Beware: Spoon Thieves!

These micro-decisions were stealing my spoons without me noticing!

On Saturday, my husband Bill got himself onto the Wordle winners’ podium.

Scored that elusive 1/6!

(286 days after I did!)

Over lunch, he was pondering what his new word could be. Unsure which word to choose.

Bill and I have played Wordle against each other every day, for several years.

From day one, my starter word was ‘stern’.

In my twenties, I had an electronic ‘Wheel of Fortune’ game – based on the game show of the same name.

I played this game obsessively. As a hyper-focused ADHD brain is prone to do, I noticed a pattern.

If the first three consonants I chose were ‘R’, ‘S’ and ‘T’, I was more likely to fill the board enough to work out the phrase faster.

And if the first vowel I chose was ‘E’, there was a good chance there would be at least one of those on the board.

Thirty years on, I brought this insight into my Wordle strategy – hence ‘stern’ became my starter word.

Hence why I win our Wordle tournament every year!

(Feel free to swipe my secret strategy if you want to win at Wordle too haha!)

The day after ‘stern’ was the winning word, I changed my starter word to ;storm’.

The next day’s Wordle game was stressy.

• My muscle memory still typed ‘stern’.

• I had to delete ‘stern’and retype ‘storm’

• And consciously remember that ‘E’ was not there.

The next day, my starter word became STERN again and still is today.

And my morning routine became a lot calmer for it.

Now, you might be thinking, “Really Veronica?! You’ve written all this just to moan about having to type five letters?!”

Twice! I had to type those five letters twice! 😏

No… of course I haven’t written all this JUST to moan about typing five letters, twice.

My point (finally!) is that typing five letters twice is unnecessary effort.

Unproductive emotional labour.

Spoon stealers.

After all…

• There is no Wordle police that says you have to score 1/6 more than once.

• There is no Wordle police that says you have to change your starter word after scoring 1/6.

• There is only me – and maybe you - holding ourselves to these self-inflicted rules and pissing away our spoons on this unnecessary effort.

These micro-moments of unnecessary effort add up.

I’ve made it my mission to remove as many of these tiny spoon-thieves from my life as possible.

I’m going to share three that I have binned.

I invite you to explore where you are giving away your spoons to these little blighters in your own life.

Unnecessary effort that steals your spoons can get in the bin!

Spoon stealing micro-effort #1: What you eat

The question “What do you want for dinner?” stresses me out.

It’s too broad. Too many possibilities. Too hard to choose.

My mind instantly shuts down.

So I created a food routine.

Each day has a dinner.

Today is Monday. Monday’s dinner is baked chicken fillet and gammon.

(Yes, just those two items. Monday is a carnivore dinner.

I see so many business owners using up emotional labour on meal planning and last-minute food switches when the planning went awry because the shopping was forgotten. #ADHDTax

Fuck that shit.

Make it easy for yourself.

No stress. No meal choice to make today. No decision about what to buy as the shopping is a repeat order.

Spoon stealing micro-effort #2: Making the bed

Controversial one I expect.

Unless you live in a studio apartment or you’ve got people coming round, what is the point of wasting your energy making the bed when nobody will see.

You’re going to mess it up again in a few hours anyway!

And don’t get me started on arranging scatter cushions on top of the bed that you’ve got to take off to get into it.

Close the door and save your spoons.

Spoon stealing micro-effort #3: What you wear

If you’re starting to think I’m too rigid in my thinking, this one will change your mind. 🤣

I find something I like then I buy it multiple times in different colours.

• Super soft jumpers - I have about 12 of them in different colours.

• Adidas trainers – got 4 pairs in different colours that I wear in spring and autumn.

• Jeggings - 3 in pale denim, 3 in dark denim, 1 in black and 2 in other colours.

• Long sleeve t-shirts - 8 of them, plain and stripes, for summer.

All I have to do each day now is choose which colour I’m going with.

See?! I can be spontaneous! 🤣

Will you be adopting my low-stress, minimal micro-decisions system?

Gonna throw your spoon stealers in the bin?

If you’re thinking, “I’m not like you V. I need variety”.

Do you, really?

Have you actually tried cutting down on the micro decisions you make that steal your spoons?

Because you might discover you prefer ease.

I chose ease.

I chose to save my spoons for things I want to do.

I chose to stop wasting spoons once I woke up to the wastage.

And you can too

There is no food, clothing, bedding or Wordle police waiting to raid your home at dawn and cart you off to the nick for choosing the “lazy” route.

Shortcuts are a spoonie’s secret productivity advantage!