Flare Day Planner

---
name: flare-day-planner
description: "Plan around flare days before they ambush you — spot your early warning signs, pre-build the reduced 'flare mode' version of your life, prepare the cancellation and support scripts in advance, and set up your space so a bad day needs no decisions. Use when someone says 'my flares blindside me', 'I fall apart when a bad day hits', 'help me prepare for flare-ups', or has a relapsing condition (autoimmune, migraine, mental health, chronic pain). Produces a flare early-warning list, a flare-mode plan, and the pre-written scripts. A self-management tool, not medical advice."
homepage: https://mohitagw15856.github.io/pm-claude-skills/skill/flare-day-planner.html
metadata:
  {
    "openclaw": { "emoji": "🧠" }
  }
---

# Flare Day Planner Skill

Relapsing conditions — autoimmune, migraine, chronic pain, bipolar and other mental
health conditions, long COVID — share a cruel structure: the flare arrives when you
have the least capacity to handle it, so you make bad decisions, cancel badly, eat
nothing or wrong, and the shame compounds the symptom. The fix is to do the thinking
*before*, while you're well: recognize the early signs, pre-build the stripped-down
"flare mode" life, and pre-write the scripts and setup so a bad day is a plan you
execute, not a crisis you improvise. Decisions are expensive in a flare; this skill
front-loads them.

## What This Skill Produces

- A **flare early-warning list**: your specific pre-flare signs (the ones that show
  up hours or a day before the obvious symptoms) so you can shift into flare mode
  early, when it's cheapest
- A **flare-mode plan**: the reduced version of your life — what drops, what stays,
  the bare-minimum routine — decided now so you don't have to decide then
- **Pre-written scripts**: cancel-without-a-paragraph messages for work, friends,
  and family; the "I need help with X" asks to your support people; the boundary
  lines for people who push
- A **space-and-supplies setup**: the flare kit and environment (easy food, meds
  sorted, comfort items, low-demand entertainment) staged in advance so a flare
  needs no shopping and no decisions

## Required Inputs

Ask for (if not already provided):
- What a flare looks and feels like, and what (if anything) precedes it — the early
  signs, even subtle ones (mood shift, specific ache, sensory change, a craving)
- What a flare currently wrecks: the missed work, the botched cancellations, the not
  eating, the isolation, the spiral
- Who the user's real support people are, and what they currently do right/wrong
- Fixed obligations that can't just vanish (a job, dependents) and what flexibility
  exists around them

## Framework

1. **Catch the flare early — the warning list is the prize.** Most flares have a
   prodrome: signs hours-to-a-day before the full hit. Reconstruct them from recent
   flares (walk one backward). Shifting into flare mode at the first sign is far
   cheaper than fighting a full flare while pretending it's not happening.
2. **Pre-build flare mode while well.** Decide *now*, with a clear head: what drops
   entirely, what shrinks to minimum, what's protected (meds, hydration, one anchor).
   In a flare you won't have the executive function to triage — so the triage is
   already done, sitting there to execute.
3. **Write the cancellations before you need them.** Bad cancellations (over-
   explaining, apologizing, ghosting) come from doing it while symptomatic. Pre-write
   the short, warm, no-paragraph versions for each audience: work ("I'm unwell today
   and will be offline; I'll pick up [thing] tomorrow"), friends, family. Templates
   remove the guilt-spiral tax.
4. **Stage the support asks and boundaries.** Decide in advance what help to ask for
   and from whom ("can you drop food?"), so the flare doesn't also require the hard
   work of asking. And the boundary lines for the person who says "but you were fine
   yesterday" — pre-written, so you don't have to defend a relapsing illness while in
   it.
5. **Set up the space so a bad day needs nothing.** The flare kit: grab-and-go food
   that needs no cooking, meds and water within reach, comfort and low-demand
   entertainment, the phone chargers, whatever your specific flare craves. A flare
   should never send you to the shops or the stove.

## Output Format

```
## Your early-warning signs (catch it here)
[The prodrome — signs hours/a day before the full flare, from real episodes]

## Flare mode (decided while well)
Drops entirely: … · Shrinks to minimum: … · Protected no matter what: …

## Pre-written scripts
Cancel — work: … · friends: … · family: …
Ask for help: … · Boundary for the doubter: …

## Flare kit & setup (stage this now)
[Easy food · meds/water reach · comfort · low-demand entertainment · what to prep
this week]
```

## Quality Checks

- [ ] The early-warning list is built from real flares and includes subtle prodrome
      signs, not just the full-flare symptoms
- [ ] Flare mode is decided in advance with protected non-negotiables named
- [ ] Cancellation scripts are short and guilt-free, one per audience
- [ ] Support asks and a boundary line are pre-written, so asking isn't extra labor
- [ ] The flare kit means a bad day requires no shopping, cooking, or decisions

## Anti-Patterns

- [ ] Do not frame flares as failures of discipline or something to push through —
      they're a feature of the condition, and early surrender to flare mode is the
      skilled move
- [ ] Do not build a plan that requires lots of in-flare decisions — the whole point
      is that the thinking happened while well
- [ ] Do not give medical/treatment advice — this manages life around flares; the
      condition's care is the clinician's
- [ ] Do not assume the user's support people are safe or available — plan around
      the real ones, and make the plan work solo if needed
- [ ] For mental-health flares, do not treat crisis as a planning problem — include
      the crisis-line pointer and the "when to reach past this plan for a human" line

## Related

[[spoon-planner]] for the everyday pacing between flares; [[meltdown-map]] for the
neuro-crash cousin; [[diagnosis-limbo-kit]] if the flaring condition is unnamed;
[[saying-no-kindly]] for the cancellation muscle.