Popsicle Stick Tasks

What are they and how do they work?

I wrote down tasks on the bottom of each popsicle stick. The tasks range from chores to crafts to reminders to drink water! You can really put anything you do or want to do in there - I even put a stick in there to make a new stick!

Now, the colors on the tops of the sticks is what's important. For each of my 7 spoons, I assigned a color (Creative - pink, Cognitive - orange, Executive - green, Physical - blue, Social - yellow, Emotional - purple and Reflective - grey). Then, at the very top of the stick, I colored according to the primary spoon that the tasks uses. Then, I added stripes if any additional spoons are used in that task. Sometimes I even put two stripes of the same color if it seemed to need more of that type of spoon! These spoon assignments are extremely subjective and only need to make sense to you. Be as honest with yourself as you can because the success of the sticks depend on it. And you can always add, take away or remake sticks as you use them more.

Once you have a good number of sticks where you won't immediately know what you're pulling by the colors, place them task-side down in a cup or jar that you can't see through. Now, when you get to a point in the day where you don't know what to do next, think about what spoons you have available and pick a stick that looks like it would align! And of course, I absolutely give myself permission to not do what the stick says. The sticks work for you - you don't work for the sticks.

How do they help?

Maybe you're different, but I have a hard time thinking of things to do sometimes. Sometimes it's because I have no cognitive spoons left and sometimes it's because I'm really wanting to do something that I can't actually do in the moment and need to redirect. These spoons take out the bulk of the thinking in those transitional times and work great when your available spoons are unevenly distributed. 

Of course there is some set up effort into creating the sticks, but they don't all need to be made at once and require very little effort to actually use. In fact, these sticks have been the path of least resistance to me doing one thing and creating momentum for other tasks.