The Concept

Do you ever beat yourself up about not managing all the things you set out to do in a day? Maybe a look at the Spoon Theory can shift your perspective.

The spoon theory is a concept originally thought of by Christine Miserandino and was aimed to explain energy management with a chronic illness, as she herself is diagnosed with one. Tiredness – or fatigue – is something everyone has felt at some point, especially students. They are held to a high standard of work ethics. Sometimes more than half the work happens at home and not at campus. Besides going to lectures or doing self study, they also have to provide for themselves and their daily needs. All these things together can feel dreadful or overwhelming at times, especially when it comes to exam season.

That is where the Spoon theory happens.

Spoon Theory

The Spoon Theory and scenarios following serve as a Metaphor, but let’s go through it as if it were a real physical thing. Imagine that daily tasks require “spoons,” representing units of energy. Each action has a “cost” in spoons. For example:

• Getting up and dressed: 1 spoon
• Attending two lectures, including transportation: 3 spoons
• Cooking a meal: 1 spoon

Now, consider some lower-cost alternatives:

• Reusing yesterday’s clothes: 0 spoons
• Attending just one lecture: 2 spoons
• Ordering takeout: 0 spoons

There will be days where you wake up and you have five spoons to use. That means you can affort all the activities listed above and that is enough. Sometimes you will wake up and instead you have seven spoons at your disposal, then you could affort to hang out with your friends as well. 

But what happens when you wake up with only three spoons?

“Spoon debt”

There are two ways to react to this.

You can go about your day and buy all your normal things. Once you run out of spoons, you go into spoon debt. This will lead to you waking up with less spoons the next day. 

Or you decide to prioritize things and use the free option instead. With your three spoons you reuse your clothes from the prior day, go to campus for two lectures and in the evening you order take out.

The Takeaway – prioritize your own wellbeing

The Spoon theory reminds us that burning yourself out to function every day will lead to greater problems at a later time. Prioritizing one’s well being once in a while can alleviate the day to day stress a bit and help.
Managing your energy is a healthy practice, not being a failure.

The pictured spoons have been kindly sent to me by friends for you to look at.