The short version

• Your energy works like a phone battery. It starts each day at a certain charge, and different things drain it at different speeds.
• You don’t have one battery. You have several, for different kinds of demand, and they can be at very different levels at the same time.
• A red, amber, green scale helps you notice your charge before you hit empty.
• Recharging works best when it matches what actually drained you, not just “rest” in general.

Why a battery, not spoons

Many neurodivergent people already use “spoon theory” to talk about energy. It says energy is limited, and it isn’t spent evenly across everything you do. If spoon theory already works for you, keep using it.

The battery version says the same thing in different words. Most of us already understand phone batteries, so the idea can click faster.

How your battery works

• You wake up with a starting charge. It isn’t always 100%. Some days you start at 60%, or 40%, straight out of bed.
• Tasks drain the battery at different speeds. Loud rooms, social time, and switching between tasks tend to drain it fast.
• Some things drain you in the background, even when you’re not doing anything active. This includes things like sensory noise, anxiety, or holding a certain posture.
• Masking (hiding or suppressing natural traits) is a heavy background drain. It runs constantly and uses power even when nothing looks like it’s happening.
• Hitting 0% forces a shutdown. This can look like snapping, going blank, or losing the rest of the day.

You have more than one battery

Your phone runs on one battery. You run on several, and they drain independently:

• Focus – concentrating, following a thread, deep work
• Social – conversation, reading people, being watched
• Sensory – noise, light, texture, crowds, smell
• Executive – planning, starting tasks, switching, decisions
• Physical – movement, stamina, standing

You can be at 90% on Focus and 8% on Sensory at the same time. That’s why someone can seem completely fine in a meeting, then be flattened by the walk through a busy office afterwards. It isn’t inconsistency. It’s a different battery running low.

This is also why “but you had energy for X” can feel so unfair to hear. You did – just on a different battery.

Red, amber, green

Green — 70–100%

Charge is available. Good time for planning or taking on a bit more. Not a reason to max everything out – more a reason to spend the extra power deliberately, on things that matter.

Amber — 30–70%

Functioning, but on a budget. Most days happen here. The task is choosing what gets the remaining charge, and what waits. Amber isn’t a failure state – it’s normal, as long as it’s managed.

Red — under 30%

Low power. Ordinary things start costing more than they should – replying to a text, deciding on dinner, tolerating a noisy room. This is where snapping or shutting down tends to happen. The job in red isn’t to push through. It’s to stop the drain and get to a charger.

Surge and crash

Most people don’t run down evenly. Instead, the pattern often looks like this:

Good day → push past 100% anyway → forced shutdown → slow recovery → repeat.

On a good day, it’s tempting to squeeze in everything you couldn’t do last week. That’s the surge. It feels great at the time, but pushing well past what you actually hold doesn’t just cost today – it borrows from tomorrow too.

Watch for the repeating pattern, not just the odd big day. Each surge tends to make the crash a bit longer, and the next peak a bit lower. Breaking the cycle isn’t about never having a big day – it’s noticing when a good day is turning into overdoing it.

Charging strategies

Pacing, in battery terms: top up before you need to, not once you’re nearly empty. And match the recharge to what’s actually drained.

Match the charger to the drain

• Sensory drain – try quiet, dim, low-stimulation time (even 15 minutes can help).
• Overwhelm or sensory overload – try deep pressure (a weighted blanket) or stimming to help settle it.
• Social drain – low-demand company or time with people who don’t require effort, rather than more screen time alone.

Cut the background drain

• Reduce sensory input where you can – noise-cancelling headphones, dimmed lights.
• Plan ahead to cut decisions – outfits, meals, and schedules sorted in advance.
• Drop the mask around safe people. This alone can save real charge, without looking like “rest” at all.

Use low-power mode on purpose

Doing less, slower, with fewer non-essentials running, isn’t a failure. It’s a deliberate setting for amber or red, so you don’t hit 0%. That might mean ordering food in, leaving the laundry, or answering in short, direct messages.

And plan for recharge, not just for tasks. Most planning only covers what needs doing. Energy accounting also asks: when does this get recharged, and how?

A quick daily check-in

• Overall charge right now: ___% (red / amber / green)
• Lowest battery today: Focus / Social / Sensory / Executive / Physical
• What’s draining it that I can actually reduce?
• What would genuinely recharge that battery – not just “rest” in general?
• Am I surging, steady, or shutting down right now?

Talking to others about your battery

With friends and family

• “I woke up at 40% today. I can still hang out, but I’ll need something low-drain, like a film rather than a loud restaurant.”
• “I’m hitting 15% and my low-power mode is kicking in. I need to head home and plug in before I shut down completely.”

With colleagues and managers

• “I’m on a low charge today after a bad night’s sleep. I’m closing background apps and sticking to core tasks to keep performance steady.”
• “The open-plan office is a big background drain for me. These headphones block that, so I can keep my processing speed up.”

Where this comes from

Spoon theory was created by the disability advocate and writer Christine Miserandino, who introduced it in a blog post called ‘The Spoon Theory’, explaining her experience of living with lupus.

This battery version is my own adaptation, built for the way I work with clients – but it stands on the shoulders of spoon theory, which has helped many neurodivergent and chronically ill people put language to a finite, unevenly distributed energy. If the battery version doesn’t land for a particular client, spoon theory (or another metaphor entirely) may work better. The goal is always the language that fits the person, not the metaphor itself.