Office Survival Gear for the Neurodivergent Tech Worker

Traditional offices can be massively overstimulating if you’re neurodivergent, unless you have the right gear.

I wore glasses for decades until I got my eyes lasered. I never felt bad about wearing glasses or like it was making me weak. Wearing glasses was just a necessary adjustment in order for me to function well in the world. My vision was fairly bad but if I really had to I probably could have forgone glasses, sat very close to my monitor, squint through every meeting, and even drive to and from work, albeit I wouldn’t be able to read the text on street signs. I probably would have returned home every day with a headache but also a steady paycheck.

Why then, for years, did I heap guilt on myself for any other accommodations? I never judged anyone else for needing a special keyboard, or noise cancelling headphones, but I was different, I was Josh, surely I was just being overly sensitive and just needed to champ up, to squint through the myopia and bear the headaches.

I realized the error of my ways a few years back. I began allowing myself accommodations instead of just white knuckling everything. Lots of equipment has come and gone over the years but what follows is a loadout that lets me do my best work in a traditional office environment. My hope is that you find a couple things that might help you too if you’re neurodivergent and working in an office.

The goods!

Ear Pro

I am extraordinarily sensitive to sound. I’m not sure if my formal study in music made this better or worse for me, but hear we are.

Ear protection breaks down into two categories for me: dampening and blocking.

Dampening

I’ve tried many things for dampening. I’ve slept with foam earplugs for most of my adult life. I began discreetly wearing them to work though and I notice a huge difference in how calm I feel all day. I stopped feeling irritable and totally frazzled by noon. I just buy a big jar of them and pitch them when they get gunky.

I still prefer foamybois for sleep but they block a bit too much. Sometimes it’s difficult to hear exactly what people are saying. I recently picked up some earplugs by Loop, which if I’m being honest, kind of look like a weird AirPods knockoff.

Despite this, they’re super discreet when they’re in your ears, and, in my opinion, quite comfortable. They work by decreasing noise instead of trying to block it. I can still hear very well with them in but the volume is turned down by a notch or two. This is a great balance for me. I keep that relaxed feeling and I don’t have to really strain to hear people.

BLOCK

Sometimes you need to go full-focus though and for those scenarios I prefer over-the-ear, active noise cancelling headphones. ANC headphones work by listening to environmental sound in realtime then playing the inverse of those sound waves through the headphones which cancels the sound out. My recommendation is to spare no expense here. I have the latest Bose ones. In the past I had AirPods Max but they were very heavy and stopped powering on after about a year for no apparent reason. You’ll definitely want to try on a bunch of pairs before making a decision.

Pro tip: make sure they are comfortable with eyeglasses if you wear them!

Light

Office lighting is generally horrible. I think anyone with basic interior design sensibility, whether neurodivergent or not, would agree with me on this point!

I’ve never had the balls to just wear my Pit Vipers around the office all day.

In lieu of those I wear a ballcap sometimes (visor shields some of the overhead light) and some blue-light blocking glasses.

I’m not a big Huberman “lifestyle optimization” guy but I saw an Instagram Reel where we was wearing some blue light blocking glasses so I picked up a cheapo pair off Amazon. They’re great - comfy to wear, and cuts down on the office lighting harshness a bit. I think they look cool too.

Fidget

I’m a bit obsessed with pens. Going to Catholic school really emphasized my love of good penmanship. After some trial and error with different pens I’ve settled on a TWSBI Vac 700R pen with purple detailing and a thicc stub nib. I have some awesome ink in there that writes purple but kinda oxidizes green in areas where it’s thick enough. Happy to share the link - comment if you’re interested. I write in a large Moleskine notebook (my paper journey is another story entirely).

The pen and notebook serve multiple purposes.

Firstly, they help my short term memory. It’s hard to explain but it feels like writing with a pen brings my thoughts to a thin beam of focus at the tip of the pen. Like, not literally, but it feels like this as I take notes.

Secondly, writing longhand cursive with good penmanship is a sort of disciplined “fidget” for me. I look back on my notes very rarely because the info contained is secondary to the point. Writing is the fidget that focuses me.

Lastly, when I’m not writing I’m generally spinning the pen around my thumb. I have become exceedingly great at this over the years and can do it with just about any kind of pen. I used to write with Pilot G2 1.0mm black ink ballpoint pens and they were very well balanced for spinning. The TWSBI is significantly heavier so it took practice to get a good muscle memory for spinning it, but I feel like the weight of the pen helps me focus even harder.

I know fidgets are highly personalized but this one works for me and has the bonus of being completely undetectable by those not familiar with the concept of a fidget. I regularly get a bunch of compliments on my pen and writing style in general.

More?

If you’d like to know more, please drop a comment below. Really interested to know if you have other suggestions for gear or things that work/don’t work for you!