To Diverge or Not to Diverge in the Workplace: The Missing Manual

Today marks the start of what I’m calling the Neurodiversity in the Workplace Saga—a four-part mini-series I’ve been meaning to write for a long time, mostly for myself, but also for anyone navigating the maze of systems not built for their brains. As a neurodivergent person, my journey toward finding an optimal way of working has been anything but linear. Trial, error, burnout, reset. Repeat. And despite the progress, I still feel further from “figuring it out” than I’d like to be.

Right now, I’m also working on a conference paper exploring burnout in ADHD academics, and if I’m being honest—I’m shocked. Shocked at how limited the research is. There’s an entire demographic quietly unravelling behind “high functioning” masks, and the literature barely scratches the surface.

What I do know is this: our current working and learning environments are not designed with the neurodiverse in mind. We are not harnessing our strengths, nor mitigating our unique challenges, because the very systems we’re asked to perform in don’t acknowledge us.

But what if they did?

Defining Neurodivergence and the ADHD–Burnout Link

Let’s start with some context. Neurodiversity is the idea that neurological differences—like ADHD, autism, dyslexia—are part of the natural spectrum of human variation, not pathologies to be fixed (Baumer & Frueh, 2021). Under this paradigm, having ADHD doesn’t mean being broken. It means having a brain that processes information differently—with immense creative and problem-solving strengths, but also significant struggles with focus, impulsivity, and emotional regulation (Austin & Pisano, 2017).

That friction between brain and system? That’s where the stress lives. ADHD has been repeatedly linked to elevated burnout rates. Adults with ADHD often compensate for reduced productivity by overworking—nights, weekends, hyperfocusing until depletion (Andreassen et al., 2016). Inattentiveness and disorganisation are strongly associated with higher stress and fatigue at work (Oscarsson et al., 2022).

A qualitative study of working adults with ADHD found most participants experienced persistent anxiety, stress, and repeated crashes into exhaustion—often after “masking” their traits to appear professional or capable (Oscarsson et al., 2022). In academic settings, the story isn’t much different. ADHD students report significantly higher emotional exhaustion than their peers, along with greater academic stress (dos Santos et al., 2023).

In short: our brains are mismatched with the environments we’re expected to thrive in—and it’s costing us our energy, our health, and in many cases, our joy.

Trial-and-Error Survival in Neurotypical Systems

Without systemic support, we improvise. We cobble together our own survival kits—noise-cancelling headphones, whiteboards, Notion dashboards, Pomodoro timers. We tweak, tinker, spiral, and try again.

Oscarsson et al. (2022) found participants developed countless self-taught strategies: inserting recovery buffers between meetings, using movement to regulate hyperactivity, and documenting emotions to avoid impulsive reactions. I’ve done all of these—sometimes in one day.

But here’s the catch: every workaround is an extra effort. A workaround is still work. We spend energy translating our natural operating systems into something more digestible for the neurotypical world. And that labour—emotional, mental, sensory—adds up. It’s invisible, unacknowledged, and exhausting.

When everyone else is walking and you’re building your own bridge with each step, burnout becomes inevitable.

Systemic Challenges: One-Size-Fits-None

Why do we keep carrying the burden of adaptation? Because most institutions still operate on a neurotypical default.

Education systems historically assumed a homogeneous learning profile. The kid who blurts out answers or paces around is disruptive. The employee who zones out in meetings or struggles with admin is “unprofessional.” Our systems praise compliance, not cognition. As a result, accommodations—when they exist—are patchy, reactive, and individualised. You have to ask. You have to explain yourself. You have to gamble on being understood.

Over half of neurodivergent employees don’t disclose their status at work due to fear of stigma (Waisman Center, 2022). That silence breeds further isolation, and again, we’re left to figure it out alone.

And the irony? These environments often rob us of our potential. The same brain that’s labelled difficult in one context might be the source of breakthrough innovation in another—if only the system could flex.

A Guiding Question

So what now?

Well, this series isn’t here to just vent frustrations. It’s here to ask a better question:

What would it look like to truly design for neurodiversity?

What if classrooms offered movement, multisensory learning, and creative expression as the norm?

What if offices provided structure and autonomy, quiet spaces and collaborative zones, feedback and flexibility?

What if policies didn’t just accommodate divergence but expected it—and were designed accordingly?

This is the thought I want to carry forward into the next three parts of the series. Because I believe burnout doesn’t have to be the inevitable tax of being different. But to change that, we have to rethink how we define productivity, how we design environments, and how we measure success.

Let’s rewire together.

References

Andreassen, C. S., et al. (2016). The relationships between workaholism and symptoms of psychiatric disorders: A large-scale cross-sectional study. PLoS ONE, 11(5), e0152978. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152978

Austin, R. D., & Pisano, G. P. (2017). Neurodiversity as a competitive advantage. Harvard Business Review.

Baumer, N., & Frueh, J. (2021). What is neurodiversity? Harvard Health Publishing. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-is-neurodiversity-202111232645

Dos Santos, D. N., et al. (2023). The relationship between ADHD symptoms and academic burnout in university students. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Oscarsson, M., et al. (2022). Stress and work-related mental illness among working adults with ADHD: A qualitative study. BMC Psychiatry, 22, 751. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-022-04409-w

Waisman Center. (2022). Workplace disclosure of neurodivergence: A study on stigma and employment outcomes. University of Wisconsin–Madison.