I learned to count to 31 on 1 hand using binary. I’ve gotten more than a few free drinks via bar bets with that skill lol.

I’ve gotten pretty good at rolling a pen through my fingers just through fidgeting over the past twenty years. So it’s definitely possible!

I was thinking something I could do at work without being too distracting

What do you mean by “stimming”? Being on stimulants?

May I ask what sort of work you do?

Chisanbop or chisenbop (from Korean chi (ji) finger + sanpŏp (sanbeop) calculation 지산법/指算法), sometimes called Fingermath, is a finger counting method used to perform basic mathematical operations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisanbop

You might be already doing this. If you strum your fingers of your right hand by pressing your index, middle, ring, and pinky to your desktop, and then do the same thing again starting with your thumb, you’ve just counted from 0 to 9. Do the same on your left hand and you’ve gone from 00 to 90. It’s really easy to do simple math this way by counting on your fingers.

For stimming purposes, you might just start by counting up or counting down, then maybe counting up by twos or counting down by threes.

This is the approach that I’ve known for many decades now. I’ve seen YouTube videos of kids doing amazing fast calculations like multiplying large numbers using what looks like a different method in that their hands are in the air. I’ll leave it to you to Google the other approaches if this direction interests you.

That’s what stimming is for, kid!

Stimming is a natural source of the “try mind” zen practitioners speak of. Do a perfect impression of Jon Stewart. Why? Why?? Hell no there’s no why.

I drum with my fingers. The first time I picked up a tabla someone was pissed that I got it “immediately”. No! That’s the result of hundreds of hours of practice.

Stimming is a fusion reactor in the autistic mind, just waiting to be hooked up to something useful. We can practice a task orders of magnitude more than most people can, because we literally can’t get tired of it.

If nothing else, go play some music. Stimming with music is how culture began. Somebody’s gotta drag these numbskulls through their passivity to new levels of beauty. Stimming is the hacksaw that cuts the prison bars shoddy workmanship.

After I quit smoking, I wanted to do something with my hands so I bit my nails until it hurt.

Crochet was/ is something I can do with my hands and at the end I get a cool hat or a nice scarf. Yarn gets expensive, tho.

Get a balisong/butterfly knife and just practice opening and closing it without looking and with minimal movement

Absolutely knitting or crocheting. It’s very soothing.

Not a useful skill, but you could try speedcubing

Begleri is a cool skill toy

Balisongs are cool too

While I’m unfamiliar with your condition, it seems simple magic tricks, like having a playing card appear in your hand from thin air (when it was actually just well hidden) and making it disappear again.

I did magic tricks as a hobby, I would practice some card techniques with whatever I had at hand, e.g. credit or parking cards. There are several things you can do with cards or coins that are quick and cool.

Drumming