Energy Ledger

How this tool works

Each entry is a line in a day's ledger: something that spent your charge, or something that returned it. You name it in your own words, give it a size, and — the part the research makes worth doing — you can tag it as a masking cost, when the spend was about performing rather than doing. Your day's balance updates immediately on this device; entries stay in your browser's local storage and never leave it. When you ask for a reading, the day's anonymous tallies travel once to this site's scoring endpoint, the pattern-reading comes back, and nothing is stored server-side.

The reading is about the shape over time, not any single day: how your drains and recharges balance, what the masking tags are telling you, and what that combination suggests — with suggestions ordered like a menu, not a prescription. Sustained deficit patterns shift the reading toward load-reduction and honest talk about what a long-running debt means.

The research behind it

Masking has a measurable cost — that is one of the most consistent findings in the camouflaging literature: energy spent on performing, recovery delayed by it, exhaustion as the common bill (Hull et al., 2017; Cage & Troxell-Whitman, 2019; Ai et al., 2022). That is why the masking tag exists: it makes the invisible tax show up as a line item you can count.

On the recharge side, the guide is monotropism — the account of autistic attention as a scarce, deep resource channeled into interest tunnels (Murray, Lesser & Lawson, 2005), with absorbed interest time reframed as legitimate self-regulation (McDonnell & Milton, 2014). In the burnout-recovery research, interest-led time is among the most consistently reported recharges (Raymaker et al., 2020; Higgins et al., 2021) — which is why the reading treats it as real recovery, never as procrastination.

One lineage note, said plainly: the energy-rationing metaphor traces to Christine Miserandino's “spoon theory” (2003) — credited here with respect, but the units are this tool's own, deliberately neutral. The metaphor is a self-management device, not a validated measure of capacity.

How to use it well

• Log on the day itself. Memory flattens costs and inflames them at the same time; same-day entries are the honest ones.
• Tag masking costs ruthlessly. The meeting you performed through, the call you masked on — the tag is what turns a vague “tired' into a specific bill.
• Count interest-led time as real recharge. An evening lost in a tunnel is a recharge entry — the research says so, and this tool agrees (McDonnell & Milton, 2014).
• Watch the week, not the day. Any single day can be a disaster or a gift; the reading is built for the shape across days.
• Don't over-log. A consistent sample beats an exhaustive ledger you abandon in week two.

What this tool is not

• Not a validated measure of capacity. The “charge” is a management metaphor in your own units — not a clinical number, not a calorie count for the soul.
• Not a diagnosis. A deficit pattern is a pattern, not a name for anything.
• Not a ration on joy. If a big spend was worth it, log it, enjoy it, and let the balance say so — the ledger is for seeing, not for scolding.

Questions people ask

Why “charge” instead of “spoons”?

Spoon theory deserves its credit (Miserandino, 2003), and it has it. The tool uses its own neutral units so the numbers stay yours — some people count spoons, some count charge, some count hours; the ledger counts whatever keeps you logging honestly.

What if every day is a deficit?

Then the reading will stop suggesting tweaks and start talking about load reduction — and if the pattern persists, the burnout research says a long-running energy debt is exactly the shape that precedes burnout (Raymaker et al., 2020). Take that reading seriously; the signposting it offers is there for a reason.

Do the activity names ever leave my device?

No. Entry names, sizes and tags stay in local storage; only anonymous tallies travel once for the reading, and nothing is stored on the other end. Delete-all is real and immediate.

What counts as a recharge — does plain rest count?

Yes. Sleep, quiet, solitude, a long walk — all recharge entries. The research-grounded point the reading makes is that interest-led time belongs on that list too, and is often the most reliably reported one (Raymaker et al., 2020) — but your own data is sovereign: if a nap outranks your tunnels this month, the ledger believes you.

Can I use this alongside a therapist or doctor?

Yes — it exports, and a weeks-long balance pattern is exactly the kind of concrete record a conversation benefits from. It complements professional support; it doesn't replace it.

Where to go next

• Early-Warning Tracker — the weekly pattern that shows burnout coming.
• Interest & Flow Map — build a recharge menu out of your actual tunnels.
• Autistic burnout and masking — what the debt does when it never clears.
• Unmasking and stress as competence — the suite's companion essay.