Compensation Strategies vs. Accommodations: Navigating ADHD Support
This month I’m exploring some of the gray lines in ADHD. Last week, I dug into the difference between self-monitoring and masking. This week, I’m diving into a closely related topic: what is the difference between compensation strategies and accommodations in the context of ADHD?
What are ADHD Compensation Strategies?
Compensation strategies are practices, routines, or hacks that an individual develops over time as a way to manage their ADHD. These strategies often help people meet external expectations but come with a cost.
This is one of the most important things I wish all assessors understood. A lot of ADHD assessments might go something like this:
As a child, did you struggle with turning work in on time?
"No."
(Move on to the next question.)
But when you understand compensation strategies, you ask a critical follow-up question: How did you get your work done on time? Were there systems or practices in place that helped you meet deadlines?
If you asked me how I got my work done on time, I would tell you about my system: I wrote everything down the moment I received the syllabus, entered it all into my calendar, and obsessively checked and re-checked everything. I’d cross-check my notes with the syllabus and the digital system the teacher was using. Then, I made a separate master list that I hung on my wall with all tasks and dates, which I would also obsessively check. I made sure to get started right away, aiming to turn in assignments early so I could “close the loop.” Just knowing an assignment was due anytime in the next four months kept a hypervigilant loop running in my brain.
The idea of having something “floating” in my to-do list, without it being done, made me anxious. I was afraid I’d forget, so I couldn’t relax until I knew it was finished.
So, yes, I rarely missed assignments. But that success didn’t come without a cost. The constant checking and re-checking, the planning, and the need to keep all the tasks in my mental orbit took an enormous amount of energy. The hypervigilance wasn’t just time-consuming — it was emotionally draining. This, to me, is where compensation strategies become a double-edged sword.
Similar to masking, compensation strategies aren’t all good or all bad. There are privileges and costs that come with them. On the one hand, they helped me do well in school and even earn an advanced degree — significant benefits for sure. They’re what get us to doctor appointments on time, remind us to fill up the gas tank before it hits empty, and keep us juggling all the little things life throws our way.
But on the other hand, the hypervigilance, emotional toll, and energy expenditure can be high. And that’s why it’s so important for assessors to ask about these strategies. A person might not check all the boxes for "classic ADHD symptoms," but if they’re devoting 10 hours a week to maintaining systems just to stay on track, they may be living with undiagnosed ADHD. Worse, this can lead to exhaustion, stress, and anxious checking, which sometimes looks like anxiety or depression, but really stems from the overwhelming effort of managing the world without support.
So, compensation strategies could be described as the techniques that a person with ADHD develops — often independently — to cope with or work around their ADHD traits. These strategies involve compensating for their differences, usually by creating systems or routines to function more effectively in environments that haven't adapted to their needs.
Compensation strategies aren’t inherently bad. In fact, they can be essential. But the danger comes when a person relies so heavily on these strategies that they end up burning out. People often compensate in order to fit into the expectations of a neurotypical world, without understanding why they have to work so hard — and without receiving the support they need. When someone has patchworked together enough compensation strategies to get by, they often feel like an impostor deep down.
Compensation Strategies and Imposter Syndrome
Before discovering my ADHD, I lived with a constant, burning fear that people would eventually find out I was like the Wizard of Oz — all smoke and mirrors. Someday, someone would pull back the curtain and see a small, insecure person pretending to be mighty. Honestly, that fear still lingers. On the surface, I could give talks, appear professional, and seem like I had it all together, but I was terrified that if anyone looked closer, they’d find a frantic, fearful, incompetent person behind the scenes. It felt like I was putting on a magic show of success, all the while dreading the moment I’d be exposed as a fraud. This was a recurring theme in therapy long before I even knew I had ADHD. I couldn’t understand why my achievements felt hollow or why I was so terrified of being found out as the impostor I believed myself to be.
When compensation strategies become the only way a person can "pass" or meet expectations, it often fuels feelings of shame and impostor syndrome. Just like I feared being discovered as the Wizard of Oz, many people with ADHD feel they’re only maintaining the illusion of competence through constant, exhausting effort. This internal struggle can be confusing and isolating — on the outside, everything seems fine, but inside, the fear of being exposed never really goes away. Over time, the relentless need to compensate takes its toll, increasing the risk of burnout, which can spiral into secondary mental health conditions like anxiety or depression.
So Then What Are Accommodations?
Accommodations, on the other hand, are different. While compensation strategies require the individual to adapt to their environment, accommodations modify the environment itself to make it more supportive for ADHDers. These are external changes that help reduce the friction ADHDers experience when trying to function in a world built for neurotypical brains.
Examples of accommodations might include flexible work hours to match ADHDers’ natural energy ebb and flow, sensory adjustments to help manage sensory needs and distractability, or executive functioning supports provided by someone else. Accommodations can be formal, such as those legally mandated in schools or workplaces, or informal, like small adjustments you make for yourself to improve daily life. But at their core, accommodations are about adapting external factors so that the ADHD brain can function with less friction.
This brings us to the idea of self-accommodations, a concept that exists in a bit of a gray area between compensation and formal accommodations. Self-accommodations might include things like using apps for visual schedules or setting up elaborate reminder systems. These adjustments make the environment more ADHD-friendly, but because the individual is still responsible for managing them, they can straddle the line between external support and personal coping mechanisms.
Self-Accommodations: The Gray Middle
I recently took the ESQ (an online screener for executive functioning), and unsurprisingly, my weakest area was organization. How do I tend to compensate for that? By working harder and longer. Supervisors and mentors used to say, “You’re so efficient with your time,” but what they didn’t realize was that I wasn’t efficient at all. I compensated by becoming a workaholic (though, to be fair, other factors contributed to that too). Instead of working smarter, I worked longer — often twice as long — just to get the same things done.
When I started working for myself and had to set up my own systems, I’d spend endless hours tracking down files, searching for passwords, or organizing materials. The most embarrassing mishap? Once, a file meant for a colleague ended up in a shared Google Drive folder used by customers who had purchased a workbook. (And yes, now I obsessively check every time I open a new document to make sure it’s in the right folder.) Beyond these embarrassing moments, my organizational struggles consumed a lot of time, stress, and energy. By the time I had everything in place to actually start the work, I was already feeling frustrated and like I was running on empty.
Over the past year, as Neurodivergent Insights has grown, I’ve been fortunate enough to hire a few employees. This has allowed me to create more self-accommodations by having my teammates help build organizational systems and take on tasks that are hardest for my brain. My teammates helped me reshape my work environment to better work for my brain. I recognize the privilege in this — hiring help isn't an option for everyone, and many people with ADHD don’t have the resources to delegate tasks or build out custom systems. For me, being able to hire teammates — many of whom are also AuDHDers — has been a game-changer. All of them are far more organized than I am, and with their help, we’ve wrangled in the chaos of customer service and my inbox, and built an organizational system that actually works for my brain. As a result, my brain is slowly learning to trust these systems, and I’m holding fewer open loops in my head, because I trust there’s a structure to hold them instead.
Other self-accommodations I use span from technological supports to things like meal subscription services (my current favorite is Hungryroot, which provides variety which allows me to accommodate our families’ diverse food needs). But the reality is, many of these self-accommodations require financial privilege. And that’s where the gap becomes painfully clear — building systems or outsourcing tasks that reduce cognitive load can make a huge difference for people with ADHD, but access to these kinds of supports is often limited by financial resources. The truth is, not everyone has the means to afford these tools, leaving many stuck in a cycle of overcompensation and burnout. That said, I do have some suggestions for some free self-accomodation tools that I’ve found helpful, which I will share below.
Even though some of us may receive accommodations through school or work, a lot of the day-to-day adjustments — the self-accommodations that sit in the gray area between compensation strategies and true accommodations — fall on us to figure out. So I’ve developed something of a litmus test to help me determine if something is a compensation strategy or an accommodation:
Does this help me hold less hypervigilance in my brain and body?
Am I creating a system my brain can trust enough to let it rest?
Can I automate it in a way that lets the loop in my brain—the one that pings at 2 a.m.—finally settle?
Are there ways I can outsource certain tasks instead of working more frantically?
As I continue to build a life and business that support my AuDHD brain, I’m still figuring out how to shift away from the compensation strategies I’ve patchworked together over the years and focus on creating more sustainable accommodations.
Some Free Self-Accommodations Tools
Even though some accommodations require financial privilege, there are free tools out there that can make a big difference. Here are a few free self-accommodations tools that I’ve found useful or that others in the ADHD community swear by:
Goblin Tools
Goblin Tools offers AI-powered tools that help with executive function by breaking down overwhelming tasks into manageable steps. One helpful feature, the "magic to-do list," breaks complex tasks into smaller, more achievable actions, and helps you estimate how long tasks will take.
Notion (Free Plan)
Notion is a customizable all-in-one workspace for organizing tasks, notes, and projects. Ideal for ADHDers, allowing you to create personalized systems like task lists, keep track of passwords, files and need to know information. It’s versatile enough to be helpful for both personal and professional organization.
ChatGPT (Free Plan)
ChatGPT is a helpful tool for breaking down complex instructions or tasks into manageable steps. For example, you can feed it instructions and ask it to simplify them into clear, actionable steps. Whether you’re prioritizing a to-do list, brainstorming ideas, or clarifying confusing information, ChatGPT can be used as a thought partner, supporting executive functioning and reducing mental load.
Canva (Free Plan)
Canva’s free plan is great for visual thinkers. Beyond graphic design, it helps ADHDers create visual planners, to-do lists, and mind maps — it can be helpful tool for creating visual accommodations.
Grammarly (Free Plan)
Grammarly’s free plan offers valuable support for improving clarity and accuracy in writing. It provides real-time feedback on spelling, grammar, and tone, reducing mental strain and easing the editing process, whether you’re drafting an email or longer content.
Body Doubling with a friend, family member or colleague
Body doubling is a simple yet effective method where you work alongside someone else — virtually or in person — to stay focused and on task. It helps reduce procrastination and makes starting or completing tasks feel less overwhelming.
Wrapping it up
At the end of the day, compensation strategies and accommodations both have their place in managing ADHD, but they serve different purposes. Compensation strategies help us get by in a world that’s not built for our brains, but they can come at a pretty steep cost — especially when they’re invisible to others and lead to burnout. Accommodations, on the other hand, take some of the weight off by adjusting the environment to ease the cognitive load and reduce stress.
The difference between these two approaches is important to understand, especially for those assessing ADHD. It’s not just about asking, "Did you turn in your work on time?" It’s about digging deeper: "How did you manage that?" Compensation strategies can mask ADHD symptoms, but they can also drain us, leading to hidden costs like anxiety or burnout.
In the end, we need a balance between both. Compensation strategies can fuel independence and creativity, but accommodations provide the support we need to avoid burning out. We all need a mix of both to thrive, and recognizing that is key to building more sustainable ways of living and working with ADHD.
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