How to embrace monotropism (as an adult with a job)

One hallmark of the autistic brain that I absolutely love is monotropism, our urge to devote large amounts of attention to a singular interest at the time. If left to our own devices, we can laser focus on one thing for hours or even days, to the exclusion of all else, for better or worse.
Our monotropic minds are naturally designed for deep focus, which is why you’ll see a ton of us in creative or technical fields. Socially awkward programmers and prodigal musicians with crippling anxiety? Autism Originals™️.
There’s a growing bank of research on how monotropism benefits the learning and development of schoolchildren that hasn’t yet made its way to adults. We are, after all, still trying to convince the general public we exist in the first place. At some point we graduate from the overstimulating, big light-infested primary school classroom to the overwhelming university lecture hall, open floor plan office, or even the unique sensory terror that is parenthood.
The truth is, our monotropic brains deserve to thrive just like anyone else’s, and living in a world designed for polytropic thinking shouldn’t mean having to give up a career (or, you know…your children) just to survive.
I’m still in the process of figuring out how to gracefully move through the world with my one-track mind, but I’ve found a few tips that stick (and some that don’t, but maybe they will for you.)
But first…
What is monotropism?
While polytropic brains are designed to dole out small amounts of attention to a task, making them well-suited to surface-level tasks, monotropic brains are predisposed for deep, focused work on a singular topic. We sometimes call this type of work the flow state.
Tech companies love the flow state. Autistic men were especially hot commodities in cities like San Francisco and London, where mediocre brogrammers are a dime a dozen but autistic brogrammers are golden gooses. As long as they have a shiny autist leading the pack, the boss gets his obscenely high tech salary and so do the minions. That’s what happens when you let a monotropic thinker live in his happy place.
Monotropism helps us cope and learn faster
Monotropism can be therapeutic. Many music, art, and literature aficionados are autistic, and tons of art therapists tailor their practice to autistic people to help process complex trauma.
Given the time and space to explore them, our special interests become areas of study that feel borderline euphoric to engage with, like we’re in a world of our own. It’s like diving head-first into a lake, when there are several other lakes nearby.
Neurotypicals have a harder time maintaining focus long enough to achieve a flow state. They dip their toes into the lake without ever submerging themselves. They won’t learn as fast or gain as much experience, but they’ll be able to dry off and leave the lake faster.
Drawbacks to monotropism
On the other hand, when it’s time to switch tasks, the monotropic thinker has a lot more to do before she can move on. She needs to tamp down the euphoria, get out of the pool, re-acclimate to the temperature, dry off, and find where she left her sandals. By the time she’s ready, everybody’s standing around the next lake, tapping their feet and staring.
Speaking of euphoria, if you deal with demand avoidance and find yourself feeling lightheaded or overjoyed while actively avoiding doing the thing you want to do, I suspect that could also be a less popular, monotropic-specific type of flow being employed to cope with stress. (Learn more about demand avoidance and its struggles on YouTube with I'm Autistic, Now What?)
This is another frustrating factor that can make monotropism difficult in a neurotypical society — anxiety and fear might make us want to retreat to our happy place rather than actually get things done. There’s procrastinating, and then there’s watching five hours of Persona 5 psychological analysis videos when you know you should be writing that report, because your colleague scared the crap out of you. Not that I’ve ever done that, of course.
Self-soothing tips for monotropic minds
1. Build predictable routines that reward you with blocks of focused time
Time blocking — organizing your workday so that similar work is groups into chunks of time, rather than a jumped mess of fires to put out — is a tried-and-true way to claw back some focus time. But if you have people in your life who demand your attention at unpredictable hours, this can be tricky.
Not sure if this counts as a life hack, but when I have a…let’s say “needy” boss or coworker who likes to micromanage, and I do my best work in the morning, my go-to tactic is to spend a little bit of extra time in the evening before work scheduling emails to go out to them in the morning, before they arrive at their desk. That way you look like you’re giving them your undivided attention first thing in the morning, and you get your focused time to dig into a task or topic. Everybody’s happy!
(And if a potential employer is reading this…you can use this trick too! No need to thank me!)
2. Connect daily tasks to special interests
In Atomic Habits, James Clear offers habit stacking as a way to make uninteresting habits a lot more enticing. If you have a special interest that fits in well with the tasks you’d rather avoid doing, taking the time to meld them together could be worth your while.
One of my favorite, if extreme examples of combining special interests with executive function tools is the LiFE RPG Notion template by HeyAlbert. A lot of everyday tasks feel monotonous for autistic adults; when we struggle to understand why it’s important, or don’t understand or respect the rules around doing it, we can’t be bothered. The note-taking app Notion is so customizable, HeyAlbert was able to turn it into a minimalist text-based RPG, converting tasks as big as multi-month projects and as small as taking a shower into EXP or coins. You can also set up real-life goals as a reward for completing all those monotonous tasks, so the process feels more fulfilling over time.
There are other, much simpler ways to connect your tasks to special interests. Sometimes, you’ve got to gentle parent yourself and make some concessions to get the ball rolling. Sometimes my AuDHD brain just wants to bounce around in the sun instead of plopping me in front of a computer for hours at a time. Even when what I’m about to write or make is genuinely exciting to me! To counteract this, I allow extra time in the morning for me to run through a routine:
- Make tea
- Sit down at desk
- Find one (1) piece of media related to my special interest of the moment
- Once I’ve finished watching or reading that thing, it’s time to immediately start a pomodoro timer for work.
Yes, I am a whole adult who sometimes spends 5 minutes in the morning watching P5R meme compilations. If it gets results, who’s complaining?
3. Understand the link between flow and demand avoidance
Demand avoidance, or “pathological demand avoidance” as researchers insist on calling it, is a phenomenon many neurodivergent people struggle with over demands large and small. Anything you technically have to do — be that a meeting, a looming deadline, or feeding yourself — can feel like an impossible task, leading you to do anything you can to avoid so much as thinking about it.
Flow states aren’t just a fountain of productivity; evidence suggests they’re coping mechanisms, too. You can get into the flow while gaming, coding, painting — just about anything that can require so much focus you feel like you’re in a world of your own. This can provide a much-needed escape from the stress and struggle we face each day!
Just be sure to stay mindful of your responsibilities. Losing too much sleep to the flow state can lead to self-sabotage.
Speaking of…
4. Mindfulness practices can improve self-regulation
I personally will never stop singing the praises of mindfulness! I think many neurodivergent people have an early experience that turns off from mindfulness practices, but there’s no need to sit quietly in a room alone for an hour a day, or even five minutes!
Deep breathing exercises can help improve self-regulation, and they can be done sitting, standing, walking, or lying down. Grounding work like body scans train your attention to notice changes in your body from day to day. Sustaining a mindful routine with these two exercises, you’ll become acutely aware of your body and mind, and how to transition both into and out of the flow state faster and with greater ease. (Here's a detailed rundown of autist-friendly meditation techniques, btw.)
5. Use visual tools to create a focus-friendly structure
I once dated an ADHD guy who loved making lists. His to-do list was in a single note on his phone and must have contained over 400 items. Some were checked off, but literally hundreds weren’t, and everything was in a jumbled mess that spiked my heart rate to even look at. When I told him this, he shook his head, insisting he felt more productive seeing everything he'd finished across the weeks and months. And everything was in one place, he said, so no task ever got lost!
I dated a different AuDHD guy who leveraged apps and visual calendars to organize his tasks and map out his week in advance. He separated his day into chunks of time dedicated to specific projects, leaving space to talk to his colleagues and answer emails, and set up reminders so that he almost never needed to open his phone to figure out his next month. This allowed him to be laser-focused all day, with no distractions.
One was a senior engineer at a well-known fintech startup, and the other was an "entrepreneur" who'd been unemployed for five years. Can you guess who’s who?
This isn't an attack on anyone who sees a long to-do list as a badge of honor. For the rest of us, a little structure goes a long way! Right now I use two apps to build a visual structure for myself:
- Capacities, a note-taking app where I record every important meeting and conversation I have throughout the day. I create my to-do lists in specific notes to provide context for where the task came from, and why it’s important.
- Tick Tick, a calendar app that lets you organize, tag, and filter your tasks, then time block them on a full calendar. It pulls tasks directly from my Capacities notes, making it easy for me to remember what the task is for.
There are a bunch of integrated apps you can use to create this same structure. I used to use Notion and Akiflow together, but Akiflow was a little too expensive for me. I also used a bullet journal for a few years, of course, but that was before I started working. Setting up a spread is so much fun; I just didn’t have the time anymore!
Embrace monotropism!
In my opinion it doesn’t matter whether you’re a student, unemployed, a stay at home parent or in the working world — you deserve to embrace monotropism and create the day of your dreams, every day. Getting into the flow state as an autist requires tailoring the process to your own strengths, needs, and sensory preferences, not the demands of your boss or mom or teacher.
I believe creating a flow state-friendly lifestyle set you up for a more empowered life. It’s an empowering and transformative experience to build your schedule the way you need it to be to thrive.
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