Long COVID Energy Budget Planner

01Builds a day-by-day spoon budget from your real task list — shower, GP appointment, insurance call, friend visit.

02Flags overcommitted days with specific swaps ("flannel wash instead of shower saves 2; defer tidying to Friday").

03Holds back a 20% PEM buffer automatically and applies the 50% rule — no math, no remembering to leave headroom.

04Prices tasks you haven't tracked yet using a bundled reference table covering physical, cognitive, and emotional load.

05Catches compounding costs — the insurance call the day after a hospital visit — that manual pacing misses.

06Bundles a plain-language pacing explainer for new spoonies or to show family why the plan looks the way it does.

What it does

Pacing is the only intervention that actually helps with Long COVID and ME/CFS — but doing the spoon theory math in your head, every week, while running on fumes, is how Thursday crashes happen. This skill is a Long COVID energy budget planner that takes your daily spoon ceiling and your real week and builds a day-by-day pacing schedule with the PEM buffer already baked in. It prices tasks using a bundled spoon cost reference covering physical, cognitive, and emotional load — including compounding costs like an emotionally draining call the day after a hospital visit. If you're new to spoon theory and pacing, the bundled explainer walks you through the energy envelope, the 50% rule, and the boom-bust cycle before any planning happens. It's for people who already know pacing matters but can't sustain the weekly overhead. Paste your week, tell it your spoons, and get a clean artifact you can actually follow.

Frequently asked

How do I plan a week using spoon theory without crashing on a bad day?

Give it your daily spoon ceiling (and a bad-day floor if you have one). It allocates against 80% of your ceiling, holds back a 20% PEM buffer, and flags any day where the math doesn't work — with specific deferrals and downsizes, not vague advice to rest more.

I don't know how many spoons my tasks cost. Can I still use this?

Yes. Describe your tasks in plain terms. It assigns costs from a curated reference covering physical, cognitive, and emotional categories — and shows its work so you can override anything that doesn't match your lived experience.

Will it push back if I try to drop the PEM buffer to fit more in?

Yes — clearly, and without lecturing. It explains why the buffer exists (it's the mechanism that prevents PEM, not arbitrary caution), shows what the overcommitted version looks like, and offers to help you defer tasks instead. You can shrink the buffer to 15% if you insist, but it won't quietly let you blow past.

Can I just write my own ChatGPT prompt for this instead?

You could try. You'd need to encode the spoon cost reference, the 50% rule, PEM logic, compounding modifiers (noise, post-appointment days, poor sleep), and get clean weekly artifact output every time. This has all of that built in and tested against real ME/CFS pacing scenarios.

Does this work in Claude and ChatGPT?

This is a Claude skill — it runs inside Claude.ai. It won't load in ChatGPT. You'll need a Claude account.

Install — no Terminal required

After checkout you land on a page with a one-click download and a pre-built install prompt. Pick the AI you already pay for — both packages are included, so you can't pick wrong.

What you'll see the second your payment clears

Your license key

ST-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX · permanent

Pre-built install prompt⧉ Copy

ChatGPT package (ZIP)⬇ Download

No setup work before you buy — copy, paste, done.

Have Claude Pro, Max, or Team?

Copy the prompt, paste into Claude

Copy the pre-built install prompt from the success page, paste it into any Claude Code chat, and Claude installs the skill itself — about 10 seconds. Using the app instead? Drop the downloaded folder into a Claude Project's knowledge and ask Claude to use it.

Have ChatGPT Plus or Team?

Build a Custom GPT — ~2 minutes

Click Download ChatGPT package (included with every purchase).
Unzip it — inside is a SETUP.md and a knowledge/ folder.
Go to chatgpt.com → your profile → My GPTs → Create a GPT → Configure.
Paste the Name, Description, and Instructions from SETUP.md into the matching fields.
Under Knowledge, upload every file in the knowledge/ folder.
Click Create/Save, open your GPT, and describe your task in plain English.

A paid plan on either platform is required — Claude (Pro, Max, or Team) or ChatGPT (Plus or Team). Comfortable with Terminal? A one-line npx skilltree-network install path is available too.