The Spoon Theory: Understanding Grief at Work

Q: What Is the Spoon Theory and How Does It Relate to Grief?

Christine Miserandino, a writer and lupus advocate, created The Spoon Theory in 2003 to help a friend understand what it felt like to live with lupus. Sitting in a diner, she gathered spoons from nearby tables and used each one to represent a finite unit of physical and emotional energy. Each day, a person has a limited number of spoons to spend on activities. Simple tasks like getting out of bed, getting dressed, or cooking use up spoons, so managing energy becomes a careful balancing act. This article does not suggest grief and chronic illness are the same. Instead, it explores how the Spoon Theory provides a useful language to understand the invisible emotional, cognitive, and physical energy grief consumes. Grief quietly drains your spoons, making work feel like a mountain to climb.

Mary Makite

Jul 3

4 min read

Grief changes more than your emotions. It changes how you spend your energy. After a significant loss, routine work tasks like replying to emails, making decisions, concentrating in meetings, or speaking with colleagues can suddenly feel overwhelming. Yet because grief is often invisible, others may mistake this exhaustion for disengagement or poor performance.

If you've ever wondered why grief can make work feel so much harder, I've previously explored why grief and productivity don't follow the same timeline.

The Spoon Theory, created to explain the lived experience of chronic illness, offers a powerful way to understand this hidden energy loss. While grief and chronic illness are different experiences, the metaphor helps explain why simply getting through the day can take far more energy than anyone else realizes.

Hands arranging metal spoons on a wooden table to represent the Spoon Theory, a metaphor for the limited emotional and physical energy people may experience while grieving.

What Is the Spoon Theory and How Does It Relate to Grief?

Christine Miserandino, a writer and lupus advocate, created The Spoon Theory in 2003 to help a friend understand what it felt like to live with lupus. Sitting in a diner, she gathered spoons from nearby tables and used each one to represent a finite unit of physical and emotional energy. Each day, a person has a limited number of spoons to spend on activities. Simple tasks like getting out of bed, getting dressed, or cooking use up spoons, so managing energy becomes a careful balancing act.

This article does not suggest grief and chronic illness are the same. Instead, it explores how the Spoon Theory provides a useful language to understand the invisible emotional, cognitive, and physical energy grief consumes. Grief quietly drains your spoons, making work feel like a mountain to climb.

The workplace often becomes one of the first places where this invisible energy loss is misunderstood.

How Grief Quietly Drains Your Energy at Work

Grief is not just sadness. It affects your brain, body, and emotions in ways that can make work harder:

Concentration becomes difficult. You might find your mind wandering or struggling to focus during meetings.
Decision-making feels overwhelming. Even small choices can seem exhausting.
Physical energy drops. Fatigue can make attending work or staying alert a challenge.
Emotional energy is limited. You may feel less able to engage with colleagues or respond to emails promptly.

These effects can last weeks, months, or longer. Research has shown that grief can affect attention, executive functioning, processing speed, and other cognitive processes, making everyday work tasks significantly more demanding than they may appear. This helps explain why grieving employees may struggle with concentration, decision-making, and productivity despite their best efforts.

Work desk with documents, a notebook, coffee cup, and blurred employee in the background, representing the cognitive and emotional effects of grief on concentration and productivity at work.

Why Grief Is Often Invisible at Work

Grief at work is usually hidden. You might not share your feelings openly, or your workplace may not recognize the signs. This invisibility leads to misunderstandings:

Exhaustion might be seen as laziness.
Forgetfulness could be mistaken for carelessness.
Reduced productivity might be labeled as poor performance.
Withdrawal from teamwork may appear as disinterest.

Many grieving employees become skilled at appearing "fine," even when every task requires far more effort than before. The absence of visible tears doesn't mean the absence of grief.

The Spoon Theory grief metaphor helps leaders, managers, HR professionals, and colleagues understand that a grieving employee may simply have fewer spoons to spend each day. Recognizing this can shift the workplace culture from judgment to support.

Practical Ways to Support Grieving Employees

Creating a grief-informed workplace means adjusting how you approach work and support. Here are practical steps:

Adjust Expectations

Recognize that productivity may dip temporarily.
Prioritize essential tasks and allow flexibility in deadlines.
Avoid pressuring grieving employees to "bounce back" quickly.

Offer Flexibility

Allow flexible work hours or remote work options.
Encourage breaks during the day to recharge.
Provide time off for important grief milestones or appointments.

Check In With Empathy

Ask open-ended questions like, "How are you managing your workload?"
Listen without rushing to fix or judge.
Respect privacy if someone prefers not to share details.

Recognize Healing Is Not Linear

Understand that grief comes in waves.
Be patient with fluctuating energy and mood.
Offer ongoing support rather than one-time gestures.

Manager listening attentively to an employee during a private conversation in a modern office, representing compassionate workplace support for someone experiencing grief.

Supporting grieving employees goes beyond individual acts of kindness. Building a truly grief-informed workplace requires thoughtful policies, compassionate leadership, and a culture that recognises grief as part of life. If you're looking for practical strategies, you may also find my guide on Managing Grief in the Workplace Effectively helpful.

Why Compassion Matters More Than Speed

You might feel pressure to return to full productivity quickly, but resilience is not about speed. Compassion begins when you recognize that grief changes how people spend their energy. Supporting grieving employees means making the workplace a place of understanding, not additional pressure.

Grief doesn't only change how people feel.

It changes how they spend their energy.

Understanding the Spoon Theory reminds us that what appears to be reduced productivity may actually be extraordinary resilience. When workplaces recognize this invisible effort, they create cultures built not on assumptions, but on compassion.

Sometimes the kindest thing we can do is remember that someone may be carrying far fewer spoons than we can see.