I have a function 'justm' for this specific case: -- | This is sort of like a monad transformer, but the Maybe is on the inside -- instead of the outside. -- -- What I really want here is MaybeT, but it requres explicit lifting... justm :: (Monad m) => m (Maybe a) -> (a -> m (Maybe b)) -> m (Maybe b) justm op1 op2 = maybe (return Nothing) op2 =<< op1 Used like: lookup_selnum :: (Cmd.M m) => Types.SelNum -> m (Maybe (ViewId, Types.Selection)) lookup_selnum selnum = justm Cmd.lookup_focused_view $ \view_id -> justm (State.get_selection view_id selnum) $ \sel -> return $ Just (view_id, sel) As implied by the comment, I wanted to use MaybeT but thought all the explicit lifting and wrapping in runMaybeT was too complicated. However losing 'do' notation is not that great either, so maybe I should give it another go.