Practical tools for neurodivergent study, work, and life.
If you fidget constantly in meetings and worry it looks unprofessional, youâre not alone. For many autistic and ADHD people, small, quiet fidgets and discreet earplugs are genuine focus tools, not bad habits. This article looks at why they help, how to choose subtle options that work in your environment, and what to say if someone asks, âAre you paying attention?â
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Many managers want to support neurodivergent staff but quietly worry about getting it wrong. This article explains what âquietly neurodivergentâ can look like at work, why masking and exhaustion are so common, and how clear expectations, written follow-up and small adjustments can make a big difference. Itâs written in plain English so a neurodivergent person can share it with their line manager and say, âThis is quite close to my experience.â
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Many autistic and ADHD people donât just âdislikeâ phone and video calls â they find them genuinely exhausting. Real-time processing, unspoken social cues and the pressure to respond quickly can leave you anxious before the call and wiped out afterwards. This article explores why calls are so hard, why preferring text, IM or email is a valid access need, and offers gentle scripts and small strategies for coping when calls are unavoidable and for asking for alternatives when thatâs possible.
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Headlines about âoverdiagnosisâ and people gaming the system can make it harder to take your own struggles seriously. This article offers a quiet counterpoint: why many of us seek autism or ADHD assessment for clarity, self-understanding and fair support rather than money, how minimising phrases like âweâre all on the spectrum somewhereâ miss the point, and why youâre allowed to ask questions about your own brain even in a hostile political climate.
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Around Christmas, New Year and other busy seasons, social invitations can pile up fast. For many autistic and ADHD people, every event carries hidden costs in energy, masking and recovery time. This article explores why invitations can feel so heavy, how to get honest about your social capacity, and offers gentle scripts for saying no â or âyes, but differentlyâ â without burning your relationships or yourself out.
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âCan you just pull something together?â can feel like a small request, but for many autistic and ADHD people it creates a huge amount of hidden work. This article looks at why vague instructions are an access issue, how our brains juggle multiple interpretations at once, and offers simple, kind scripts and questions to get clearer outcomes, deadlines and formats without feeling difficult.
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Knowing youâre neurodivergent is one thing; explaining it to managers, tutors or coordinators is another. This article walks through how to write a short âhow I workâ neurodiversity statement, using a simple structure, example sentences based on my own statement, and ideas for adapting it to work, study and volunteering while still protecting your privacy.
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Meetings can look like âwhere the real work happensâ from the outside and like sensory and cognitive overload from the inside. This article explores why meetings are so tiring for autistic and ADHD people, shares how I cope with agendas, notes, quiet fidgets and reset time, and offers small, realistic tweaks that can make your next meeting a little less overwhelming.
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Many autistic and ADHD people naturally âgo quiet and deliverâ: we disappear into the work and only update when thereâs something concrete to show. This article explores why that happens, how it can worry managers who canât see whatâs going on, and offers tiny, realistic ways to agree check-ins and send short updates without turning into someone who lives in email.
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Time blindness isnât about not caring; itâs about time feeling slippery, even when you want to be organised. In this article I share how planning actually works for me as an autistic adult juggling work, part-time PhD study, family life and volunteering, and offer small, realistic tools to make deadlines, projects and weekday mornings a little less chaotic.
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