The Weekly Regulation Tracker

A once-a-week check-in designed to be low-effort — mostly ticking and sliding, barely any writing. Over a few weeks it quietly shows you your own patterns: what drains you, what helps, and what burnout creeping in looks like for you specifically.

Low bar on purpose: You don't have to do this perfectly, or even every week. A half-filled tracker still teaches you something. Skipping a week is allowed.

This week's levels

Overall energy this week (1 = running on empty, 10 = full tank)

Rate from 1 to 10: ____

How much did I have to mask this week? (1 = barely, 10 = constantly)

Rate from 1 to 10: ____

Sensory load this week (1 = calm, 10 = overloaded)

Rate from 1 to 10: ____

What drained me (tick any)

• [ ] Too many social demands
• [ ] Unexpected changes to plans
• [ ] Sensory overload — noise, light, crowds
• [ ] Too little time alone
• [ ] Pushed through when I needed to stop
• [ ] Poor sleep
• [ ] A pile of admin or decisions

What helped (tick any)

• [ ] Time alone to decompress
• [ ] Stimming freely
• [ ] Time with a special interest
• [ ] A sensory tool — headphones, weighted blanket, fidget
• [ ] Someone who genuinely gets me
• [ ] Lowering demands or saying no
• [ ] Movement or being outside
• [ ] Good sleep

Burnout watch

Tick anything you noticed this week. These can be early signs that you're running past your limit.

• [ ] Basic tasks felt harder than usual
• [ ] More sensitive to noise or light than usual
• [ ] Words or speech were harder to find
• [ ] More shutdowns or withdrawing
• [ ] Lost track of hunger, thirst, or tiredness
• [ ] A 'skills slipping' feeling

One word for this week:

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

One thing I want next week to have more of:

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

Looking back over a few weeks

Once you've got three or four weeks logged, glance back over them.

What patterns am I starting to see?

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

Trusting your own read: If the burnout-watch boxes keep stacking up week after week, that's your body asking for less, not more. That's real information — believe it, and bring it to someone who can help you adjust before it deepens.

Go deeper

Ready for more? These lessons pick up where this worksheet leaves off.

• Autistic Burnout, from The Autistic Woman. What autistic burnout really is, how it differs from depression, why it hits women after decades of masking, and what recovery actually requires.
• Masking and Camouflaging, from The Autistic Woman. What autistic masking is, how girls learn it early, what it costs — exhaustion, anxiety, lost identity — and the CAT-Q.
• Hormones Across the Lifespan, from The Autistic Woman. How the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and perimenopause shift autistic women's traits — an honest, neuroaffirming look, and why tracking is power.
• ABSI-24 — Autistic Burnout, Are You In It Right Now?, from Autistic Self-Discovery. Autistic burnout as a state, not a risk: why it is mistaken for depression, what skill loss really looks like, and what helps.