How My Capacity Blocks Idea Helps Me Get Stuff Done While In Autistic Burnout

For context I am autistic & ADHD and coming out of my first huge AuDHD burnout which started last October, so 9 months ago. After several weeks of being in executive dysfunction and probably demand avoidance, I finally got a robotics order done that I should really have completed weeks ago. The thing that finally got the job done was my reframing of the situation in terms of my capacity instead of it just being another task to do. 

This is where the idea of capacity blocks came from as I tried to extract myself from the molasses I've been fighting and losing to over the last several weeks.

Going back in time a little, a few days ago I finally shipped a weather station I had been working on for months. At the time I didn’t feel exactly happy or relieved, although I probably was, instead I had this feeling that I just got a small boost in my available capacity.

This got me thinking because it was such a strong feeling and it felt good. What's more I felt good because I knew that I would have more capacity for doing the other things I really wanted to do but was stalled on because my available capacity was so low.

When you have autism and are in the process of recovering from autistic burnout, your capacity to do things is really precious and variable. So the freeing up of a little capacity is such a big deal.

This got me thinking about the idea of blocks of capacity and the things that occupy them. For example the weather station project was occupying a big block of capacity, and by occupying I mean that capacity is always locked up in that project or thing until its finished, even if I'm not working on it.So even if I'm not working on the project its capacity is still tied to it and I can't just use it elsewhere. Another important thing about all of this is that even when I’m not working on a thing e.g. the weather station it's still occupying capacity, working memory and it's still draining me of energy. Just knowing that it's still not done and the things I still need to do continue to consume some of my mental energy each day because they're still there.

So say I have 6 capacity blocks and there are 6 things I am supposed to be doing. The things can be projects or simpler items like placing an order, writing a report, doing some university work etc. I have a limited pool of capacity and a limited number of available capacity blocks. So I have capacity blocks and lots of things filling them up.

With all of this in mind the thing that helped me get the order done was not the fact that I needed to get it done, I’ve been stuck in that cycle for weeks. Instead I re-framed it in terms of this order occupying one of my capacity blocks and I want to free up that block so I can do something else with it.

This was great because all of a sudden the mental framing changed from the order being a  demand on me, to being this thing that’s taking up one of my capacity blocks and I want to get that block back. So now I want to do it so I can free up its capacity block and use it for other things I want to do.

With this in mind I felt the molasses between me and placing this order turn into water and I could swim through and get it done. 

I realized this also extends beyond just the immediate need to get things done short term. I also believe that I need to try and consciously limit the total number of capacity blocks I use to a small enough number so I’m not using them all up.

For example lets say I have 10 capacity blocks, instead of allocating them all to different things and using them up just because I can. Instead I might say just use 6 and deliberately leave the others free. I guess this is equivalent to not taking on too many jobs or commitments. But this statement doesn't take into account the capacity costs.

The idea of capacity blocks accounts for the fact that each block represents your actual capacity as a human being and not just the idea of another job to do.

Another important idea is that capacity blocks are not all the same size and can change in size and nature over time. They can grow the more stuck I am with a given task or they can shrink as I  get a little bit of the task done. 

They can also increase in size dramatically and become completely overwhelming, this is not an increase in available capacity, it's an increase in burden, when I am very low spoons, overwhelmed or just plain having a really challenging day.

So in this way capacity blocks can also turn into burdens as well and go from being a source of energy and achievement to becoming blocks of molasses that bog you down. This can happen when a given task in a block is left too long undone. In this case it ends up slowly occupying more and more capacity until it eventually feels ten times bigger and harder than it really is.

I'm really happy with this mindset change and hope that it will be something I can apply to the other things I get stuck on to help me get through.