Fatigue Tracker Worksheet

How many spoons do you have?

Understanding your fatigue can be incredibly difficult. Especially if you live with a chronic illness. Whilst Spoon theory is a helpful framework, it can be hard to know how many spoons you have and which activities take the most spoons. To help with this, we’ve created a fatigue tracker worksheet to help you identify:

- Which activities make you most fatigued
- Which activities reduce your fatigue
- How many activities should you do per day
- How far over your activity limit are you going right now
- How can you manage your fatigue better

How to manage fatigue with your worksheet?

1. Personalise your worksheet. The 71 activities listed in the fatigue tracker worksheet are based on my own most common daily activities and you can customise them to match your own daily habits.
2. Get tracking. Track how fatigued each of your activities leaves you feeling – using a 0 to 10 fatigue scale and track your average energy level each day.
3. Get some perspective. Once you’ve finished tracking your fatigue levels. You’ll be able to get a clearer picture of the activities that cause you to feel most and least fatigued.
4. Pace yourself. Once you’re able to identify how many spoons you have each day, you can then begin to plan the number and type of activities you’d like to do each day whilst still avoiding severe fatigue. This is sometimes referred to as pacing.

What to do with your Fatigue tracker?

Once you’ve tracked your fatigue for 14 days you’ll be shown some helpful metrics that help you to…

1. Create a schedule. One of the most important things you can do when you live with fatigue is to create a daily routine that includes a limited number of activities and plenty of opportunities for rest and recovery.
2. Set boundaries. Once you’ve identified the activities that cause you the most fatigue, you’ll be able to make plans to do them less often or even avoid them altogether.
3. Ask for help. Knowing which activities you might need some extra support with can help you to have a conversation with your employer, partner, or friends.
4. Share your insights. Having a clearer picture of your fatigue levels and what causes you most fatigue is great information to share with your medical team and/or therapist.

Your Fatigue Metrics

The main reason we created this worksheet is to help you answer some important questions about your fatigue. The ‘fatigue metrics’ section of the worksheet will help you to pinpoint…

1. How many spoons you have. Highlighted in yellow, we’ll tell you on average, how many activities you do before your fatigue level becomes moderate (5) or severe (8)

2. Target number of daily activities. Based on your average fatigue per activity, cumulative fatigue, and average daily activities – we’ll give you a target number of activities.

3. Highest and lowest fatigue activities. Easily pinpoint the activities that make you most and least fatigued so that you can plan your routine around them.

About our Fatigue Tracker

All the resources we make at Bearable follow the same approach. They’re always based on academic research and medically verified sources but we try to adapt them to make them more accessible and understandable for people living with chronic illness. Our fatigue tracker utilises…

- The Bell CFIDS fatigue scale
- Explanation of Spoon Theory from ME-Pedia
- Common fatigue triggers and helpers outlined by Harvard Health

That said, we’re still looking into ways to further improve our fatigue tracker. If you have any suggestions please get in touch with me at jesse@bearable.app

How to download the Fatigue Tracker worksheet

When you click the link to view the fatigue management worksheet at the top of this page, you’ll be taken to a template on Google Sheets. Once you’re looking at the sheet:

1. Tap the file option in the top navigation bar.
2. Then click on Make a copy.
3. Then open the copy you’ve created in your own Google Sheets account.

Note. If you need some help with this you can view a video of how to copy and use the fatigue worksheet here.

Looking for more free resources?

Bearable is a company founded at operated by people with chronic health conditions for people with chronic health conditions AND even though our app is the number one symptom tracker in the USA and UK (that you can also use for free). We try to create as many free resources as possible for people who need some help managing their health.

You can check out some of our other free resources using the links below.

We couldn’t do this without your support. So if you have an idea for a helpful free resource, let us know by getting in touch with jesse@bearable.app

Note. The information and insights provided by our worksheets and content are for educational purposes only and are not a substitute for professional medical advice. Consult a medical professional or healthcare provider if you’re seeking medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment.