Hopefully we are all aware of Spoon Theory, how we have a certain amount of personal resource simplified and represented as Spoons. That we have a certain amount of these Spoons to spend on tasks, and that all tasks cost some Spoons, that we get some spoons back with food and rest, that some medications may make that process work better or the cost of tasks be less. Task Cost is about understanding how our spoons can be spent in doing tasks, and how we can identify what part of the task is costing us too much, and what we can do to reduce task cost. In Task Cost and Spoons we look at how a single task can be broken down into different phases to help you understand what might be costing the majority of the spoons.
Let us take a look at the tasks. Tasks cost has 5 phases.
- Pre Cost
- Setup Cost
- Start Cost
- Doing Cost, and
- Post Cost.
We can also add in some strategies to combine related tasks, such as a morning routine where showering, brushing teeth, dressing and breakfast are combined and flow from one to the other to reduce the overall Start Cost. If we use the strategy of doing certain tasks in very similar ways, we can reduce most of these costs by saving on cognitive creative spoons and general improved efficiency as we find better ways to do things. Autistic People and other Neurodivergent folk, often have found optimised methods to do certain tasks and can be derailed or upset if the task can’t be done in the method that has been found to be known, comfortable and efficient.
By breaking down Task into different phases of cost and considering intelligent strategies, we can look at where we are losing our Spoons, reducing the wasted energy and allowing us to use our saved Spoons for other things.
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Pre-cost
Definition
Between when you add a task to your to-do list and you start the task, there is the Pre-cost.
Description
The Pre-cost is the thinking, planning and driving yourself to do it cost. When we fear a task, or it is associated with troubled times / people, or if it is something that you don’t know enough about, then we spend a lot more nervous Spoons on this task. This is mostly an emotional spoon cost.
Reducing Cost
Body double: Organising a body double when we are doing the task can reduce the emotional cost
Research: Investigating and researching how to do the task can increase the confidence you have in completing the task
Challenging the negative thoughts: Work to consciously challenge the side worries that we have for that task.
Setup Cost
Definition
Before we begin the task, we may need to set things up so that we can get on with the task.
Description
While you may be tempted to think that this is part of The Task, there is a distinct difference to gathering the materials and tools to do that task than actually doing the task. Consider that you may go to the store to purchase materials and or tools to do the planned task, and if you were interrupted at that point and had to do something else, you are likely to admit that you haven’t really even started the task yet.
Reducing Cost
Separating some of the Setup: Sometimes it is handy to separate parts of the setup up task as a separate job. We can then combine that with other things we may need to get from a supplier, reducing the overall cost associated with the task we actually want to do.
Check lists: We can also write a list of the materials and setup that we need to do, ticking off the items as we go to reduce the attention span and working memory we need to allocate to that part of the task. We can do most of this list creation in advance when we have some downtime and spare spoons.
Start Cost
Definition
Starting on the actual task.
Description
Here we separate the initiation cost from the continuing to do the task cost. Initiating, or starting, can be quite expensive as we need to allocate enough spoons to do the task. Generally, that means switching from another task, which means putting down that task, clearing mental and physical space, allocating time, allocating working memory, loading up the details of this task and then doing a bit of the task to ensure we are doing it well enough and have the resources to do this.
Reducing Cost
Derailed: Switching from one task to another task can be very expensive. Often we will get a shot of adrenaline to help us reset our brains and give us some physical and emotional energy to change priorities and mindsets. This can result in some anxiety or aggression. I call this reaction “Being Derailed”. Give it a few minutes to settle down before moving forwards. When helping someone else, give them some time to put down the current task and pick up the new task – an end of current task warning, or a new task in a few minutes warning is often helpful.
Insufficient Spoons: If you have just done a large task, or you haven’t eaten lately, or if you are low on sleep, you may not have enough spoons to do this task now. Perhaps it is wiser to delay the task until you do have enough spoons. You can also break up the task – we’ll cover that in the next section.
Anxiety: We can feel scared to do the task as we expect to fail, or be judged inadequate, or not be sure that we know enough to do the task. Lean into that uncertainty and call this a “trial”, “experiment”, or “learning curve”. Use the motto “failure is always an option”, “we learn from our mistakes”, and “to get good at something, start off terrible at it”. If someone judges your work to be inadequate, happily respond “I know! Isn’t it wonderful that I have made these mistakes, so now I can learn from them?” So long as no one gets hurt, then nothing is wrong. If you aren’t happy with the outcome, then remind yourself “this was to learn from, so what have I learned?” and find a few things that you can improve for next time. Maybe you need to do some research into those aspects? When we lean into the fear of failure & judgement, and use that as a way to frame what we are doing – deliberately allowing for failure and judgement, then those stop being problems and become a reason to do the task.
Doing Cost
Definition
The cost of the core part of the task.
Description
Once the pre-task and the setup have been done, the next part is doing the task itself. Many people tend to think that is the only cost involved in doing a task, which is why they may not understand the why tasks can be hard to do as they underrate the other parts of task costs.
If the task is a quick and simple task, such as making a cup of tea, then this is relatively cheap. In some scenarios, the cost of making a cup of tea was in finding a clean cup, which may involve washing dishes, tidying the kitchen and then making the tea. It may also involve finding out what other people in the house would like as not asking them would cause problems, or perhaps factoring in that the kettle whistles loudly and would disrupt others, making the task itself harder.
The “Doing Cost” is the part where you make the tea, not the side quests needed to get to this bit.
Making a cup of tea is a relatively simple single set of steps to perform on once or just a small number of times. Constructing 100 boxes is going to have more repetition and after a few initial boxes, you’ll find your groove, get more efficient and can partially zone out while doing the rinse and repeat steps.
Reducing Cost
Body doubling: If you are struggling to do a task, having another positive person around can be helpful. They don’t even need to be part of doing the task for you to receive some benefit from this. If they are helping, either advising or actively participating, they can significantly reduce the cost of spoons for you. Positive people help us release oxytocin, which helps our endorphins flow.
Fun: When we make the task fun, we release endorphins, which help our dopamine and adrenaline flow better. This not only helps us feel happy, we find it easier to continue to do a task. When we look at a task as awful, a burden or torture, we find ourselves very reluctant to do it and we often run out of steam quickly. Playing music, gamifying or thinking of the good reasons why we are doing a thing can help us make the task more fun. We can also bring a friend into the mix, see body doubling above.
Snacks: If the task is long, we are likely going to need to have some snacks along the way. This should be a mix of energy and nutrition snacks, not just junk food. Aim for around 30% sugar/fat and the rest is nutritious food. Fruit is a good natural combination of these.
Modular: When the task has parts that we can recognise, especially if those are points that we can comfortably stop the task and pick it up again later, then we find the task easier to do, more organised, and less overwhelming if we think we may need to stop the task for a while and start it up again later. If you do need to stop and suspect it will be some time before you can resume, leave yourself a quick note about where you were up to and what is needed to happen next. Some modular tasks can have the order changed, so if you run low on a supply for one part, you can get on with another while waiting for new supplies to arrive – don’t forget to organise how you are going to get those!
Post Cost
Definition
Post Cost describes what happens when you finish a task, such as clean up, ordering stock, bragging and so on.
Description
Congratulations, you have done the task. Now that you have the tea, or boxes, do you need to do another task related to this task ending?
If it was making a cup of tea, did you clean the pot, wipe up the bench and put the tea spoon in the washing rack? If you were making hundreds of boxes, did you sweep up the mess, reload the tape dispenser, reload the stapler and stack the boxes? Do you need more supplies? Perhaps adding teabags to the shopping list if they were low, or ordering more cardboard etc.
Reducing Cost
Joining Tasks: When we join tasks, we can put the Post Cost together. For example, if we make a cup of tea while preparing lunch, then the clean up cost is only slightly greater for the lunch, where as if you add cleaning up lunch at one time to cleaning up after making tea another time, that sum would be greater than cleaning up for both. Of course, this requires you to have enough spoons to make lunch and tea at the same time. If you don’t, even though it would reduce the clean up cost, it is better to do one of these tasks than neither of them. Sometimes we can leave the clean up of the tea to when we are doing lunch if the time gap isn’t too great, or their isn’t another external reason why we can’t leave a bit of a mess in the kitchen.
Process: Finding ways to do post cost tasks efficient makes it cheaper. This can be a simplified and efficient way to clean up after making tea, or a list of tasks in an intelligent order to clean up after boxes, update supply charts, advertise the boxes etc. By having this standardised, we reduce the cognitive cost of trying to figure out what to do, and we can improve the efficiency of how to physically do the tasks.
