The Neuroinclusion Lens

By the middle of October, the autumn rhythm has fully set in. The September restart is over, the recurring meetings are back in everyone's diary, and a lot of the people I work with are on five or six calls a day, quietly wondering when the actual work is supposed to happen.

It's been on my mind partly because of the Friday coworking sessions I run. At the beginning of each one, everyone shares what they're working on, and they can do that in the chat or out loud. That was a deliberate choice. Some people think best by talking. Plenty of people don't, and they shouldn't have to in order to take part.

I've had a familiar conversation in coaching sessions more than once this month. It goes something like this: "I keep being told I need to speak up more in meetings. But I do my best thinking on paper, and by the time I've worked out what I want to say, the meeting has moved on. When I write it up afterwards, it's treated as extra, not as the work."

That gap, between how someone communicates well and how their organisation notices communication, does more damage in teams than most managers realise.

What we're actually measuring

Most workplaces treat speaking in meetings as the default sign of engagement. If someone talks, they're engaged. If they don't, they might be checked out, unsure or lacking confidence, and someone should probably have a word.

That assumption works for some brains and lets a lot of others down. For many neurodivergent people, thinking out loud in real time is the most expensive kind of communication there is. It means listening, filtering, forming a view and delivering it, all within seconds, on a topic someone else has framed, in a format they didn't choose. Add three or four other voices, a shifting agenda and the social cost of interrupting, and you can end up with the person who has the best answer in the room and no way to say it before the topic changes.

Give that same person the agenda in advance and half an hour to think, and they'll often produce the sharpest response in the group. Give them an email thread, and they'll write something clearer than the summary the meeting produced. It isn't that they can't communicate. Speaking on the spot is just one way of doing it, and it isn't their strongest.

A real example

A client of mine, an autistic senior analyst, had been getting middling reviews for two years. Technically strong, always delivered, but "needs to be more visible" and "should contribute more in team discussions". She'd been trying, and the trying was costing her a lot. Meetings drained her for the rest of the day and left her with nothing in the evenings.

When we looked at what she was actually producing, the picture was very different. Her written contributions, in Slack threads, documents and comments on other people's work, were consistently some of the most useful in the team. Colleagues quoted her writing back to each other in meetings. She'd shaped several projects almost entirely through comments. None of that counted as visibility, because in her organisation, visibility meant talking in the room.

The fix wasn't teaching her to talk more. It was helping her manager see what she'd already been doing, and changing how the team recognised contribution. Once the review stopped treating speaking up as the measure of engagement, the picture changed completely. She's now leading a piece of work she would have quietly ruled herself out of a year ago.

What helps

None of this needs an overhaul. Most of it is small.

• Send the agenda early enough for people to think. Half an hour is better than nothing. A day is better than half an hour. For people who process best on paper, this is the difference between contributing and watching.
• Treat written contribution as contribution. If someone puts their best thinking in a message the next morning, that's them doing the work, not catching up. Notice it, credit it and quote it. If your review process only counts what happens in the room, it's counting the wrong thing.
• Ask for written input first. Not every decision needs a meeting. For anything that benefits from considered answers, ask for written thoughts before the meeting and use the time together for the parts that need discussing. You may find less of it needs discussing than you thought.
• Give people a way back to a point. A shared document running alongside the meeting works well. So does a chair who asks "is there anything we skipped over?" before closing. Both cost nothing.
• Ask people how they communicate best. Not once a year on a form, but as a real conversation when you start working together or before an important piece of work. Some will say meetings. Some will say email. Some will say a quick call with no agenda. Take the answer seriously.

The wider point

Written communication often gets framed as an adjustment, something you offer to help someone manage a limitation. That gets it the wrong way round. For a lot of neurodivergent people, writing is where their clearest thinking happens. It's slower than speech, which is the point. It rewards precision, which is the point. And it leaves a record, which anyone who has ever misremembered a meeting will appreciate.

Build a team where writing counts as much as speaking, and you don't only help the people who need it. You make better decisions, because more of them are shaped by the people who thought hardest about the question rather than the people who spoke first.

Worth a thought

Think about who was quietest in your last few meetings. Then look at what those same people wrote in the two days afterwards. If this pattern is running in your team, you'll spot it quickly.

The next question is whether your systems notice that work when it happens, or only if someone happens to mention it later.

What does contribution look like where you work, once you take away the assumption that it has to be spoken?

And if this is showing up in your team and it would help to talk it through, get in touch at connectcoaching.net.

Alex

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It is objective-setting season in a lot of the organisations I work with. New term, new targets, a round of one-to-ones where managers ask "how are you finding it?" and "anything you need from me?" and most people say "no, all good, thanks."

I want to write about one particular version of "all good, thanks" this month, because it is one of the most misread things I see in workplaces. It is the person who agrees to everything, never raises a concern, never argues a point, and is quietly going under.

What fawning is

Most people know fight, flight and freeze. Fewer know the fourth response, which is fawn. It is what happens when the nervous system decides that the safest way through a threatening situation is to please the other person. Agree quickly. Smooth it over. Take the extra work. Say sorry first.

For a lot of autistic adults, and plenty of ADHD adults too, this is not a personality trait. It is a learned survival strategy, usually built over years of getting things wrong socially without knowing why, being told they were rude or difficult, and working out that the only reliable way to avoid that was to stop having a position at all. By adulthood, it runs automatically. The person is not choosing to agree. Their body has already decided before the question is finished.

At work, this looks like a model employee. Flexible, agreeable, never a problem. Which is exactly why it gets missed.

What it looked like for one client

A client I worked with last year, an autistic man in his forties in a technical role, came to me after six weeks off sick with burnout. His manager was baffled. He had never once said he was struggling. Every check-in had been fine. Every request had been met with "yes, no problem."

When we went back through it, the picture was very different. He had been carrying two people's workload for the best part of a year because he had said yes to covering a vacancy "for a few weeks" and never found a way to say the few weeks had ended. He had disagreed with a technical decision he knew was going to cause problems and said nothing, then spent months fixing the consequences. He had been asked in every one-to-one whether he had any concerns and had answered honestly, in the sense that in the moment, with his manager looking at him, he had no access to any concerns. They only came back once he was on his own.

The part that mattered most in coaching was this. He did not need to get better at speaking up in the room. The room was the problem. What he needed was a different route for the information to travel.

What we changed, and what managers can take from it

We did not work on assertiveness. We worked on format and timing.

He started writing a short note after each one-to-one rather than trying to answer in it. Three lines: what is going well, what is taking more than it should, anything I said yes to that I am not sure about. His manager agreed to read it and reply in writing before the next meeting. Within a couple of months the real picture was visible for the first time, and the workload got redistributed without anyone having to have a confrontation.

If you manage people, here is what I would take from that:

• Stop relying on "any concerns?" as your safety net. For someone who fawns, it is not a question they can answer live. Ask something specific instead. "What did you say yes to this month that you would rather not have?" is a much better question.
• Offer a written route by default. A short follow-up after a one-to-one, or a standing question in a shared document, gives the nervous system time to stand down so the honest answer can surface.
• Treat a quick, unhesitating yes as information, not as consent. If someone agrees to extra work before you have finished describing it, that is worth a second look, not a thank you.
• Put an end date on anything temporary and own the job of revisiting it. "Can you cover this for a few weeks?" has no ending unless you give it one. Do not leave the person who cannot push back to be the one who has to raise it.
• Make disagreement safe by asking for it. "What would you do differently here?" asked routinely, of everyone, is worth more than any policy about speaking up.

None of these need a diagnosis or a disclosure. They are just good management that happens to reach the people your current process is missing.

Closing

The people who never push back are often the ones carrying the most, and the ones you will hear from last. It is worth asking whether your one-to-ones are set up to hear from them at all, or whether they are set up to hear from the people who were always going to speak up anyway.

Is there someone on your team who has never once said no? And if you are trying to work out what a better route looks like for a particular person or team, I am always happy to have that conversation.

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We're at the tail end of summer now, that stretch where the year quietly changes gear. September is coming; people will be drifting back from leave, and there's a familiar sense of things being about to start properly again.

It's also the time of year when a lot of managers start looking at their teams with fresh eyes. Objectives get reviewed. Someone who's been quietly struggling gets flagged. And often, without anyone quite deciding to, the machinery of performance management starts to move.

So this month I want to sit with a distinction I find myself drawing again and again in my work: the difference between a genuine performance problem and a management one. Because a lot of what gets labelled underperformance in neurodivergent people isn't underperformance at all. It's a mismatch that nobody has looked at properly, dressed up in the language of capability.

When the process starts from the wrong question

Performance management, done well, is a reasonable thing. Someone isn't meeting the standard, you name it clearly, you work out why, you support them to close the gap. Nothing wrong with that.

The trouble is where it usually starts. It starts with the person is the problem. The output is down, the deadlines are slipping, the meetings aren't landing, so the question becomes "how do we get this person to perform?" And once that's the question, everything after it points the same way: at the individual, their effort, their attitude, their capability.

What that question skips is the one underneath it: is this person struggling with the job, or struggling with the way the job is set up? Those are completely different problems with completely different fixes, and you cannot tell them apart from the output alone. Two people can miss the same deadline for entirely opposite reasons. One genuinely can't do the work. The other can do it easily, on a good day, in the right conditions, and is being quietly ground down by conditions that were never designed with them in mind.

If you start the process without separating those two, you'll treat the second person as if they were the first. And that rarely ends anywhere good.

What it looks like from the inside

I worked with a client, an ADHD man in a role he was, on paper, extremely good at. The technical side came easily to him. What didn't come easily was the shape of the week: constant small interruptions, a manager who briefed things verbally in passing and expected them to stick, and a workload that arrived in no particular order with no sense of what mattered most.

By the time he came to me, he was six weeks into an informal performance plan. The feedback he'd been given was that he was "inconsistent" and "hard to rely on." He'd internalised it completely. He genuinely believed he was bad at his job.

When we actually mapped what was happening, a different picture appeared. On the days he had a clear written brief and a couple of hours without interruption, his work was excellent, better than most of the team's. On the days he was pulled in six directions and briefed on the fly, it fell apart. His performance wasn't inconsistent in the way the word implies. It was highly consistent - it tracked, almost perfectly, with whether the environment let him think.

None of that had come up in a single performance conversation, because nobody had asked the question that would surface it. The plan was busy trying to fix him. The fix he actually needed took his manager about a fortnight to put in place: briefs in writing, and a standing agreement that "urgent" had to actually mean urgent. He's still there, still doing well. He came within a few weeks of being managed out of a job he was good at.

That's the pattern I want managers to notice. Not because every struggling employee is secretly excellent, but because you cannot know which situation you're in until you've looked properly, and the performance process as it's usually run doesn't make you look.

The tell that you might be in the wrong process

There's a rough signal I've come to trust. When performance genuinely reflects capability, it tends to be broadly stable. The person is at a certain level, and that level holds across different conditions.

When performance swings hard depending on the setup - brilliant in some weeks, struggling in others, strong on the written work and shaky in the room, sharp in the morning and gone by mid-afternoon - that variability is telling you something. It's rarely a capability problem. It's usually an environment problem wearing a capability problem's clothes. Capability doesn't fluctuate that much week to week. Conditions do.

So before the plan, before the objectives and the review dates, it's worth asking: is this steady, or does it swing? Because if it swings, you're very possibly about to run a performance process on a problem that a performance process cannot fix - and the process itself will make things worse, because being watched and measured is precisely the condition under which a stretched neurodivergent person has least left to give.

What actually helps

None of this is an argument against ever managing performance. It's an argument for checking which problem you have before you pick your tool.

- Ask what changes the output, not just what the output is. Before you formalise anything, get curious about the pattern. When is the work good? When does it fall down? What's different about those times? You're looking for the conditions, not the character.

- Separate the environment from the person, on purpose. Put the question plainly to yourself: if I fixed the setup - the interruptions, the verbal briefs, the unpredictable load - would this problem still exist? If you can't answer, you don't yet know what problem you're solving.

- Have the adjustment conversation before the capability one. If there's any chance a change to how the work is structured would help, try that first. It's faster, it's cheaper, and it tells you something either way. If performance recovers, you had a management problem. If it doesn't, you now have much better ground to stand on.

- Watch your own language. "Inconsistent," "unreliable," "not a team player" are conclusions dressed as observations. They close the question down. "Their work varies a lot depending on the week" keeps it open, and open is where the useful information is.

- Remember what being managed feels like from underneath. A performance process is high-visibility and high-stakes by design. For someone already spending a chunk of their capacity coping with an environment that doesn't fit, that scrutiny is not neutral. It removes the very slack they were using to hold things together. Sometimes the process creates the decline it then measures.

This isn't about lowering the bar or excusing genuine underperformance, which is real and does need managing. It's about not mistaking one thing for the other, because the cost of getting it wrong is high - you lose good people, slowly and then suddenly, and you usually never find out they were good.

The other side of it

This cuts both ways, and a fair bit of my work sits on the employee's side of it. Plenty of my clients genuinely can't see their own pattern either. They've been told they're inconsistent so many times that they believe it, and part of the work is helping them notice that their difficulty isn't random - that it tracks with something, and that something is often changeable. Those conversations land far better when the manager is asking the same question from the other direction, rather than the individual having to make the entire case alone.

Worth a thought

Next time someone on your team is drifting towards a performance conversation, it's worth pausing on one question before the process starts: is this steady, or does it swing?

If it's steady, a performance approach may well be the right one. If it swings, you're probably looking at a mismatch, and there's a decent chance a much smaller and quicker fix is sitting there unfound, because everyone was busy looking at the person.

So: when someone on your team is struggling, where do you look first - at them, or at the conditions they're working in?

Alex

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We're almost into the part of summer where everything is slightly out of shape. Half the team is away, the other half is covering, school has broken up, and the usual rhythm of the week has gone. In our house, the whole structure we rely on during term time has quietly dissolved, and we're rebuilding it from scratch every morning, with mixed results.

It's a useful time of year to think about flexibility, because summer is when most organisations discover how flexible they actually are, rather than how flexible they say they are. The policy gets tested. The gaps show up.

And this is the thing I keep hearing from clients. Their employer offers flexible working. It's in the policy. It's on the careers page. And yet the flexibility, when they try to use it, doesn't quite fit the shape of the problem it was meant to solve. They have the thing they asked for, they're still struggling, and now they feel worse about it, because what more could they reasonably expect?

Flexibility that only moves in one direction

Most flexible working policies are built around two variables: location and hours. Work from home two days a week. Start between eight and ten. Finish early on Fridays.

That's a genuinely good thing, and for a lot of people it's enough. But look at what it quietly assumes. It assumes the person's difficulty is where they work or when they start. For a lot of neurodivergent people, that isn't the difficulty at all.

The difficulty is that capacity is not evenly distributed. Some days there is plenty and some days there is very little, and the pattern doesn't announce itself in advance. A flexible policy that lets someone start at 9.30 instead of 9.00 doesn't help much when the actual problem is that today is a day where three back-to-back meetings will cost triple what they normally cost, and by two o'clock there will be nothing left for the work those meetings were about.

Then there's the shape of the work itself. A lot of what makes a workplace hard has nothing to do with the clock or the commute. It's the open-plan noise. The meeting moved with twenty minutes' notice. The manager who thinks out loud and expects an answer on the spot. None of that is touched by a hybrid working policy. You can work from home two days a week and still be run into the ground by the other three.

I had a client, an autistic woman in a senior role, offered hybrid working as the answer to her difficulty coping with the office. She took it gratefully. It changed nothing. The thing actually breaking her wasn't the building - it was that her calendar was public, so anyone could drop a meeting into it without warning, and she could never plan her energy more than an hour ahead. Two days at home didn't touch that. When we finally worked out the real request - meetings needing 24 hours' notice unless genuinely urgent - it took her manager about four minutes to agree. A year of struggle, solved by something nobody had thought to offer, because everyone assumed the problem was the commute.

That's the pattern. The flexibility on the shelf is rarely the flexibility that's needed, and the person often can't name what they need either, because they've spent so long assuming their difficulty is a personal failing rather than a mismatch with the work.

What flexibility often costs to use

Here's the part that tends to surprise managers most.

A lot of flexible working requires the person to ask. Every time. Can I move this meeting? Can I take this call as audio only? Can I work from home tomorrow, and here's a small explanation of why, phrased carefully so it doesn't sound like I'm slacking.

Each of those asks is a small piece of work. Not the logistics, which are trivial, but the social calculation underneath: how many times have I asked this month, is this the one that tips me into being seen as difficult, do I need to justify this or will justifying it make it worse? For someone who already spends significant energy working out unwritten social rules, that calculation is expensive. It's a tax on the very thing that was meant to help.

And the tax gets steeper the more you need the thing. On a good day, asking is easy. On a bad day, when the flexibility would actually make a difference, the capacity required to ask for it is exactly the capacity you don't have. The support is most out of reach at the moment you most need it.

I've worked with people who had a full suite of adjustments agreed on paper and used almost none of them, because using them meant a conversation, and the conversation cost more than the adjustment gave back. One client had explicit, written permission to work from home whenever he needed to. He went into the office five days a week for a year, because he never felt he'd had a good enough reason on any given day. His manager, I'm sure, thought the adjustment was working fine. From the outside, it looked like a solved problem, right up until he went off sick.

There's a related trap: when someone uses flexibility that others don't, they often feel they have to earn it. So they overcompensate - reply faster than anyone, take on work they should have declined - and the adjustment meant to reduce load quietly adds a layer of performance on top. If your culture treats visibility as commitment, no amount of written flexibility will feel safe to use.

What this costs the organisation

It's easy to file all of this under staff wellbeing. I'd push back on that because the costs land squarely on the business.

You lose good people slowly and then all at once. Someone running at the edge of their capacity for two years doesn't send up a flare - they absorb it until they can't, and then they go off sick or leave. From the outside, it looks sudden. It rarely is. You also lose the good part of the work: when a person spends a meaningful slice of their capacity managing an environment that doesn't fit them, that slice comes out of the work. You're paying for it either way - the only question is whether you get it.

None of this is dramatic. Most of the fixes are genuinely small. But they're only small if you find them, and you only find them if you go looking.

What actually helps

Some of this is small. Most of it costs nothing.

● Make the flexibility default, not requested. "You can work from home on Wednesdays" works. "You can work from home when you need to, just ask" hands the burden of judgement to the person least placed to carry it. If a thing is genuinely allowed, remove the ask.

● Widen what counts as flexible. Flexibility in how work is done is often worth more than flexibility in where or when. Camera on or off. Agenda in advance. The option to respond in writing after a meeting rather than on the spot. A protected block of focus time. These are cheap, and they land where the difficulty actually is.

● Ask what the flexibility is for. Not "would you like to work from home," but "what part of the week is hardest, and what would take the edge off it?" You'll often get a completely different answer to the one the policy anticipated, and usually a much smaller one.

● Check the usage, not the offer. If you have adjustments in place that nobody uses, that's information. It doesn't mean they weren't needed. It usually means something is making them hard to take up, and that something is worth finding.

● Say out loud, more than once, that it's fine. A manager saying "genuinely, use it, I'm not counting" does more than a policy document ever will - and it needs repeating, because one mention at an induction won't outweigh a lifetime of learning that asking gets you noticed the wrong way.

None of this means every request should be granted or that structure doesn't matter. Teams need predictability too, and there are real operational limits. The aim is to reduce the number of moments where someone spends energy asking for something you'd have said yes to anyway.

The other side of it

This isn't all on the employer. A good chunk of my work with clients is exactly this: helping them get clear on what they actually need, ask for it plainly, and use it without apologising for it. Many have never been asked what would help, and don't have an answer ready the first time someone does. But that work goes far better when it's met halfway - so the individual doesn't have to carry the whole weight of translating their needs into something that sounds reasonable enough to be granted.

Worth a thought

Have a look at the flexible working and adjustments you already offer, and ask a slightly uncomfortable question: who is actually using them?

If the answer is "not many people," it's tempting to conclude they weren't needed. In my experience that's almost never the reason. The offer exists, and something in the gap between the offer and the person is stopping it landing. That gap is usually workable once you can see it, and often much smaller than people expect.

So: what does flexibility actually look like where you work - not on paper, but on a Tuesday?

Alex

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Some weeks remind us how deceptive a light-looking day can be. A couple of calls, a few emails, and a phone conversation I'd been putting off. Nothing that would look like much on paper. But by mid-afternoon, it can feel exhausting.

It's something I hear regularly, usually with a mix of confusion and frustration:

“Why am I so tired? I didn't even do that much today.”

They might have taken one meeting. Replied to a few emails. Made a phone call they'd been putting off. On paper, it looks like a light day. But by 3 pm, they feel done and find it hard to explain why.

For the people managing or working alongside them, it can look equally confusing. Here's what I think is happening, and why it matters.

Tasks have a hidden cost

When most people think about energy and work, they think in terms of time. An hour-long meeting costs one hour. A thirty-minute email takes thirty minutes. It's logical.

But for many neurodivergent people, that's not how energy actually works.

The real cost of a task isn't just the time it takes. It includes everything else the brain is doing in the background: monitoring everyone's tone, managing any feelings of anxiety, tracking unspoken rules, filtering sensory input, suppressing impulses, and holding the context.

A thirty-minute meeting that involves heavy masking, reading the room, choosing words carefully, managing how you come across might cost three hours of recovery. The maths simply doesn't add up the way it would for someone who isn't carrying all of that.

I think of this as energy accounting. Not budgeting (which implies you can plan it perfectly), but accounting: tracking what actually went out, not just what you planned to spend.

The challenge, from a management perspective, is that none of this is visible. The meeting that costs three hours of recovery looks identical from the outside to the one that doesn't. The task that requires generating structure from scratch looks the same on paper as one with a clear brief. Without understanding which kinds of work carry the highest hidden cost, it's very difficult to read someone's energy accurately or plan their time in a way that actually works.

The tasks that catch people out most

In my experience, the tasks with the highest hidden costs tend to be:

Social and communicative work. Meetings, calls, networking events. The performance involved is exhausting in a way that isn't visible to anyone else in the room.

Open-ended or ambiguous tasks. When there's no clear structure, the brain has to generate the structure first. That's a significant overhead before you've even started.

Switching between very different kinds of work. Moving from deep focus into admin, then into a call, then back to deep focus. Each switch carries a cognitive cost that doesn't show up in a calendar.

Decision-heavy days. Even small decisions stack up. By the end of a day full of choices, however minor, the tank can be close to empty.

What this means in practice, for the people around them

The aim isn't to remove all demanding work. That's not realistic. It's to make the hidden costs visible, so they can be planned for honestly rather than quietly written off as a performance issue.

A few things that make a real difference when you're managing or supporting someone navigating this:

Don't read a quiet diary as a light day. A day with two meetings and some deep work can be exhausting, depending on what those meetings involve. When you're scheduling someone's time, building in buffers between high-demand work allows people to actually get the work done. Spend time understanding what that looks like for different people.

Allow people to name the real cost without judgment - take the lead on this. A lot of this goes unspoken because flagging it feels like a complaint. If someone says a particular meeting takes a lot out of them, that's honest and should be listened to. Creating space for that kind of honesty changes what support is actually possible.

Watch for the pattern, not just the output. If someone is consistently depleted after certain kinds of work, particular meeting formats, back-to-back days, or ambiguous briefs, that's a signal worth paying attention to. The question isn't only “are they delivering?” but “what does the cost look like, and is there a way to reduce it?”

Do you recognise this in someone on your team? The days that looked manageable on paper but left them running on empty by the afternoon?

If you're thinking about how to better support neurodivergent people in your organisation, feel free to get in touch.

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April feels like a good-intentions month. New quarter, lighter mornings, a quiet sense that now, surely now, you'll finally get on top of things.

For a lot of people I work with, that feeling comes with a renewed attempt at a checklist.

A new app. A new notebook. Everything that needs doing, finally laid out in categories with headings and maybe a bit of colour-coding. It looks good for about three days. Then the undone items start to accumulate. The list stops feeling useful and starts feeling accusatory. Eventually, because looking at it has become its own kind of stress, you stop looking at it altogether.

If that sounds familiar, you're not failing at productivity. You're probably using a system that wasn't designed for how your brain works.

A cluttered desk covered in notebooks, loose papers, and sticky notes with reminders and deadlines.

Why standard checklists often go wrong

Standard checklists are built on a few assumptions that often don't hold for autistic and ADHD brains.

They assume that seeing a task written down is enough to motivate you to do it. They assume the order of the list maps onto the order things should get done. They assume that an unchecked box is neutral; just a reminder, not a verdict.

For many neurodivergent people, none of that holds up.

Tasks without urgency or genuine interest don't move just because they're written down. The order of a list rarely maps onto available energy. And a page of unchecked boxes? That stops being a reminder and starts being evidence of everything you haven't managed, everything that's slipping, everything you said you'd do.

That emotional charge is its own cognitive load. Eventually the list stops being a tool and becomes the problem.

I had a client a while back who showed me their to-do app in a session. It had 94 items on it. Some had been sitting there for over a year. They told me they opened it every morning, felt immediately overwhelmed, closed it, and tried to hold everything in their head instead which is its own exhausting, unreliable system. The list wasn't helping them get things done. It was just a daily reminder of everything they hadn't.

That's not a personal failing. That's a badly designed tool for that particular brain.

The backlog problem

One thing that makes this worse is the impulse, often encouraged by productivity advice, to do a full brain dump first. Get everything out of your head and onto paper. Clear the mental clutter.

For some people, this works. For many neurodivergent people, it creates a new problem: a list so long it has no usable shape.

When everything is on the list, nothing has priority. Every time you look at it, you have to re-decide what matters. That decision-making cost adds up quickly, and the list starts to feel like a weight rather than a release.

There's also the time and energy that went into creating it. A two-hour brain dump that produces a 60-item list feels productive in the moment. A week later, when most of those items are still there, it can feel like evidence of your own stuckness.

The impulse to capture everything is understandable. It comes from anxiety about dropping things, about forgetting, about losing track. But a list that creates more anxiety than it relieves isn't serving you, however thorough it looks.

What tends to work instead

The lists that actually help my clients have a few things in common.

They're short. Not a full brain dump of everything outstanding. Just the two or three things that matter today. Sometimes just one. The goal is to create a win, not to document the entire backlog. A short list you actually complete is more useful than a long list you avoid.

They're specific about what "done" means. "Sort finances" is not a task. "Email the accountant" is. "Work on the report" is not a task. "Write the introduction section" is. Vague items stay undone because there's no clear way in. When a task has a real entry point - a specific action, a specific person, a specific thing to open or type - it becomes possible to start. The more ambiguous a task is, the more likely it is to sit there unfinished.

They don't carry forward shame. When the day ends, incomplete items don't get highlighted in red. They get moved to tomorrow deliberately, or they get removed entirely. An item that keeps not getting done is usually a sign it's the wrong task, the wrong time, or not actually yours to carry.

They match energy rather than logic. Some people find it useful to mark tasks by what they cost: low-effort items for low-energy moments, high-focus work for when the conditions are right. The list becomes a menu you can choose from, rather than a queue you're supposed to work through in order. This matters especially when energy levels are inconsistent day to day, which, for many neurodivergent people, they genuinely are.

They live somewhere visible. This sounds obvious, but it matters. A list you can't see is a list you won't use. Sticky note on the desk. One note on your phone, not buried in an app. Whatever you'll actually look at without effort.

A note on the shame part

The shame that builds up around checklists is worth naming directly, because it's not a small thing.

When a tool that's supposed to help starts making you feel worse, it's easy to conclude that you're the problem. That if you were more organised, more consistent, more like other people, the system would work.

That's not what's happening. The system isn't working because it wasn't built for you.

There's no shortage of productivity frameworks and checklist apps. Most of them assume consistent energy, reliable motivation, and a reasonably stable relationship with time. That's not a universal experience, and for neurodivergent people, it's often actively inaccurate.

The shame can also create a second layer of difficulty: avoidance. When an abandoned to-do app starts to feel like a symbol of your own failure, you stop opening it. Then tasks genuinely do get dropped. Then there's real evidence to point to. It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle, and the original cause of a tool that didn't fit gets lost in the noise.

Breaking that cycle usually starts with giving yourself permission to scrap the current system entirely. Not improve it, not add better tags and categories. Just scrap it, and start with something smaller and more honest.

Figuring out what actually works for you isn't a workaround or a compromise. It's just being honest about the brain you have and building from there.

This isn't about finding the perfect system

It's worth saying plainly: there is no perfect system. What works changes depending on what's happening in your life, what kind of work you're doing, and how your energy is running.

What I'd suggest instead of searching for the right system is running a short experiment. For one week, try a daily list of no more than three items. Make each one specific. At the end of each day, notice how it felt, not whether you got everything done, but whether the list helped or got in the way. Adjust from there.

Good enough and working beats perfect and abandoned every time.

If you've tried and quietly abandoned a checklist system, it's worth asking what got in the way. Was it the length? The undone items piling up? Something about the format that just didn't click?

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I often have conversations with organisations about what meaningful support for neurodivergent staff actually looks like.

Often the question starts with something simple:

“Should we offer coaching?” “Would training help managers?” “Would group programmes work better?”

The honest answer is that there isn’t one type of support that solves everything.

Different approaches support people at different levels of a workplace. Some help individuals develop strategies. Others help managers understand how to support their teams. Others focus on organisational culture and systems.

When organisations rely on only one of these, support often becomes patchy. When these approaches are layered together, the impact can be much stronger.

Here are a few of the most common forms of support I see making a real difference.

Individual coaching

Individual coaching gives people space to explore how their brain works, what drains their energy, and what working strategies actually help them.

It can support things like navigating workplace dynamics, managing overwhelm, and building personalised ways of working.

The strength of coaching is that it adapts to the individual. The limitation is that coaching alone cannot change organisational systems.

Group coaching

Group programmes create a space where people can learn from each other’s experiences and approaches.

For many neurodivergent professionals, simply realising that others face similar challenges can reduce isolation and open up new ways of thinking about work.

Group work can be powerful for shared themes such as workload, communication and disclosure.

At the same time, some people prefer the privacy and depth of individual coaching.

Coaching clinics

Coaching clinics offer shorter, focused sessions where employees can bring a specific challenge.

For example:

• preparing for a difficult conversation

• thinking through an adjustment request

• untangling a piece of work that feels overwhelming

They’re a flexible way to make support more accessible across a wider workforce.

Manager training and organisational support

Many workplace challenges are not about individuals at all. They’re about how environments are structured.

Manager training can help build understanding around communication styles, executive functioning differences, and adjustments.

At the organisational level, reviewing policies, processes and expectations can reduce barriers before individuals have to ask for support.

The key idea is that meaningful support usually involves several layers working together.

Individual coaching. Group learning. Manager training. Organisational change.

Each plays a different role.

If you're interested in exploring this in more depth, I’ve written a longer piece looking at the strengths and limitations of different types of support.

You can read the full article here:

https://connectcoaching.net/article/types-of-support

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Hi,

I’ve been reflecting recently on how much the conversation around neurodiversity has shifted. When I first started working in this space over twenty years ago, the word “neurodiversity” wasn’t widely used. Most of the work was reactive and individualised. Now, organisations talk openly about neurodivergent talent. Leaders disclose diagnoses. Inclusion appears in strategy documents.

That shift genuinely matters.

But I’m noticing something else as well. Awareness is moving faster than implementation.

In my day-to-day work, I support neurodivergent professionals across NHS teams, civil service departments, education settings and private organisations. Many of these organisations would describe themselves as supportive. And often, culturally, they are. There is goodwill. There is intention. There are policies.

Where things become more complicated is at the level of system design.

Where I See Things Breaking Down

Over the years, I’ve sat with highly capable people who are described internally as “brilliant but inconsistent” or “high potential but struggling.”

When we look closely, what tends to sit underneath that isn’t ability. It’s cognitive load.

It often looks like:

• Deadlines that are implied rather than explicit
• Priorities that shift without a clear hierarchy
• Meetings that rely heavily on fast verbal processing
• Instructions delivered verbally with no written follow-up
• “ASAP” becoming the default language of urgency

Some people can absorb that without visible strain. Others can do it for a while. But many are quietly using significant energy to translate ambiguity into clarity before they can even begin the actual task.

That isn’t a motivation issue. It’s a design issue.

Executive Functioning in Real Workplaces

A lot of my work focuses on executive functioning in professional environments. Not as a diagnostic label, but as a daily lived experience.

What happens on a Tuesday afternoon when:

• Three priorities collide
• A deadline moves
• A senior leader says “just get it done”
• Nobody defines what “good enough” looks like

If your systems assume strong working memory, rapid task switching, comfort with vague instruction and consistent daily output, you are designing for one cognitive profile.

That may not be intentional. But it has impact.

The Pattern I’m Seeing More of

In the last year especially, I’ve seen a rise in neurodivergent middle managers seeking support.

They are often capable, thoughtful and committed. They translate ambiguity from senior leadership. They support their teams emotionally. They mask to maintain credibility.

On the surface, they look steady. Internally, many are exhausted.

Without training, fatigue is misread as capability gaps. Direct communication is misread as attitude. Time inconsistency is misread as unreliability.

After two decades in this field, including managing adult autism services, delivering consultancy within large organisations, supporting Access to Work processes and coaching professionals from pre-employment to senior leadership, I’ve become less interested in awareness sessions and more interested in operational clarity.

Culture matters. But systems shape daily experience.

What Operational Inclusion Actually Looks Like

Inclusion at a structural level is often surprisingly practical. It looks like:

• Agendas sent in advance as standard
• Written summaries after meetings
• Defined response-time norms
• Clear priority hierarchies
• Explicit “good enough” standards
• Transparent and consistent adjustment pathways

These are not specialist adjustments. They are clarity structures. And clarity reduces cognitive load for everyone.

A More Useful Question

If organisations are reviewing their neurodiversity approach this year, the more useful question may not be:

“Do we support neurodiversity?”

But rather:

“Have we designed our systems with cognitive difference in mind?” That question moves the conversation from awareness to accountability.

The training and consultancy I now deliver focuses on that practical level. Executive functioning in professional settings. Workload and communication design. Supporting neurodivergent managers. Moving from reactive adjustments to proactive system thinking.

It draws on two decades of pattern recognition, lived experience within my own family, and the realities I see weekly in coaching conversations. If that is a conversation your organisation is ready to have, I’m always open to exploring it.

Is awareness translating into system change? Or is the language evolving faster than the structures?

Alex

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Rather than listing themes this month, I want to share a composite case. It’s drawn from multiple organisations I’ve worked with over time, but the shape of the story is consistent and increasingly familiar.

This organisation wasn’t resistant to inclusion. They weren’t doing the bare minimum. They genuinely cared and had already invested time, energy, and budget into “doing the right thing”.

And yet, something still wasn’t quite landing.

On the surface, performance looked solid. People were capable, committed, and largely getting the work done. But underneath that, there was a sense of strain; work felt heavier than it should, and more brittle than anyone expected.

Where they started: good intent, unexpected friction

At the beginning, the organisation was doing what many well-intentioned workplaces do.

They had run neurodiversity awareness sessions that were well received. They encouraged managers to be flexible, empathetic, and open-minded. They stepped in to support individuals when difficulties became visible.

None of this was wrong. Some of it was genuinely helpful.

What was harder to see was how much invisible effort people were putting in to make things work:

• Managers quietly smoothing over gaps in unclear processes
• Employees over-preparing, double-checking, and compensating to avoid being seen as “difficult”
• Adjustments happening late, often once stress, sickness, or burnout has already taken hold

The organisation wasn’t inactive, but inclusion relied heavily on personal judgement, confidence, and goodwill. Support depended on who asked, how loudly, and how safe they felt doing so.

What was actually difficult (and rarely said out loud)

The hardest part wasn’t resistance. It was uncertainty.

Managers wanted to do the right thing, but they were carrying questions they didn’t feel able to voice openly:

• How flexible am I actually allowed to be here?
• If I adjust this role, will I be challenged later?
• How do I balance individual need without creating inconsistency or resentment?

At the same time, neurodivergent staff and others struggling quietly were running their own calculations:

• Is this reasonable to ask for, or should I just cope?
• If I’m managing now, does that mean I don’t “need” support?
• How much explaining is enough before it feels like too much?

Everyone was thinking hard. Almost no one felt fully supported in doing so.

This is where a lot of inclusion work stalls, not because people don’t care, but because there’s no shared language or container for the complexity people are holding.

The first shift: moving beyond awareness

What helped initially was acknowledging, honestly, that awareness had reached its limit.

The organisation didn’t need more introductions to neurodivergence or more reminders to be kind. What they needed was permission and practical support to discuss how work actually functions day-to-day.

Training still had a role, but its focus shifted:

• Away from labels, traits, and checklists
• Towards cognitive load, clarity, decision-making, and energy
• Towards what managers are realistically being asked to hold

This created a subtle but important change. Managers stopped feeling they should already know how to do this well. Instead, they felt able to say, “I’m not sure, and I’d like support to work it through.”

That shift alone reduced a lot of quiet pressure.

The harder part: looking at systems, not people

The most uncomfortable phase came next.

Instead of asking individuals what they needed to do differently, the organisation started looking at its own defaults:

• Where expectations were implied rather than clearly stated
• Where roles relied on interpretation instead of shared understanding
• Where processes quietly created cognitive and emotional overload

This is the point where consultancy and facilitated reflection became more useful than training alone.

These weren’t fast conversations. They involved noticing patterns across teams, challenging long-held assumptions, and being honest about what wasn’t working as intended. That can feel exposing, especially for organisations that care deeply about doing the right thing.

Supporting managers properly, not just expecting more of them

One of the clearest insights to emerge was just how much inclusion work managers were already doing which was largely unsupported.

They were being asked to:

• Interpret policy in complex, real-world situations
• Hold emotional and cognitive strain in their teams
• Support neurodivergent needs while maintaining performance
• Make judgement calls that felt high-stakes and highly visible

What changed wasn’t that expectations were lowered, but support became explicit and ongoing.

This included:

• Coaching clinics where managers could bring real, current scenarios
• Supervision-style spaces to reflect on decisions, boundaries, and uncertainty
• Ongoing consultancy to translate values into everyday practice
• Shared language and light frameworks to reduce guesswork

This wasn’t about turning managers into experts. It was about helping them feel confident, consistent, and less isolated.

What changed and why it mattered

Over time, the organisation didn’t become perfect.

But it became steadier.

Expectations were named earlier and more clearly. Adjustments became preventative rather than crisis-led. People spent less energy second-guessing themselves. Managers felt more able to explain decisions and stand by them.

The work itself was still demanding. But it was more workable, and that made a real difference to sustainability.

Why this matters commercially, not just ethically

For senior leaders, the impact of deeper inclusion is rarely theoretical.

When systems rely on constant personal compensation, the cost shows up quietly:

• Burnout in experienced, capable staff
• Managers are stretched thin and losing confidence
• Retention issues with no obvious cause
• Inclusion spend that doesn’t translate into daily experience

Organisations that invest in inclusion capability tend to see:

• Better retention of skilled people
• Fewer stress-related absences
• More consistent management practice
• Less time lost to misunderstanding, rework, and escalation

In simple terms: when work makes sense, people can do it better, and for longer.

A final reflection

If parts of this story feel familiar, it doesn’t mean your organisation has failed at inclusion.

More often, it means you’re ready for the next stage, where awareness turns into capability, and good intent is supported by guidance, partnership, and shared practice.

If this feels like a conversation worth having, you’re very welcome to get in touch. And if you’re reading this thinking, “This would help our managers put words to what they’re carrying,” please feel free to share it internally.

Inclusion doesn’t stick because people care more. It sticks because organisations learn how to do it together.

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Every December, there’s a noticeable shift in the kind of content that circulates about neurodivergence and Christmas.

Advice appears in abundance. Lists, scripts, strategies, and coping tools. Most of it is thoughtful. Much of it is genuinely helpful. And by this point in the year, many neurodivergent people already know it.

So this newsletter isn’t another guide to getting through Christmas.

Not because those conversations don’t matter, but because what often feels harder isn’t knowing what to do. It’s carrying everything around it.

When advice isn’t really the issue

December brings a particular kind of work that often goes unseen. It isn’t just the events themselves, but everything that happens around them: the planning ahead, the anticipating, the emotional regulation that starts long before anything actually happens. It’s the effort of holding multiple expectations at once - your own, your family’s, work, and wider social expectations - and trying to keep them balanced enough to get through the month.

Even thoughtful, well-meant advice can quietly add pressure when it assumes people have more choice, flexibility, or capacity than they actually do. You can know all the strategies and still feel worn down by the constant need to manage yourself, adapt, explain, or justify your needs. That doesn’t mean you’re failing to cope. It means a lot is being carried.

There isn’t one way to experience December

It’s also worth saying this clearly: there isn’t a single neurodivergent way to experience December. Some people enjoy it, some tolerate it, some find it deeply uncomfortable or exhausting, and some feel fine until, suddenly, they don’t. All of those experiences are valid.

There can also be a quiet pressure, even within neurodivergent spaces, to experience December in a particular way - to find it hard, but in the “right” way, with the “right” coping strategies attached. In reality, December is often uneven. Energy shifts, capacity changes, and what felt manageable last year might not feel that way now. That doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong.

Permission rather than optimisation

Instead of offering another set of techniques this month, I want to offer something simpler: permission. Permission for things to be imperfect. Permission for “enough” to genuinely be enough. Permission to acknowledge that what looks small or manageable from the outside may be taking a lot internally.

You don’t need to optimise Christmas. You don’t need to perform resilience. And you don’t need to explain or justify your limits for them to be real. If you’re getting through December in a way that works for you - quietly, messily, selectively, or differently than you expected - that still counts.

Why stories can help

This is one of the reasons stories can matter so much at this time of year. They don’t tell you what to do, they don’t wrap things up neatly, and they don’t need to be explicitly about Christmas to reflect experiences many neurodivergent people recognise immediately.

I wanted to share the trailer for a short film that does exactly that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnOCAawzv6U

The film follows Zoe, an autistic actor navigating auditions, conversations, and expectations that repeatedly reduce her to a set of assumptions. She’s asked to define her autism in simplistic terms, compared to Rain Man, told she doesn’t “look autistic enough”, or that she needs to be “more autistic” to fit a role. Her identity is constantly filtered through other people’s ideas of what autism should look like and how it should be performed.

What the film captures particularly well is the everyday negotiation underneath those moments: deciding how much to explain, working out when to go along with something, when to push back, and when to stay quiet. It shows the tension between wanting to be seen as yourself and knowing that the system you’re in isn’t really built for that.

There’s a moment near the end where Zoe talks about watching The Flintstones and The Jetsons as a child, and realising that neither the past nor the future she saw on screen seemed to have space for someone like her. It lands quietly but powerfully. Representation isn’t just about being visible; it’s about being able to imagine yourself existing in the world at all.

What stayed with me most is that the film doesn’t try to resolve this neatly. It doesn’t reassure or smooth things over. Instead, it allows discomfort, humour, frustration, anger, and clarity to sit alongside each other. It lets a neurodivergent experience exist on its own terms, without explanation or apology.

The film is currently looking for screening opportunities in the UK. Sharing it, talking about it, or helping it reach a wider audience is one small way of supporting more honest and nuanced neurodivergent storytelling -the kind that doesn’t flatten difference or make it easier to digest.

A final note

If this newsletter resonated, you’re very welcome to share it with someone who might need it. And if December is something you’re simply getting through rather than reflecting on deeply, that’s okay too.

If you’re interested in working together - whether that’s individual coaching or support for organisations wanting to move beyond surface-level inclusion - you can find more information at connectcoaching.net. There’s no pressure. It’s there if and when it’s useful.

Sometimes that really is enough.

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Recently, the Government’s review into ADHD, autism, and mental health has been framed as a response to “concerns about overdiagnosis.” But when you look closely at the data, the timing, and the political messaging, that explanation doesn’t hold up. So it’s worth asking: what might actually be driving this review? Here are some possibilities that haven’t been discussed honestly enough:

𝟭. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗽 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗳𝗶𝘁 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗺𝘀 - 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺

The surge in PIP and Universal Credit health-related claims has been widely reported. A large proportion relates to mental health, neurodivergence, and burnout. Rather than asking why so many people are unwell or why workplaces and services are failing people, the government has chosen to question whether people are “really” disabled. This is not about diagnostic accuracy. It’s about controlling welfare spending.

𝟮. 𝗔 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗛𝗦 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘀

Waiting lists for autism assessments have increased 13-fold since 2019. But the cause isn’t a sudden epidemic of neurodivergence. It’s staff shortages, chronic underfunding, inconsistent pathways, lack of early support, and fragmented service design. It is politically expedient to suggest the system is overwhelmed because “too many people” are seeking diagnoses, not because services have been under-resourced for a decade. The review provides a neat distraction: Don’t look at system failure, look at the people using it.

𝟯. 𝗔 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲

If you’ve never lived it or worked closely with neurodivergent adults, you might imagine diagnoses are being handed out casually. In reality, people wait years. Many are dismissed. Adults have masked for decades. Burnout is common. Support is rare and inconsistent. Post-diagnosis provision is almost non-existent. Demand isn’t rising because people want labels. It’s rising because people have finally hit their breaking point. This review may be rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of neurodiversity, still treated as a fringe anomaly rather than a sizeable part of the population.

𝟰. 𝗔 𝗽𝘂𝘀𝗵 𝘁𝗼 𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗴𝗻𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱𝘀

If you reframe neurodivergence as a “trend,” it becomes easier to justify tightening criteria. Fewer diagnoses = fewer support obligations = lower public cost. But the people who lose out are the same ones already falling through the cracks: late-diagnosed women, low-income families, and anyone who doesn’t fit old stereotypes. Policy can quietly cause harm.

𝟱. 𝗔𝗻 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗽𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘁 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮 𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗹𝘆

Public understanding of ADHD and autism has moved rapidly in the last 5–7 years. People are more informed, more confident, and more willing to name their lived experience. Systems that weren’t built for neurodivergent people are being asked to adapt. Workplaces are being asked to make adjustments. Schools are being asked to recognise needs earlier. Benefits systems are being challenged. For some political actors, this shift feels threatening. The review is a way to slow the pace and regain control.

𝟲. 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆

People are easier to scrutinise than systems. It is much easier to hint that adults are being “too quick to self-identify” than to ask why burnout, anxiety, trauma, and work-related stress have become endemic. It is easier to question diagnostic practice than address the national shortage of psychologists, psychiatrists, and specialist assessors. It is easier to talk about “labels” than confront the reality that many workplaces are disabling, not inclusive. The review answers a political need rather than a clinical one.

𝗦𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻?

It means the review is not happening in a vacuum. It is happening in a context where mental health services are overwhelmed, public spending is under scrutiny, work capacity is politicised, neurodivergent identity is growing in visibility, and the narrative is shifting faster than government policy. When you zoom out, the question isn’t: “𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗴𝗻𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗱?” The question becomes: “𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝗼 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗱?”

Neurodivergent people are not the problem. They are the mirror reflecting a system that hasn’t kept pace with reality. And it seems far easier for policy-makers to challenge the mirror than to rebuild the system.

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As we reach the final stretch of the year, many organisations start speeding up just as a significant number of neurodivergent employees are beginning to run on empty. November is a month where the invisible load increases: darker days, more meetings, heavier deadlines, and rising expectations about “finishing strong.”

For neurodivergent professionals, this period can quietly become one of the hardest of the year. And for organisations, it’s the moment when clarity, structure, and realistic pacing matter more than ever.

Today’s edition focuses on three areas that make a genuine difference to the well-being and performance of neurodivergent staff, and to teams as a whole.

1. The November Dip: What Leaders Often Miss About Energy and Workload Patterns

Many organisations assume that energy simply declines gradually as the year goes on. But neurodivergent energy patterns rarely follow a neat curve. They fluctuate — sometimes sharply — based on sensory conditions, cognitive load, transitions, and pressure points.

In November, several things collide:

• Low daylight impacts processing, sleep, and activation energy
• Q4 pressure increases context switching and decision-making demands
• Longer meeting cycles raise social and sensory load
• “Pre-December expectation building” creates extra emotional labour
• Initiation becomes harder, even when motivation is still present

From the outside, this often looks like inconsistency. Internally, it’s a combination of executive functioning strain, fatigue from maintaining masking, and the cumulative effect of the year’s invisible work.

What Organisations Can Do Now:

To support staff and reduce risk, leaders can:

• Provide predictable timeframes and avoid last-minute requests
• Reduce unnecessary meetings and clarify the purpose of the ones that remain
• Offer written follow-ups so people don’t lose details in real-time discussions
• Allow asynchronous options where possible
• Create clearer weekly rhythms (so people aren’t constantly guessing)

These changes don’t lower standards. They prevent burnout, maintain quality, and allow neurodivergent staff to contribute meaningfully without relying on unsustainable effort.

2. Masking at Work: The Hidden Organisational Risk Factor

Masking is often discussed as a personal challenge. But in a workplace context, it’s also an organisational risk because masking increases at the very moments when teams need clarity, communication, and accuracy most.

In November, masking typically spikes because:

• Deadlines tighten
• Workloads get heavier
• People feel pressure to “finish the year well”
• There’s an unspoken expectation to be positive and flexible
• End-of-year reviews cause anxiety about being judged

Masking may look like:

• Over-preparing for tasks
• Staying silent in meetings
• Over-agreeing to avoid conflict
• Working excessive hours to compensate for feeling behind
• Appearing calm while internally overwhelmed

Why this matters for organisations

Masking hides early signs of burnout. It also hides barriers, which means managers miss opportunities to adjust workflows or catch problems before they escalate.

What supportive leaders do differently

• Make expectations explicit and avoid assumptions
• Build in regular check-ins focused on workload, not wellbeing labels
• Normalise asking clarifying questions
• Offer simple structures (agendas, written summaries, shared task boards)
• Treat predictability as a core inclusion practice
• Recognise that masking isn’t a performance issue -it’s a response to systems that require it

When organisations reduce the need for masking, people communicate earlier, mistakes are reduced, and trust increases.

3. Rethinking Productivity Before Year-End: What Works for Neurodivergent Teams

Traditional productivity approaches fall apart quickly for neurodivergent people, particularly in Q4, when decision fatigue, emotional load, and energy inconsistency are heightened.

Rather than pushing for “more discipline,” workplaces get better results by reducing cognitive load and making work more predictable.

What actually helps neurodivergent staff, and teams overall

• Energy-aligned scheduling: Allowing staff to work on complex tasks during higher-energy windows, rather than fixed hours
• Structured agendas: Clear expectations reduce anxiety and improve focus
• “Minimum viable version” planning: Encourages progress without pressure for perfection
• Preset defaults: Templates, scripts, and standard responses reduce activation energy
• Chunking tasks: Sharing work in smaller, clearer pieces improves both quality and pace
• Operational scaffolding: Systems that support clarity, not micromanagement

When organisations shift from hour-based productivity measures to clarity-based performance measures, neurodivergent staff feel more able to contribute, and teams see more consistent output.

A closing reflection for leaders

If you could make one small change to increase clarity or predictability for your team between now and January, think about what would it be, and what difference might it make?

If your organisation is exploring how to build more neuroinclusive systems, communication practices, or support structures, I’m always happy to speak with HR, DEI teams, or leaders about what practical, sustainable inclusion can look like in real-world workplaces.

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When good intentions meet outdated systems

Recruitment is often where inclusion succeeds, or quietly fails,before someone even joins a team. In my time working with organisations of all sizes, I’ve seen a consistent pattern: companies that genuinely care about neurodiversity but still rely on processes designed for speed, familiarity, and “fit” rather than fairness.

Many teams I’ve supported have already done the right things on paper - awareness sessions, diversity statements, and internal campaigns. But when we look at how people are actually recruited, the same challenges appear:

• Job descriptions are full of ambiguous or personality-based language.
• Application portals that require unnecessary repetition or timed assessments.
• Interviews that depend on small talk, rapid recall, or social intuition rather than job-relevant skills.

It’s rarely intentional. Most organisations simply haven’t stopped to look at their systems through a neuroinclusive lens. And once they do, they begin to realise that inclusion doesn’t start with training - it starts with design.

From awareness to action: What real change looks like

When organisations ask for “neurodiversity training,” my first step is usually to slow things down and ask: What are you hoping will change afterwards? Because real inclusion doesn’t come from information - it comes from reflection, confidence, and consistent action.

A more effective approach is to work across three layers:

1. Consultancy

Begin by mapping the recruitment process itself - from job design to onboarding. Review where clarity is lost, where anxiety builds, and where subjective judgment still dominates decision-making. That often means rewriting job descriptions in plain, specific language, removing unnecessary barriers from application systems, and designing interview questions that focus on genuine skills rather than performance style.

2. Q&A Discussions

Next, create safe, informal spaces for discussion. These are open sessions where HR, hiring managers, or senior leaders can ask questions they might not feel comfortable raising in a formal training. Things like:

“What if a candidate gives very short answers?” “How do I support someone who freezes in an interview?” “What’s the right balance between consistency and flexibility?”

These conversations build understanding through curiosity, not compliance. They shift the tone from “getting it right” to “learning together.”

3. Coaching Clinics

Finally, bring it all to life. Coaching clinics are small, focused sessions where managers bring real recruitment or workplace situations to explore together. Problem-solve, experiment with language, and practise alternative approaches. It’s where the theory becomes real. The more teams practise these conversations, the more confident and adaptable they become.

Across all three stages, the goal isn’t to fix people - it’s to fix the process.

A familiar story: what happens when systems change

Over time, I’ve watched these approaches quietly transform the way organisations hire and support people.

One team I worked with discovered that by simplifying their job descriptions and offering interview options (such as written responses or pre-submitted examples), they attracted a wider and more confident pool of candidates. Another team learned to build in short breaks during panel interviews - something that seems small but made a huge difference for candidates managing sensory load or anxiety.

And in nearly every case, the changes didn’t just benefit neurodivergent candidates - they improved fairness and clarity for everyone. Recruitment became more focused, conversations more honest, and managers more aware of how their expectations could shift from “polish” to potential.

From ‘How do we include?’ to ‘What’s getting in the way?’

One of the most helpful mindset shifts I’ve seen is when organisations stop asking how to include neurodivergent people and start asking what’s currently preventing inclusion.

Sometimes the barriers are procedural (like rigid scoring systems or time-limited tasks). Sometimes, there are cultural, unspoken norms about what “good communication” or “team fit” should look like. But once those barriers are visible, they can be redesigned.

And that’s the real impact of moving from awareness to action: you begin to build a system where people aren’t expected to adapt to exclusion, the system adapts to diversity.

If this resonates with you…

If your organisation is reviewing its recruitment or leadership practices and wants to build genuine inclusion into the process, I’d love to explore what that could look like with you.

We can start with a conversation to identify where the friction points are, and design consultancy, Q&A sessions, or coaching clinics that turn awareness into measurable change.

Book a call here: https://connectcoaching.net/discoverycall

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A September Reset

September always brings a change in pace. After the slower weeks of summer, inboxes fill up, projects restart, and routines tighten. For many of the neurodivergent professionals I work with, this shift often sparks the same question: Do I share more about how I work best? Will it be understood? Will anything actually change if I do?

I find disclosure such an interesting topic because it looks straightforward on the surface, but in practice, it’s messy, emotional, and often risky. And it tells us a lot about whether inclusion is really happening, or just being spoken about.

Why Disclosure Isn’t Straightforward

Disclosure is rarely one big, neat conversation. It usually happens in fragments; mentioning that deadlines are hard to juggle, asking for a quieter space, or admitting that back-to-back calls leave you drained.

Each of those moments feels like a gamble: will this help me, or will it be held against me?

I’ve heard from so many people who’ve disclosed and then… nothing happened. No adjustments, no response, sometimes not even an acknowledgement. That silence is heavy. It leaves people feeling exposed and more cautious about speaking up again.

But I’ve also seen the opposite. A manager saying “yes” to a couple of home-working days without making it complicated. HR providing noise-cancelling headphones as a standard item, not a special favour. These are simple things, but they send a strong signal: we take this seriously.

That’s why I keep coming back to this: disclosure isn’t really about individual “bravery.” It’s about whether organisations are ready and willing to respond.

The Hidden Barrier: Information Sharing

Even when disclosure goes well, things can still fall apart in the everyday flow of information.

Many workplaces rely on last-minute meetings, vague instructions, or quick corridor chats where decisions get made. For lots of neurodivergent people, that isn’t just inconvenient, it’s overwhelming. And honestly? It doesn’t work well for anyone.

The biggest shifts I’ve seen come from the simplest habits:

• Sharing agendas before meetings.
• Sending a quick follow-up note after conversations.
• Being specific about priorities rather than piling everything on at once.

These changes don’t just help neurodivergent staff; they reduce stress, cut down on confusion, and make teams run smoothly. Inclusion and effectiveness aren’t opposites. They strengthen each other.

The Role of Leadership

Managers can do a lot, but culture is shaped at the top. If leaders stay quiet on inclusion, people notice. Silence makes disclosure feel risky.

It doesn’t take grand speeches to change that. I’ve seen big shifts from very small actions: a CEO mentioning that captions help them focus during calls. A senior leader making inclusion a standing item in team meetings. These things normalise difference. They show that adjustments aren’t awkward favours, they’re just part of good work.

Policies are important, but culture is what people feel every day. And culture is shaped by what leaders say and do.

Why This Is Hard (And Why It’s Worth It)

I want to be upfront: this isn’t easy. Managers are stretched, leaders are busy, and old habits are stubborn. Creating space for disclosure and changing how information flows takes time, practice, and patience.

But the cost of not doing it is much higher. I’ve seen talented people burn out, leave roles, or stop putting themselves forward because they didn’t feel safe. I’ve also seen what happens when organisations do act: lower turnover, stronger trust, better collaboration, more energy for the work itself.

That’s why I care about this so much. It’s not about “being nice.” It’s about creating workplaces where people can bring their real selves and actually sustain their work.

Reflections to Take Away

• Disclosure isn’t just about speaking up - it’s about what happens afterwards.
• Information sharing is a huge part of inclusion - clarity and predictability change everything.
• Leadership silence sends a signal. Even small, genuine acts of openness can reshape culture.
• It takes effort, but the alternative - silence, burnout, mistrust - costs far more.

Closing Thought

As September gets busier, ask yourself: if someone in your team disclosed tomorrow, would they walk away feeling lighter or heavier? And even if no one discloses, are your day-to-day communication habits clear and supportive enough that disclosure feels less necessary in the first place?

These aren’t easy questions, but they’re the ones that really show where inclusion stands.

Interested in finding out more about inclusion?

This is the work I do every day - supporting organisations to move from good intentions to real, sustainable inclusion. If you’d like to explore what this could look like in your workplace, get in touch.

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The summer slowdown at work can bring some breathing space, but for many neurodivergent employees, it doesn’t feel like a break.

When the pressure eases off slightly, the cracks often become more visible. There’s space to notice what hasn’t been working: the meetings that drain energy, the tasks that remain unclear, the effort of staying “switched on” in systems that weren’t designed for you.

This month, I’m sharing a few reflections on what real inclusion and support look like beyond the usual awareness posts and bullet-point lists.

The unspoken cost of performing “ok”

One thing I see all the time in coaching is people who are working twice as hard just to appear fine, and most of that work is invisible.

• Anticipating social dynamics before walking into a room
• Mentally rehearsing how to say something “appropriately”
• Tracking the energy dip after a chaotic meeting or unexpected schedule change

These are not small things. They’re daily, internal adjustments that are emotionally and cognitively draining and they rarely get counted.

When workplaces don’t recognise this hidden layer of effort, support comes too late. Or worse, it’s only offered when someone burns out.

What helps instead: Noticing. Listening. Asking, “What are you navigating behind the scenes that I can’t see?” And responding without defensiveness.

This isn't about fixing someone; it's about removing the barriers that keep them stuck in survival mode.

Productivity isn’t about personality - it’s about fit

Productivity advice often focuses on motivation or discipline. But for neurodivergent people, the barriers are rarely about laziness.

They’re about:

• Tasks that are too abstract to start
• Routines that fall apart when one link breaks
• Communication that assumes shared understanding when none exists

In my own work, and with clients, I see how often success comes down to designing a system that fits your brain, not forcing your brain to fit the system.

That might mean planning in energy zones, not time slots. It might mean scripting how to ask for clarity, and knowing that’s not a failure. It might even mean giving up on the idea of a “typical day” and building for variability instead.

If managers and organisations want real inclusion, this is where it starts: not with who looks productive, but with who is quietly unsupported by the structures in place.

The surface-level inclusion trap

A lot of organisations do care. But they get stuck at “awareness.” A talk during Neurodiversity Celebration Week. A line in the HR policy. A Slack message saying “we’re here if you need support.”

These things might be well-intentioned. But they rarely reach the people who are already masking, overwhelmed, or unsure how to ask for help.

Real inclusion isn’t passive.

It’s:

• Auditing what your systems actually demand of people
• Creating clarity, not ambiguity, in how things get done
• Taking action before someone breaks down

If you want inclusion to work, you have to go first. Not wait for someone to disclose. Not wait for burnout to become visible. You build in flexibility as the default, not the exception.

Looking to do better in your team or organisation? This is the kind of support I offer: practical consultancy and training for employers who want to create workplaces where neurodivergent people don’t have to mask, burn out, or opt out.

Whether you’re in HR, L&D, or leadership — if you want to make real, structural change, drop me a message or visit connectcoaching.net

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This month I’ve been reflecting on what meaningful inclusion and support actually look like in day-to-day life, especially when you're navigating the kind of invisible effort most people never see.

The invisible work no one talks about

If you’re neurodivergent, you’ve probably experienced this kind of labour, the behind-the-scenes planning, prep, and masking just to get through a day.

You rehearse replies in your head before speaking. You plan downtime after meetings because you know they’ll drain you. You rewrite emails to make sure your tone isn’t misread.

All of that is work, it’s just not recognised as such. And it’s exhausting.

Try this: track your invisible tasks for one day. Name the things that require recovery. Ask yourself how much energy you’re spending “appearing fine” versus actually coping.

Redefining productivity when your brain doesn’t follow the rules

I’ve also been thinking a lot about productivity. Specifically, how much of the advice out there assumes a kind of brain that thrives on structure, consistency, and smooth linear progress? That’s not how it works for many of us.

Focus can come in bursts. Motivation needs momentum. And sometimes, even figuring out where to begin is the hardest part.

Instead, try planning in energy zones, not just time slots. Break tasks into manageable initiation steps. Track what helps you shift from freeze to action and build more of that in.

A final thought

These are the questions I keep coming back to: What does meaningful support look like? How can we build systems that reflect how people actually function, not just how they’re expected to?

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I’ve been having more and more conversations lately about the gap between awareness and action, especially when it comes to inclusion. This month’s newsletter talks about that: the workplaces that say the right things but fall short, the systems that make work harder than it needs to be, and what we can start doing differently.

These conversations all come back to the same core question: what does meaningful support and inclusion really look like?

This month, I’m unpacking two big areas where many individuals and organisations are still getting stuck—performative inclusion without follow-through, and the structures that quietly exclude neurodivergent people, even in "inclusive" workplaces.

“Neurodiversity-Lite” Inclusion Isn’t Enough

Let’s be honest: awareness is great, but awareness without action doesn’t change lived experience. What we’re often seeing is neurodiversity-lite:

• A post during Neurodiversity Celebration Week
• A one-off lunch & learn
• But no adjustments
• No process
• No psychological safety

When inclusion stops at messaging, neurodivergent people are left navigating the same inaccessible systems with a slightly nicer slogan. What real inclusion looks like:

• Flexibility by default, not just on request
• Meetings and tasks with built-in clarity and structure
• Communication that works for different processing styles
• A culture where people don’t have to mask to be seen as competent

How to move beyond surface-level inclusion

1. Normalise adjustments for everyone. Share working preferences as a team. Invite everyone to ask for what they need, not just those with a diagnosis.
2. Involve neurodivergent voices in decision-making. Nothing about us without us.
3. Audit daily culture, not just policy. Ask: What do our meetings, socials, and deadlines communicate about what’s expected here?

If you're ready to move from surface-level awareness to real, structural change, I offer training and consultancy for organisations that want to get it right. Drop me a message or visit connectcoaching.net to find out more.

Structural Neuroinclusion: What Still Needs to Change

Even in workplaces that say the right things, many neurodivergent people are still burning out. Why? Because the structures haven’t changed. We’re seeing more return-to-office mandates that ignore the access remote work created. We’re seeing recognition still go to those who speak up most, not those who contribute most meaningfully. We’re seeing adjustments delayed, denied, or only offered once people reach breaking point. Inclusion shouldn’t require resilience. It should make resilience less necessary. Some of the hidden barriers:

• Sensory overload from office spaces and commutes
• Unspoken social rules around visibility, attendance, or energy
• A culture that rewards quick thinking over thoughtful processing
• Inconsistent support depending on your manager

Start here

1. Make expectations explicit. Who’s responsible for what? When is a reply expected? What’s the outcome?
2. Value different working styles. Do we reward clarity, curiosity and depth or just speed and confidence?
3. Check your adjustment process. Is it clear, timely, and easy to access without layers of self-disclosure?

Neuroinclusion is about design, not exception. It’s not something you bolt on, it’s how you build.

Want to Work with Me 1:1?

Whether you're figuring out your next step, working through burnout, or learning how to live more in tune with your needs, I offer 1:1 coaching that meets you where you are. We can focus on:

• Energy and executive function
• Career change or clarity
• Access to Work applications
• Building self-trust and structure that fits

Book a free call: https://connectcoaching.net/introcall Thanks, as always, for being part of this community. Take care, Alex

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This month’s newsletter focuses on communication and connection, the kind that helps neurodivergent people feel safe, seen, and supported. Whether it's in how we disclose at work, the way we receive and process information, or how we access the right support, clear, compassionate communication matters.

Disclosure at Work: What It Means at Every Level

Workplace disclosure isn’t a one-off moment, it’s a layered, ongoing process that plays out differently depending on your role. For neurodivergent employees, the decision to share personal information at work can be complex. For managers and leaders, how you respond shapes whether that space feels safe.

Let’s break it down with some practical tips at each level.

If You’re the Individual

Disclosure can feel like a risk, but it can also be a path to more understanding and better support. It’s completely valid to choose when, how, and how much you share.

🧠 Tips if you’re considering disclosing:

• Focus on needs, not labels. You don’t have to justify a diagnosis to request support.
• Prepare your wording. Try: “I work best with clear, written instructions, would it be possible to follow up via email?”
• Bring in examples. Sharing real situations (e.g. meetings, deadlines, communication styles) makes it easier for others to understand.
• Know your rights, but lead with what works for you. You don’t need to disclose everything to advocate for reasonable adjustments.

If You’re the Manager

You may be the first person someone opens up to and how you respond matters. You don’t need to have all the answers, but you do need to be open and curious.

💡 Tips for supportive conversations:

• Avoid making it about paperwork. Start with: “Thanks for trusting me, how can I best support you right now?”
• Don’t assume everyone needs the same adjustments. Ask: “What’s one thing that would make your workday feel more manageable?”
• Keep confidentiality unless you’ve been given permission to share.
• Offer to check in again in a few weeks. Disclosure isn’t a one-time event, it’s a relationship.

🔹 If You’re in Senior Leadership

You shape the culture. If people don’t feel safe to disclose, they won’t and inclusion efforts won’t reach the people who need them most.

🏛️ Ways to build a disclosure-friendly culture:

• Normalise conversations about support needs in your policies, onboarding, and team communications.
• Consider anonymous channels for feedback about inclusion and accessibility.
• Model openness yourself: share your own working preferences, challenges, or values around inclusion.
• Invest in training, not just awareness days, but deep, practical understanding of neurodivergence in the workplace.

🌱 Final Thought: Disclosure is not just about sharing personal information, it’s about building mutual understanding, trust, and systems that support different ways of working. When all levels of an organisation approach disclosure with flexibility and care, it stops being a “scary conversation” and becomes part of everyday inclusion.

Sharing Information: Why Clarity Makes All the Difference

For many neurodivergent people, clarity and context aren’t just “nice to have”, they’re essential. Gaps in information can create stress, confusion, and missed expectations. On the other hand, when people are given the detail they need, they can process, plan, and engage far more effectively.

Sharing information doesn’t mean overexplaining. It means recognising that not everyone can fill in the blanks, and they shouldn’t have to.

If You’re the One Receiving Information

When you’re expected to work with vague instructions or unclear expectations, it’s okay to ask for what you need.

🧠 Tips to advocate for more clarity:

• Ask early: “Would you mind sending that over in writing so I can refer back to it?”
• Be specific: “Do you need this by end of day or end of the week?”
• If a task feels overwhelming, ask for structure: “What would a good starting point look like to you?”
• If you feel unsure, reflect back what you’ve heard: “Just to double-check, you’re asking me to...?”

This isn’t about being difficult, it’s about setting yourself up for success.

If You’re Communicating with Others (e.g. colleagues, clients, managers)

Whether you’re giving instructions, making plans, or offering feedback, a little extra clarity goes a long way.

💡 Tips for clearer communication:

• Include the “why” and the “when”: “We’re meeting at 10am to finalise the project brief. It should take about 30 minutes.”
• Use bullet points or lists instead of long paragraphs in emails.
• Don’t assume tone comes across in writing, say what you mean with warmth and intention.
• Where possible, share information in multiple formats (e.g. spoken and written, visual and verbal).

Being clear is not patronising, it’s inclusive.

In Team or Organisational Settings

If you’re part of building systems, leading meetings, or setting expectations, your approach to information-sharing shapes how safe and supported others feel.

🏛️ Tips to build clarity into your culture:

• Always share agendas in advance, even a few bullet points help people prepare.
• Follow up meetings with clear next steps and responsibilities.
• Be upfront about changes: “The deadline has shifted to next Friday, let me know if that affects your plans.”
• Include processing time in your planning cycles, some people need more time to absorb and respond.

Creating clarity isn’t about controlling the message, it’s about creating access.

🌱 Final Thought: Neurodivergent people often thrive when the “rules of the game” are visible. Sharing information clearly, without ambiguity, urgency, or unspoken expectations can be the difference between confusion and confidence.

🤝 Want to Work With Me?

If any of this sounds familiar—and you’re ready to make some changes that actually work for your brain—I offer 1:1 coaching for neurodivergent adults who want more clarity, balance, and confidence in how they work and live.

We might focus on:

✔ Managing overwhelm without masking

✔ Building sustainable routines

✔ Navigating career changes or burnout

✔ Creating systems that support your energy and executive function

Book a free intro call here: https://connectcoaching.net/introcall

You don’t have to force yourself to work the way other people do. Let’s figure out what works for you.

Take care,

Alex

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This month I’m exploring two challenges that come up often in coaching conversations, especially for neurodivergent adults:

✔ Feeling constantly under pressure to respond, perform, or produce

✔ Struggling to make decisions—not big ones, but the constant pile-up of little ones

These aren’t just quirks or bad habits. They’re often rooted in systems and expectations that don’t fit how our brains work. So this month, let’s break them down—and find some better ways forward.

⚡️ Urgency Culture: When Everything Feels Like It’s on Fire

There’s a phrase I hear a lot: “I feel like I’m constantly behind.”Urgency culture—the pressure to respond instantly, work at full speed, and “always be on”—is everywhere. Emails come with “just following up” after 24 hours. Social media tells us we need to be publishing, promoting, and reacting every day. At work, requests are labelled urgent when they really aren’t. And if you’re neurodivergent, this pressure doesn’t just create stress—it can cause total shutdown.

🔸 Why it hits harder:

• ADHD? Urgency can create short bursts of hyperfocus… followed by complete exhaustion.
• Autism? Sudden, unplanned demands can derail your whole day, especially when you’ve structured your time for stability.
• Executive dysfunction? The pressure to reply now can feel paralysing when your brain needs more time to process.

🔸 You are allowed to:

• Let an email sit overnight before replying
• Say “I’ll need to get back to you on that tomorrow”
• Challenge false urgency (not everything is a crisis!)

🔸 Small scripts that help:

• “I’ll review this later this week and come back to you.”
• “I’m not able to give this proper focus right now—can we revisit it on Monday?”
• “I need more time to look into this before making a decision.”

Urgency culture rewards speed over thought. But neurodivergent ways of working—slow, deep, deliberate—can actually be more sustainable, creative, and insightful.

🧠 Decision Fatigue & The Weight of Tiny Choices

It’s 8am. You haven’t even left the house, and you’ve already had to decide:

• What to wear
• What to eat
• Whether to respond to that message
• Whether you have the energy to go to that thing this evening

If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Decision fatigue is the exhaustion that comes from having to make too many choices too often—and for neurodivergent people, this can build up fast.🔸 What it feels like:

• “I don’t care what we eat, I just can’t choose.”
• “I’ve spent 20 minutes scrolling Airbnb and still haven’t booked.”
• “I know I need to do that task, but I don’t know how to start.”

This isn’t about being indecisive. It’s about cognitive load—and when your brain is already working hard to regulate sensory input, emotions, or executive function, small decisions feel enormous.

🔸 Tips to reduce decision fatigue:

✅ Create ‘defaults’ – rotate the same 3 breakfasts, wear a ‘uniform’ outfit you feel good in, have go-to meals or social scripts

✅ Limit your options – only look at 3 options instead of 10, or ask someone to shortlist for you

✅ Batch decisions – plan your week’s meals, outfits or admin all at once

✅ Use binary choices – instead of “what should I do today?” try “do I want to do this now or later?”

✅ Use visual prompts – whiteboards, task lists, and pre-set routines reduce mental juggling

🧭 One powerful question: What decisions do I make on repeat that could be automated, prepared in advance, or removed altogether?

🤝 Want to Work With Me?

If any of this sounds familiar—and you’re ready to make some changes that actually work for your brain—I offer 1:1 coaching for neurodivergent adults who want more clarity, balance, and confidence in how they work and live.

We might focus on:

✔ Managing overwhelm without masking

✔ Building sustainable routines

✔ Navigating career changes or burnout

✔ Creating systems that support your energy and executive function

📞 Book a free intro call here: https://connectcoaching.net/introcall

You don’t have to force yourself to work the way other people do. Let’s figure out what works for you.

Take care,

Alex

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This month, we’re tackling some key topics that come up often in coaching conversations:

✔ Tackling perfectionism and how it holds us back

✔ Why careers don’t have to be linear—success can happen at any stage

✔ How to create a sensory-friendly space that helps you focus and recharge

As always, you’ll find practical tools, real-world insights, and encouragement to help you find what works for you.

🧠 Perfectionism: When 'Doing Your Best' Turns Into Never Feeling Good Enough

Perfectionism isn’t just about high standards—it’s about feeling like anything less than flawless isn’t enough. It shows up in small, everyday moments and builds over time into something that feels heavy and relentless.

It might look like spending hours tweaking a document that was finished ages ago. Or not starting something new because the idea of getting it wrong is too uncomfortable. It’s the inner critic that whispers, “That wasn’t good enough,” even when you’ve done your absolute best.

In a culture that quietly rewards polished outcomes—whether it’s in work presentations, how tidy your house is, or even your social media feed—it’s easy to get stuck in a cycle of proving your worth through performance. But the cost? Burnout, avoidance, and never feeling like you’ve done enough.

Where Does It Come From?

Often perfectionism develops over time, especially if we’ve been praised more for outcomes than for effort. If doing well was how you got noticed or validated, it’s understandable that mistakes now feel risky. But it’s worth asking: what would it feel like to be recognised for showing up, rather than getting it all right?

Signs of a Perfectionist Pattern:

• Putting off tasks because they feel too big to get “right”
• Constantly reworking things, even when they’re already done
• Avoiding new opportunities in case you “mess it up”
• Feeling like your work defines your value
• Struggling to recognise effort or progress—only seeing what’s not perfect

Letting Go of Perfectionism (Without Letting Go of Standards)

This isn’t about settling for less—it’s about creating space to breathe, take risks, and make progress, rather than chasing impossible ideals. Here are some ways to shift that perfectionist thinking:

🟡 Catch the ‘All-or-Nothing’ Thinking

Notice when your brain is telling you that something is either a total success or a complete failure. Ask yourself, “Is that really true? What would a more balanced view be?”

🟡 Value Progress Over Polish

Instead of asking, “Was it perfect?” try, “What did I move forward today?” You don’t have to finish the project, clean the whole house, or write the perfect message—you just have to take the next step.

🟡 Use Effort-Based Self-Talk

Start noticing when you've shown persistence or flexibility. Instead of saying, “I should’ve done more,” try, “I really stuck with that even when it was hard.”

🟡 Give Yourself Permission to Be ‘Good Enough’

Sometimes “done” is better than “perfect.” If you find yourself stuck, ask: “What’s the simplest version of this that still does the job?”

🟡 Practice Self-Compassion

Would you speak to a friend the way you speak to yourself after a mistake? Probably not. Try replacing harsh inner commentary with something gentler: “That was difficult, but I did my best.”

🌟 Takeaway: Perfectionism can make everyday life feel like a series of pass/fail moments, but it doesn't have to be that way. You are allowed to be messy, human, learning, and still worthy of rest, connecton and recognition.

The goal isn’t to abandon your standards—it’s to loosen the grip of perfection just enough to let real progress (and some peace) in.

🌍 Careers Don’t Have to Be Linear: Success at Any Stage

There’s a lot of unspoken pressure—especially in early adulthood—to choose the “right” career, stick with it, and climb the ladder in a predictable, upward fashion. But the reality for many of us, particularly those who are neurodivergent, is far more complex—and often more interesting.

You might start in one field and discover it doesn’t suit your energy, interests, or values. You might experience burnout in rigid work environments that weren’t built with your needs in mind. Or you might spend years trying different things before something finally clicks. This doesn’t mean you’re behind or doing it wrong. It just means you’re human—and learning what works for you.

In fact, some of the most creative, meaningful, and sustainable careers come from non-linear journeys. Whether it’s a midlife reinvention, returning to a skill you left behind, or discovering a new path through trial and error, change is not only possible—it can lead to work that feels far more aligned.

Here are a few well-known people who found success later in life or built careers in unconventional ways:

🔹 Claudia Hammond – Now a respected broadcaster and author specialising in psychology and mental health, Claudia began her career in teaching before moving into radio. Her ability to communicate complex ideas with clarity and empathy has been linked to her deep understanding of how people think and feel, a strength often associated with neurodivergent thinking.

🔹 Grayson Perry – Grayson spent years creating work that didn’t fit mainstream artistic norms. He was in his 40s before gaining widespread recognition, winning the Turner Prize, and later becoming known for his thoughtful explorations of identity, difference, and self-expression—topics that deeply resonate with many neurodivergent people.

🔹 Hannah Gadsby – While Australian, Gadsby’s work gained enormous UK attention with Nanette, a genre-defying show blending comedy, personal narrative, and neurodivergent insight. Diagnosed as autistic in adulthood, Gadsby stepped away from comedy due to burnout, retrained in art history, and later returned with work that reflected both their identity and their boundaries.

🔹 Mary Wesley – Wesley didn’t publish her first adult novel until she was 70. Her writing, filled with unconventional characters and sharp observation, emerged after a lifetime of experiences and shifting roles. Her later-in-life success reminds us that creativity doesn’t have an expiry date.

🔹 Alex Wheatle – Wheatle’s early life included time in care and prison, where he began writing. He went on to become an award-winning author and was awarded an MBE for services to literature. His storytelling often centres marginalised voices and lived experience, and he has spoken openly about navigating systems that weren’t built for people like him.

🌟 Takeaway: Your career doesn’t have to follow a straight path. It’s okay to take detours, to try things out, to start over. It’s okay to need more time to find what works—and to change your mind as you go.

Whether you’re considering a career shift, rebuilding after burnout, or simply feeling unsure where you fit, you’re not alone. It’s never too late to build a working life that feels aligned, energising, and meaningful—on your terms.

🏡 Sensory-Friendly Living: Adapting Your Space for Comfort & Focus

Many neurodivergent people experience sensory overwhelm in their homes and workplaces, but small adjustments can make a big difference.

1. Reduce Visual Clutter

If clutter causes stress, consider using storage solutions that keep things out of sight while still being accessible.

💡 Example: Someone I worked with kept losing track of paperwork, so they switched to wall-mounted file sorters instead of piles on their desk—everything became easier to find without visual overwhelm.

2. Adjust Lighting for Sensory Comfort

Bright overhead lighting can be overstimulating, while dim or warm lighting can feel more calming.

💡 Example: A client who struggled with migraines due to harsh office lighting switched to using a soft desk lamp and tinted glasses to reduce strain.

3. Use Noise Management Tools

For those sensitive to sound, noise-cancelling headphones, background music, or white noise machines can help create a more comfortable environment.

💡 Example: One person shared that playing rain sounds on a speaker helped drown out distractions and improve their focus.

📌 Takeaway: Small changes can make a big difference in creating an environment that supports your focus, wellbeing, and sensory needs.

🤝 Want to Work with Me?

If you’d like support with procrastination, career changes, sensory needs, or goal setting, I offer 1:1 coaching tailored to neurodivergent needs.

✔ Find work that fits your strengths ✔ Create routines that actually work for you ✔ Manage energy & avoid burnout

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Hi there,

This month, we’re focusing on practical strategies to help with procrastination, decluttering, goal setting, and relationships. Whether you want to get more done, clear some space (physically or mentally), or strengthen your connections with others, this newsletter is full of realistic, neurodivergent-friendly approaches to support you.

Overcoming Procrastination: Strategies That Work

Procrastination isn’t about laziness—it’s often a response to overwhelm, perfectionism, or executive function challenges. If you find yourself putting things off, these strategies can help make getting started easier.

1. Break It Down into Small, Clear Steps

Big tasks can feel unmanageable, but breaking them down into specific, small steps makes them easier to approach.

Example: Instead of “sort out my finances,” break it into: Find my bank statements Log in to my online banking Make a list of upcoming bills

By starting with one small step, you can build momentum without feeling overwhelmed.

2. The ‘Two-Minute Rule’

If a task will take less than two minutes, do it straight away. It stops small things from piling up.

Example: Replying to a quick email, washing a mug instead of leaving it in the sink, or setting up a direct debit—all tiny things that can make a big difference.

3. Use Body Doubling

Body doubling—working alongside someone else, either in person or on a video call—can boost motivation and make tasks feel less daunting.

Example: A client who struggled to start admin tasks now schedules co-working calls with a friend. They both work on their own tasks in silence, but having someone else present helps them focus.

4. Use Timers to Create a Sense of Urgency

Using a timer (such as the Pomodoro technique—25 minutes of focus, then a 5-minute break) can reduce pressure and make starting easier.

Example: If you’re struggling to start writing, set a timer for just 5 minutes. Even if you don’t feel like it, you’re more likely to keep going once you’ve started.

Takeaway: Procrastination is often about how a task feels in the moment. Making tasks smaller, easier, or more structured can help shift your mindset.

Decluttering Without Overwhelm: A Neurodivergent Approach

For many neurodivergent people, traditional decluttering advice doesn’t work. Struggles with object permanence, decision-making, and emotional attachment can make getting rid of things feel impossible. Here are some realistic approaches to decluttering in a way that works for your brain.

1. The ‘One Thing’ Rule

Instead of trying to declutter a whole room, choose one thing to sort, move, or get rid of.

Example: A client I worked with started by removing one unused mug from their cupboard. That tiny action helped them build momentum without the pressure of a full clear-out.

2. Use Clear Storage Solutions

If you forget things exist once they’re out of sight, use transparent storage boxes, open shelving, or labelled baskets to keep important items visible.

Example: Someone I know constantly misplaced their wallet—until they put a tray by the front door. Having a specific, visible spot reduced stress.

3. The ‘Holding Box’ Trick

If you struggle to let go of things, put them in a box and set a reminder for three months later. If you haven’t needed or thought about them, they can go.

Example: One person I spoke to struggled to part with old clothes. They packed them into a suitcase for three months. When they realised they hadn’t missed them, donating them felt much easier.

4. Try ‘Micro Decluttering’ with Body Doubling

Decluttering with a friend or even on a video call can make it easier to stay on track.

Example: A member of the AuDHD community shared that they FaceTime a friend while tidying up for 10 minutes. Having company made it less overwhelming.

Takeaway: Decluttering doesn’t mean getting rid of everything—it means creating a space that works for you.

Goal Setting That Works for Neurodivergent Brains

Many goal-setting systems assume consistent energy levels and motivation, which isn’t always realistic for neurodivergent people. Here are some alternative ways to approach goal setting that might work better.

1. The SMART Approach

A classic framework, but still useful. SMART goals are: Specific – What exactly do you want to do? Measurable – How will you track progress? Achievable – Is it realistic? Relevant – Does it align with what you actually want? Time-Bound – When do you want to complete it?

Example: Instead of saying, “I want to exercise more,” try: “I will do a 10-minute walk three times a week for the next month.”

2. The ‘Now, Next, Later’ Approach

If long-term planning feels overwhelming, try categorising goals as: Now – What you’re actively working on Next – What’s coming up soon Later – Things you want to do eventually

Example: If your big goal is to change jobs, your Now goal might be updating your CV, Next could be researching job openings, and Later might be applying.

3. Use Visual Aids

Seeing your goals laid out can help with motivation and focus.

Example: Someone I know uses sticky notes on a whiteboard—each note represents a step in their goal. Moving them from ‘To Do’ to ‘Done’ makes progress more visible.

Takeaway: The best goal-setting method is the one that feels achievable and keeps you engaged.

Navigating Relationships as a Neurodivergent Person

Neurodivergent relationships—whether romantic, platonic, or family-based—can have unique challenges, particularly around communication, sensory needs, and emotional processing. Here are a few things that help.

1. Be Clear and Direct

Many neurodivergent people struggle with indirect communication. Saying exactly what you mean can prevent misunderstandings.

Example: A client told their partner, “If I say I need alone time, it’s not because I’m upset—it’s just how I recharge.”

2. Talk About Sensory Differences

If certain sounds, textures, or lights make you uncomfortable, let people know.

Example: One person I worked with struggled with loud TV volume, so they asked their partner to use headphones or turn on subtitles instead. Small adjustments like this can make a big difference.

3. Plan for Emotional Regulation Differences

Some people need space to process emotions, while others need immediate reassurance. Finding a middle ground can reduce stress.

Example: A neurodivergent couple I know uses a "pause phrase"—one partner can say "I need 20 minutes to process, but I’ll come back to talk after." This stops disagreements from escalating.

Takeaway: Communication, boundaries, and self-acceptance are key to navigating relationships as a neurodivergent person.

Want to Work with Me?

If you’d like support with procrastination, goal setting, decluttering, or relationships, I offer 1:1 coaching tailored to neurodivergent needs.

Book a free call to see how coaching could support you: Book Now

Thanks for reading!

Take care, Alex

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At Connect Coaching, I am passionate about creating spaces where neurodivergent individuals can flourish—in their careers, relationships, and personal growth. As we step into a new year, it’s the perfect time to reflect, reset, and prioritise your goals. Whether it's managing energy, understanding your strengths, or navigating challenges at work and home, neurodivergent coaching can help you start the year with clarity and confidence.

In this edition, I’m sharing practical strategies like time boxing and behaviour activation to support your daily routines, reflections on authentic representation of autism in the media, and insights into the demasking process. You’ll also find a section on why working with me could be the next step toward creating systems that truly work for you.

Read on for tools, insights, and encouragement to help you build a more balanced and fulfilling life as your authentic self.

Time Boxing: A Simple Way to Take Control of Your Day

Time can often feel slippery, especially if you struggle with time blindness or getting stuck in hyperfocus. That’s where time boxing comes in—it’s a way to structure your time so you have clear start and stop points for your tasks. It’s not about perfection; it’s about giving each task your focused attention for a set amount of time.

Here’s how you can start:

1. Pick 2-3 Priorities: Choose the most important things you want to work on today.
2. Set Time Blocks: Allocate a realistic amount of time for each task—e.g., 30 minutes for emails or an hour for project work.
3. Use a Timer: A simple alarm or focus app can help you stick to your schedule.
4. Add Breaks: It’s crucial to give your brain time to recharge between tasks.

The beauty of timeboxing is that it gives you structure while staying flexible. Even if you don’t finish a task, you’ve still made progress. It’s a tool to help you work smarter, not harder.

Behaviour Activation: How Small Actions Can Shift Your Day

We’ve all been there—low energy, stuck in a rut, and unsure how to get started. Behaviour activation is a tool to help you take that first step, even when motivation feels out of reach. It’s about focusing on small, manageable actions that align with what’s important to you.

For example, if your value is connection, you might send a quick text to a friend. If it’s self-care, maybe you make a cup of tea. These small actions might not seem like much, but they can create momentum.

Here’s how to give it a go:

• Break It Down: If the idea of tidying your whole kitchen feels overwhelming, start with putting one plate away.
• Add Something Enjoyable: Play music or listen to a podcast to make the task more engaging.
• Acknowledge Progress: Celebrate what you’ve done, even if it feels small—it all counts.

Taking action first often leads to a shift in how you feel. It’s a gentle, realistic way to move forward, even on tough days.

Autism in the Media: Representation That Matters

There’s been a lot more awareness of neurodivergent conditions in recent years, thanks to media like TV, film, books, social media, and podcasts. This visibility has started important conversations and helped reduce stigma, but it often comes with a narrow focus on stereotypes.

Too many portrayals still lean on the “quirky genius” trope or focus solely on challenges, without reflecting the true diversity of autistic experiences. Authentic representation should be about showing the full spectrum—strengths, barriers, and everything in between.

Public figures who are openly autistic, like Elon Musk, can influence how autism is perceived. But let’s be clear: choices like Musk’s controversial gesture at Trump’s inauguration, which many interpreted as a Nazi salute, are not “autistic behaviours.” They are personal choices, and autism doesn’t excuse harmful or offensive actions.

It’s so important to separate personality-driven decisions from traits of autism. The more we amplify diverse, authentic autistic voices, the closer we get to accurate representation that benefits everyone.

The Demasking Process: A Journey Back to Yourself

For many neurodivergent people, masking—hiding traits to blend into neurotypical spaces—can feel like a necessary survival tool. But it comes at a cost: burnout, anxiety, and losing touch with who you really are.

Demasking is about rediscovering and accepting your authentic self. It’s a gradual process that requires patience and self-compassion.

Here are some ways to start:

• Notice When You Mask: Are you suppressing stims, changing how you speak, or avoiding sharing your needs? Recognising it is the first step.
• Start Small: Choose safe spaces where you feel comfortable to express yourself more freely, whether that’s at home or with close friends.
• Set Boundaries: Protect your energy by avoiding situations where you feel forced to mask excessively.
• Celebrate Your Authenticity: Letting yourself stim or prioritising sensory breaks might feel small, but it’s a big step toward embracing who you are.

Demasking doesn’t happen overnight, but each small step brings you closer to living as your true self.

If you’re ready to explore what’s next, I’m here to help. I specialise in working with neurodivergent individuals to:

• Build systems that work for your unique brain.
• Explore and embrace your authentic identity.
• Create strategies to balance work, relationships, and daily life.

Coaching is tailored to you—your needs, your strengths, and your goals.

👉 Book a free call on my website to see how we can work together.

Take care,

Alex

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At Connect Coaching, I am passionate about creating spaces where neurodivergent individuals can flourish—in their careers, relationships, and personal growth. As we step into a new year, it’s the perfect time to reflect, reset, and prioritise your goals. Whether it's managing energy, understanding your strengths, or navigating challenges at work and home, neurodivergent coaching can help you start the year with clarity and confidence.

In this edition, I’m sharing funding opportunities for coaching through Autism Forward, practical insights into workplace inclusion, and the importance of building meaningful activities outside of work. You’ll also find reflections on why coaching could be the right step for you this year, along with a resource to support you on your journey.

Read on for practical strategies and tools to help you create a more balanced, fulfilling 2024.

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Access Coaching with Autism Forward Funding

I’m thrilled to share that I’m an approved coach for Autism Forward funding.

If you’re autistic and looking for coaching to support your career, personal growth, or life transitions, Autism Forward can help you access funded coaching sessions with me. It’s a fantastic opportunity to:

• Build confidence in your strengths and abilities
• Navigate work challenges with tailored strategies
• Explore tools for energy management and emotional resilience

If funding has been a barrier to seeking coaching, this support could make all the difference. To learn more about eligibility and how to apply, visit Autism Forward.

Need guidance on the process? Book a free call with me, and I’ll walk you through it.

Journey Begins

5 Reasons to Access Coaching in the New Year

The new year is a natural time for change, but resolutions can feel overwhelming – especially if you’re neurodivergent. Coaching offers a personalised, practical approach to make meaningful progress without the pressure of perfection.

1. Find Clarity in Your Goals Whether it’s your career, relationships, or well-being, coaching helps you clarify what matters most and how to get there.
2. Learn Energy Management Strategies Feeling burnt out or overwhelmed? Explore strategies that work for you to balance responsibilities and recharge.
3. Navigate Work Challenges From reasonable adjustments to communication styles, coaching equips you with tools to advocate for yourself at work.
4. Build Confidence in Your Strengths Neurodivergent individuals often overlook their unique strengths. Together, we’ll uncover yours and help you use them to your advantage.
5. Embrace Your Authentic Self Coaching creates a non-judgemental space to explore your identity and feel confident showing up as your true self.

Insights Into the World of Work

Navigating the workplace as a neurodivergent individual often requires unique tools and approaches. Did you know that only 29% of autistic adults are in employment in the UK, despite the talents they bring to the table?

Many workplaces struggle to accommodate neurodivergent employees not because of a lack of awareness but because they rely on one-size-fits-all systems. For example, traditional performance reviews, unclear communication styles, and sensory-heavy office spaces can create barriers that neurodivergent individuals often navigate alone.

Workplaces are often built on systems designed for neurotypical employees, which can leave neurodivergent talent feeling isolated or underappreciated. For example, loud open-plan offices, unstructured feedback, or unclear expectations can overwhelm someone who processes information differently or thrives in a quiet, focused space.

However, change is possible.

Organisations that adapt and offer neuroinclusive support often find that their neurodivergent employees not only succeed but also drive innovation. Small adjustments, like offering flexible working hours, creating sensory-friendly spaces, and embracing clear, direct communication, can unlock a neurodivergent employee’s full potential.

For individuals, coaching can help break down these barriers by offering tools to:

• Build confidence in advocating for your unique needs at work
• Develop strategies to manage sensory and communication challenges
• Connect strengths to career goals and long-term satisfaction

Whether you’re starting a new role, returning to work, or aiming for progression, having tailored support can make your workplace journey smoother and more empowering.

Building Meaningful Activities Outside of Work

Work is only part of the picture. Meaningful activities beyond work – hobbies, creative outlets, or time in nature – play a crucial role in recharging and maintaining well-being. For neurodivergent individuals, these activities can provide:

• A sense of accomplishment and joy
• Opportunities to connect with like-minded communities
• Space to reduce overstimulation and reset

It’s easy to think that free time must always be “productive,” but meaningful activities are not about output. They are about finding what feels restorative, engaging, or fulfilling for you. This might look like painting, gaming, learning a new skill, or simply taking mindful walks in nature.

The benefits of meaningful activities go far beyond enjoyment. Research shows that participating in activities aligned with your interests can reduce stress, improve focus, and increase feelings of self-worth. For many neurodivergent individuals, hobbies offer a much-needed escape from sensory and cognitive demands, acting as a reset for the mind and body.

If you struggle to identify what truly brings you joy, start by asking yourself: What activities make me lose track of time? What leaves me feeling calm or energised? It could be something simple, like listening to a favourite podcast or trying out a new recipe.

I’ve worked with clients who initially felt too overwhelmed by daily demands to consider hobbies. Through coaching, we explored how small, manageable changes could create space for activities that filled their energy tank rather than drained it. For some, this led to reconnecting with old interests, and for others, discovering completely new ways to recharge.

Coaching can provide the structure and support to help you explore meaningful activities and incorporate them into your life in a sustainable way.

Client Feedback: What Coaching Has Helped Others Achieve

• “Coaching helped me recognise my strengths and gave me tools to advocate for myself at work.”
• “I feel more confident being my authentic self and understanding how my brain works.”
• “Having practical strategies for managing my energy and responsibilities has made such a difference.”

Connect With Me

I’m here to support you in 2024 and beyond. If you have any questions, thoughts, or topics you’d like me to cover in future newsletters, get in touch or book a chat.

Wishing you a supportive and empowering start to the new year.

Take care,

Alex

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For many neurodivergent individuals, traditional productivity advice doesn’t always fit. Strategies tailored for neurotypical brains might leave us feeling overwhelmed or out of sync. So, what can we do instead?

Here are some neurodivergent-friendly approaches that work with, rather than against, how we naturally operate:

1️⃣ Follow Your Energy Rhythms

• Notice when your energy levels are at their peak during the day.
• Schedule demanding tasks during high-energy periods and save low-energy times for simpler tasks.

2️⃣ Break Down Tasks

• Big tasks can feel overwhelming—breaking them into smaller, actionable steps helps create a clear path forward.
• Celebrate progress, no matter how small, to build confidence.

3️⃣ Create a Sensory-Friendly Environment

• Adjust your workspace to reduce sensory overwhelm: soft lighting, noise-cancelling headphones, or a fidget tool might help.
• Experiment to find what keeps you grounded and focused.

4️⃣ Work with Hyperfocus

• Hyperfocus can be a superpower if managed well. Use tools like timers to help you take breaks and set boundaries for sustained productivity.

5️⃣ Practice Self-Compassion

• Productivity is personal. What works for others may not work for you, and that’s okay. Give yourself grace to adapt and experiment.

The Challenges of Self-Responsibility

While these strategies sound empowering, they also highlight the weight of self-responsibility many neurodivergent people carry. We are often expected to adapt ourselves to environments that don’t support us, which can lead to burnout, frustration, and feelings of inadequacy.

For example:

• Managing Energy Rhythms: This assumes we have control over our schedules. Many workplaces or educational settings still operate on rigid 9-to-5 structures, leaving little room for flexibility.
• Creating a Sensory-Friendly Environment: Not all spaces are adaptable. Noise, lighting, and social dynamics in shared environments can make this nearly impossible without accommodations.
• Breaking Down Tasks: This requires executive functioning skills that are often impacted by neurodivergence—and it’s not always easy to ask for support.

Built-In Barriers in Society

Society’s attitudes and behaviours often create additional barriers:

• Misunderstanding and Stigma: Neurodivergent individuals are frequently seen as needing to “fix” themselves, rather than society adapting to include them. This can make asking for accommodations feel like a burden.
• Inflexible Systems: Education and workplaces are still largely designed with neurotypical needs in mind, reinforcing systemic exclusion.
• Pressure to Mask: Many neurodivergent people feel compelled to hide their true selves to fit in, which takes an immense emotional toll and reduces productivity.

🌟 A Call for Change True productivity isn’t just about individual strategies—it’s about creating systems that work for everyone. This means:

• Building workplaces and schools that embrace flexibility.
• Encouraging open dialogue about needs without fear of judgment.
• Challenging societal norms that uphold ableism and exclusion.

🌟 Remember: Productivity isn’t about doing it all; it’s about finding strategies that align with how you work best—and advocating for systems that support you.

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Hi there,

At Connect Coaching, I am passionate about creating spaces where neurodivergent individuals can flourish—in their careers, relationships, and personal growth. This month, I am focusing on the power of communication at work and how small changes can make a big impact.

Read on for practical strategies and a client story

Meet James

James, a 35-year-old IT consultant, accessed coaching after starting to feel stuck. He loved his job but struggled to manage competing deadlines and communicate effectively with his team.

Portrait of a thoughtful individual in a vibrant, softly lit environment.

What We Worked On Together:

• Strength-based strategies: James explored how his attention to detail and problem-solving skills were valuable assets.
• Communication tools: He learned to break down complex tasks into manageable steps and clearly outline expectations in team meetings.
• Energy management: Together, we built a plan to balance his work demands and prevent burnout.

The Outcome:

With coaching, James felt confident advocating for adjustments, such as flexible deadlines and a quieter workspace. His team noticed a positive shift, and he reported feeling more productive and less stressed.

James’ success is a reminder of how coaching can unlock potential and transform the way we approach work.

Take the Next Step

Coaching is an investment in yourself—your confidence, your career, and your well-being. Whether you’re exploring your neurodivergent identity, seeking employment, or navigating challenges at work, I’m here to support you.

📅 Book a free call today to learn how we can work together.

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