Learning Programming in Autistic Burnout Takes Multiple Days Per Concept
What Happened When I Tried to Learn
I was trying to learn programming. It's a special interest of mine, but since I've been in autistic burnout for over 4 years, learning it is both exhausting and draining, with me often taking multiple days to get an acceptable grasp on the concept.
How Much I Can Actually Learn
I only learn programming for an 1 hour or 2 at most most of the time. Usually when I'm working on Spoons—my special interest—I get a temporary surge of motivation that can last for hours to learn and improve my skills that will directly benefit my app. Even with programming as a special interest, burnout limits how much I can actually do. Otherwise, I spend just an hour learning every couple of days, and will often not even touch my computer or write a single line of code until I have more spoons.
What I Have to Sacrifice
I have to reduce majority of the cognitive load. Reading task descriptions becomes impossible because my executive function is so low.
Executive function collapse is one of the primary symptoms of autistic burnout. I can't plan, I can't organize, I can't sequence tasks. Everything becomes impossibly hard.
Research confirms what I experience: Executive dysfunction worsens significantly during autistic burnout, affecting planning, organization, and task initiation.
So I'll just do what chores I need to do for the day and then simply check them off without reading them, to ensure I have enough spoons to practice or even play some games later if I have any spoons for later. If I avoid this,I'm usually at 2-3 spoons before I start practicing which causes me to shutdown very quickly and immediately put off doing it.
The Actual Timeline
A couple of months of deliberate practice. The javscript course I take, specfically the one by Jonas Schmedtmann is really solid and he expects users to practice concept through building apps quite a bit before they are solid. Some take more reps, and some take less. Due to being in autistic burnout, I'm need to practice concepts quite a bit more on their own to compensate the low spoons I currently have, which actively has made retention and forming pathways for my skills to actually develop a living nightmare.
What Keeps Me Going
I take multiple days of rest between coding sessions. Simple tasks like making my bed or grabbing a snack cost almost nothing. But cleaning my entire house? I skip it for weeks until I have 6-7 spoons instead of my usual 4—and even then, only on days I'm not coding.
Why I'm Doing This Anyway
I'm forcing myself to learn programming to build Spoons. Once I do, I can track what causes sensory overload—sun glare, loud noises in my family's house. Paper tracking is too demanding when I'm burned out: find notebook, find working pencil, find empty page. An app with one slider is way easier. I can reference it anytime without friction.
This is Why I Built Spoons
Since ignoring factors that cause me sensory overload dramtically reduces the speed of which I'm able to learn and process things. Tracking how many spoons I have makes the most sense to have plenty of energy for the things that matter to me the most.
I'm Omari, a 23-year-old autistic adult who's been managing chronic burnout for 5+ years while working warehouse shifts.
This is why I built Spoons. To track what drains me. To know when I have enough spoons to learn, and when I need to rest.
Launching April 2026. getspoons.app - One email when it's ready. No spam.
— Omari
Note: I'm sharing my personal experience as an autistic adult, not medical advice. If you're experiencing severe burnout or crisis, please consult a healthcare provider familiar with autism.