A while back I was in a business class, and I had this thought, that I really wish there was a way for me to log how many mental spoons* (how much mental energy) it takes to do a task. Something like a period tracker app, or a habit tracker, that could allow me to enter some data, and when it had enough it would be able to estimate how much energy a task would take, and how much energy I probably have on a given day, so that maybe I’d have an easier time managing my own energy. This idea developed into extending to physical spoons, as I’ve since developed chronic pain. It’s not just that I suck at time management, although I do suck at that, it’s that I have a hard time knowing how mentally or physically strenuous an activity will be for my mind/body, or how much energy I will have on a given day.
The hypothetical app would allow the user to input tasks, state how long they take, rate on a scale how strenuous the activity is both physically and mentally, or maybe have a number of custom scales. Like, for me it would be like, let’s say i need to go get something from the pharmacy. I could input how long I need to get ready, how long the walk is, the fact that it involves bright lights in the store but it’s usually pretty quiet, aside from cars on the way there and back. I could input that it involves talking to a cashier, which I hate doing but usually is only a few words. So I spend roughly 30 minutes on my feet, the task is low to medium Sensory Bad, has a small amount of Interacting With Humans, and takes a tiny bit of emotional energy due to the People Will Think I’m Stealing anxiety. Using this data and ideally previous data that the app has about my energy levels before and after other similar tasks, the app could then say “this will take 2 physical spoons, 1 sensory spoon, 1 mental spoon.” So then I go to the pharmacy and when I get back, I note how tired I am, whether each of these aspects were worse/more draining than I thought, and whether the task involved more types of spoons than I thought, and it could adjust accordingly to future instances. There would have to be a means of quantifying everything, but I think this would help me as a Moss quite a lot. It would be even better if I could also input things like, how much i slept, spoons used the previous day, etc. so that the app could guess how many spoons i have on a given day. I think this would help me manage my energy levels better, both in reassuring me of what I am capable of and reminding me gently that I shouldn’t overexert myself.
I looked into it briefly, and I haven’t found many apps that specifically are made to help disabled people manage their energy levels like this. The closest I think is one called Flaredown, which is meant to help chronically ill folks track their symptoms and meds.
I was wondering if y’all had any thoughts on this? I know a small amount of java and C++ (I think, whatever tinkercad uses when you code virtual arduinos.) and while I would definitely need to learn a lot to make this happen, the logic of coding comes easily to me. My ADHD is likely to make it hard to follow through on this project, and it’s pretty ambitious, but I still think it would be interesting to try and see how far I get. Do you folks think this is a good idea? Anything you’d like to see in an app like this? Any feedback or tips?
*For those who don’t know, spoon theory is a framework for thinking about energy made by Christine Miserandino. It was originally used to describe her own Lupus, but has since been extended to a wide array of disabilities)
That’s super fair, and I appreciate this perspective a lot! I’ve thought about this a bit myself–part of the challenge i think is making something that I would use, because I’ve never really had a phone app that actually works for me in the realm of time management and similar for this exact reason. It’s a lot of energy to learn an interface and consistently input enough data that the app could even work. I think that will be the main difficulty, trying to make the app as effortless to use as possible while still maintaining the functionality I’d want.
Data privacy i think won’t be too hard to deal with–I’d intend for the app to be free, not have any login requirement, and for all the data to be stored locally. I have a lot of concerns about privacy (both as a general thing and because of my ptsd) so this is another part of making an App That I Personally Would Use. Thank you for the kind words and your perspective :)