
Work in smaller chunks
Instead of making yourself keep going until a task is done, can you work on it in blocks at a time?
A change can be as good as a break if you have lots of different things to do.
Key takeaways
Building an online business is a marathon, not a sprint, so be more like the tortoise and less like the hare. Manage your Spoons effectively, take supportive rest and avoid pushing yourself too hard.
And remember to be grateful if you’re in good health and be kind to others. You don’t know what challenges people are dealing with everyday.