Weekly Advice: Week Four

"Don't bite off more than you can chew," - me to me, every single day.

Hello to my three beautiful subscribers! How are you? I love you.

I am writing this with my tail between my legs, and acknowledging that starting two weekly projects at the same time (when I previously had zero weekly projects) may have been silly.

It may have even been…*drumroll*… more than I can chew.

A few weeks ago (June 3rd!) I started a weekly interview podcast called Haddles’ House, where I interview interesting people in my life and turn the interview into an hour-long, digestible podcast for anyone who’s interested to enjoy.

It turns out… turning a three-hour interviews into one-hour interviews (that are cohesive and flow well) with approximately zero audio editing experience, is hard.

I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I didn’t know just how hard and time consuming it would be. It turns out that I LOVE audio editing, and am somewhat addicted to it, but it also turns out that as someone with a job, a social life, another very time consuming writing project, and an adorable (but very needy) dog - saying I was going to put out a weekly Substack as well as the podcast was slightly too much.

I’m not giving up on the Substack - just maybe adjusting the expectation.

I get lots of great advice, through the podcast interviews and also just from people in my life generally, and I will continue to put these out. But only when inspiration strikes, not every week.

So this week - I feel inspired to briefly rant about not biting off more than you can chew.

Have you ever heard of the Spoons Theory?

My understanding is that it’s a way of quantifying the energy you have for the day, and the way that you use that energy. So for example, if most days you wake up with five spoons, and you work a 9-5, that might take up three spoons, so you have two left over for other things you have to do like socializing, laundry, hitting the gym, whatever. But you only have two spoons left! So you can’t do all three of those things, you have to choose.

Sometimes we have obligations, like seeing a friend’s play, or going out to dinner with coworkers that we’re not particularly fond of, and those tasks may take EXTRA spoons, so now we’re in a deficit. If you go over your spoon allotment, you’re going to be exhausted and wake up with less spoons the following day.

There are certain activities that GIVE us more spoons, like watching a favorite show, taking a bath, cuddling with a beloved pet, which will allow us to recharge and get more energy to do all the other things we want to do.

I don’t want to beat this to death, but it’s a nice way of thinking about how we spend our time and energy. Sometimes work may only take one or two spoons, and maybe that dinner you thought you were going to hate actually GAVE you a spoon, so it’s important to be flexible and check in with yourself about how you’re feeling.

If you realize you only have one spoon left for the day, but you have three spoons of activities left, consider asking people to reschedule, or making sure you build in time for rest.

Burning ourselves out is incredibly common in today’s world, and it’s even somewhat encouraged. From Side Hustle Culture to the fact that most people in this country have to work multiple jobs just to pay rent - we’re not encouraged to check in with ourselves about what we can handle. We’re encouraged to be all things to all people.

I am here to remind you not to bite off more than you can chew, and check in with yourself about how many spoons you ACTUALLY have, not how many you want to have, but how many you’re working with today.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for being patient with me as I figure out balancing these projects, and my spoons.

XOXO