How can ChatGPT assist with Neurodiverse challenges?

Towards the end of 2022, ChatGPT was unveiled to the public and it quickly became the talk of the town, captivating our collective attention. During the first few weeks, we used it to write songs in the style of famous musicians and to compose whimsical poems on hilarious topics whilst simultaneously attempting to catch it out with cunning questions and contradictions. Over the months, ChatGPT has become a valuable addition to my toolkit, allowing me to navigate the world more efficiently as a neurodivergent person.

This week not only marks the one-year anniversary of my personal ADHD journey, but it also happens to coincide with Neurodiversity Celebration Week, making this blog post’s topic extremely relevant. 

What are my challenges?

So as a neurodivergent person who works in content and engagement, what challenges do I face?

• Remaining focused whilst reading large blocks of text
• Finding inspiration while experiencing executive dysfunction
• Structuring and articulating my thoughts

How does ChatGPT support my needs?

I can ask ChatGPT to summarise long blocks of text.

I'm actually trying to be as mindful as possible that others may also find long blocks of text to be quite overwhelming.

So I try to break it up like this.

And this.

And also this.

Before now, if somebody was to send me an article they thought I would find interesting, I would simply not read it. I'd try to figure out what response they were looking for, and respond accordingly. I'd say things like "Cool, that's so interesting! or "No way, that's so sad!". Now, I'll copy and paste the whole article and ask ChatGPT to "ELI5", and summarise it for me in short bullet points, and it works a charm!

Here's an example of an article I was recently sent and here's how ChatGPT summarised it for me:

I can ask ChatGPT for content prompts.

Nobody, and I mean nobody has all of the best ideas all of the time. Sometimes we wake up and our brain says "Nope, not today!". On these days, I used to be kind to myself and acknowledge that today might not be the day, but that the motivation will come to me eventually. Whilst this is a really nice thing to do for yourself, the corporate world cannot always wait for "eventually".

If I am feeling uninspired, I will often head to ChatGPT for some blog post prompts and inspiration. You can still be kind to yourself by accepting that this is not "cheating" but it's something that is helping you with your work when your brain isn't working as it should.

I wonder if you can figure out which of my past blog posts have stemmed from ChatGPT.

I can ask ChatGPT to articulate what I'm thinking or change my tone.

By now, you can probably tell that my tone is pretty casual. In fact, ChatGPT would describe it as "Casual and conversational with a hint of sarcasm". However, sometimes my role requires me to be more professional. As a neurodivergent person, I'm not always the best at "reading the room" and I have a tendency to crack a joke at any given opportunity, so this is where ChatGPT comes in handy.

It can also work in the opposite manner. Sometimes I may need to send some internal comms out to the team and it may seem that I am angry or upset. Sometimes I can appear to be quite short when really I'm just doing my job. The coffee machine hasn't been wiped down, somebody's left a half-eaten KitKat in the cupboard, or the AC unit has been put up to 30°c for whatever ridiculous reason, that sort of thing. Whilst I obviously care about these things, I also want to be respected by my team, so I ask ChatGPT to find a polite way to address these things.

Final thoughts

I've heard a lot of neurodivergent people say that they're creative because of their neurodiversity, but I believe I am creative in spite of my neurodiversity. I am an exceptionally creative person, but sometimes my brain gets in the way. I am incredibly grateful for the technology behind ChatGPT and I look forward to seeing it evolve over the coming months and years.

And lastly: am I worried that ChatGPT will steal my job? Well, I posed that very question to ChatGPT:

I think I’m going to be okay for now!