The Iron, the B*tch and the Floordrobe

As I was falling asleep last night, I asked the universe to create the title for a post to introduce myself.

Next thing I knew, my Chihuahua, Teddy was tapping me on the shoulder because she was cold on the bed and needed me to lift the duvet so she could crawl under.

The time? 4.30am.

I lay there for a second, wondering if this would be the start of the three early morning wake ups that often happen before a full moon, when a voice in my head said:

“Iron, B*tch and the Floordrobe”.

That’s such a bizarre combination of words, it could only be the title for this post.

So, hey, I’m Veronica, the moon attuned, spirit conversant, Chihuahua owned Spoonie who writes this Substack.

Hi new Spoonie friend if you’ve just found me here.

And if you’re reading this because we already know each other, you may not be familiar the term ‘Spoonie’

Before we go any further, let me quickly explain what it means.

The term ‘Spoonie’ comes from the “Spoon Theory”

ChatGPT’s definition of a ‘Spoonie’:

“A Spoonie is someone who manages their daily energy carefully due to chronic illness or disability.

The term ‘Spoonie’ comes from the “Spoon Theory”, a concept defined by Christine Miserandino, who uses spoons as a metaphor for energy.

Spoonies prioritise tasks based on their limited availability of ‘spoons’, compared to a non-Spoonie.”

I was born 70% deaf so I’ve always been disabled.

Me and my next door neighbour were playing on the bit of grass outside our council houses in Worthing one day, when we got into a bit of a scrap.

She kicked my knee and it ballooned.

At the age of 12, I was diagnosed with of Rheumatoid Arthritis.

For the first 10 years, my Rheumatologist only prescribed Ibuprofen (also known as Advil) to manage the pain.

The disease ran amok with my joints.

The only joints in my body that are unaffected are my hips, pelvis and spine.

The damage to my joints is irreversible and the cause of daily pain, disfigurement and loss of strength and low mobility.

At the age of 27, I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a genetic condition that causes vision loss.

RP means I cannot sea what is beneath me, my sight is severely impaired in bright sunlight and low light, and in darkness, I am completely blind.

Chris McCausland, winner of the 2024 series of BBC’s, “Strictly Come Dancing” also has Retinitis Pigmentosa. The condition is the cause of his full blindness.

Getting the RP diagnosis triggered an automatic revokation of my (6 month old!) driving licence.

Losing my driving licence was a turning point in my life.

I moved my social life online and that turned out to be the beginning of the journey that led me to this business.

I also strongly believe I have Autism and ADHD

Undiagnosed, but the self-assessments and study I have done into the traits tell me I am highly likely AuDHD,

How I manage my energy efficiently

First thing I want to say is that I am in somewhat of a privileged position. I have no children and we are not caring for elderly parents.

We have designed life this way but I am very aware that we are in a minority who can.

So, as you read my list, please take what could work for you too, and ignore everything else.

I ‘retired my husband

Three years into my business, my husband Bill was unhappy in his job.

I’d been paying someone to make phone calls for me, someone else to drive me to work events in Birmingham and London, and living on Ready Brek and cornflakes because they were quick to make when I emerged from my hyperfocus.

So it made logical sense for him to quit the job and take over everything at home so I could just focus on my business and eat better.

I’m still the breadwinner 11 years on.

Photo by Kate Stone Matheson on Unsplash

Sleep is a high priority

I keep to a regular routine at night, do not start work before 10am and if I need to sleep during the day, I will.

I outsource the tasks that steal my spoons

From the very early days of my business, I paid people to take over tasks that stole spoons from things I wanted to do.

Some of the ways I have achieved this:

• I redirected my phone to a low-cost call answering service

• I paid friends an hourly rate to do a batch of tasks for me

• I paid VAs to schedule batches of posts for me

• I paid a retired guy a daily rate to drive me when I needed to travel to business events

That means I save my spoons for more important tasks and I only personally do the things I enjoy.

I use the most spoons when I am outside of my house, so I limit how much time I spend in the outside world each week.

Back in the days when I was employed, I dreamt of a day when I didn’t have to go out for work.

I longed to make an income at home, on my own terms.

I outsource most of the tasks that involve going out to my husband and others.

That means I can save more spoons for when I want to go somewhere or have an appointment.

Because the outside world is really hard work for me:

• Walking is painful.

• Being unable to hear very well means I have to concentrate hard in conversations. That gets tiring very quickly.

• The RP means for the first 30 seconds after I go from outside to inside, when the sun is out or it’s dark, I can’t see a thing.

• If I stumble on stairs, kerbs, uneven paths or bump into people, I’ll jar my joints which will cause pain, so navigating unfamiliar places when sometimes I can see and sometimes I can’t takes a lot of spoons.

My entire business is online so I don’t ‘have’ to go out.

It’s not unusual for me to leave the house only once in a 10 day stretch.

I’m a real homebody and my needs are well served indoors

I’d rather go out occasionally because I want to.

That way, the reward is greater than the struggle.

.

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

How I structure my day to day business to serve me first

Sacked off networking events

I’ve been chatting to people online since I had my driving licence revoked, nearly 30 years ago.

I love it. It’s what I do when I am procrastinating.

It’s what I reward myself with after a focused session of getting shit done.

It’s what I do for work and what I do for fun.

I always got way better results online anyway and I wanted to stop wasting spoons on something I did not enjoy.

Limited keyboard time

There is a limit to how much time I can spend typing on my PC keyboard before my wrists and fingers start to hurt too much.

Typing on my iPhone Pro Max is much less of a strain on my wrists, hands and fingers, so I do most of my own writing on my phone.

This also means I carefully organise my copywriting workload to ensure I never have two done-for-you sales page copywriting projects due on the same day.

My 1-1 offers are delivered asynchronously through WhatsApp text and voice notes with minimum Zoom time.

‘Asynchoronously’ means, ‘not at the same time’.

When you work with clients over Zoom, you both have to attend the call at the same time, for a fixed period.

For Spoonies, that can be difficult. You don’t know when the fatigue will hit and we cannot rely on having creative energy a week on Thursday at 2pm.

Asynchronous working removes all pressure. You can invite your clients to communicate anytime, or on a certain day. Then you reply in your own time.

No need to be ‘Zoom ready’ either! I love it and my clients do too. They can talk to me whenever and I respond when I choose.

Photo by Bruno Gomiero on Unsplash

I am usually unavailable today

Availability for any calls and appointments starts tomorrow.

I don’t like last minute disruption to my plans, so I am not available for disruption unless I have the spoons for spontaneity.

I don’t publish my phone number, I don’t take calls and I have a burner number for WhatsApp.

I occasionally meet potential clients on Zoom, after we’ve chatted in text first to establish if the call is needed.

Many of my clients prefer to text/voice note with me and I buy and sell this way too.

Zoom calls are rare. Maximum two in one day

I never have enough spoons for back to back Zooms.

On the very rare occasion I do have more than one in a day, I make sure there is at least an hour between them.

Will any of these ideas help you make your business easier to run?

Which suggestion floats your boat?

Is there a strategy you’d like me to share in more detail?

Drop a comment below.

And finally… the title of this post…?

I ADORE puns and wordplay. The twist on “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” is my cup of team.

The iron…

I think that’s an extra ‘outsource’ tip to sack off what doesn’t need to be done. Neither of us do ironing unless it’s for an important event.

The ‘b*tch’…

When I had the idea for this Substack, I wanted it to be totally real.

There are two aspects I find difficult to be ‘real’ about:

• One is talking about the reality of my daily life.

  It’s not that I hide it. It’s just not a topic of conversation for me, Not even with my husband.

  But I realise sharing my lived experience might help someone. So here we are.

  The other is swearing.

  I swear in person but I don’t enjoy reading content with tons of swearing in it. That’s given me a bit of a block about swearing in my writing at all.

My goal for this Substack was to let go. Say, “fuck it” and get over myself. ←— I did it!

And the floordrobe?

This one confused me. I don’t have a ‘floordrobe’ so I’m taking this one as a subtle dig to tidy up the pile of trainers!

Next post will be shorter… I’m going to share the one thing I will NEVER do as a Spoonie in business!