Best Results Organizing

Last week, in Paper Doll Sees Double: Body Doubling for Productivity, we looked at the concept of body doubling and the mechanisms by which it helps us with productivity and accountability through social pressure, task orientation, biological cues, and extended focus.

My wise colleague Diane Quintana, CPO®, CPO-CD, who has expertise using body doubling with her clients with ADHD, added “…body doubling is a calming strategy. I find that when my clients are anxious or stressed over a particular task, using this strategy – quietly working alongside them – is a calming influence. They get more done in less time and with less stress.”

In that post, I walked through my experiences with body doubling one-on-one with clients, and virtually, in a group setting in co-writing sessions and at a writing retreat. I also laid out how to identify the ideal body-doubling method for your needs and the attributes to consider in seeking out a platform.

Whether you call it social focus, group body doubling, or co-working, if you haven’t been able to find the right mix of support and aren’t eager to create your own, you might want to consider one of the platforms profiled in this post.

FREE CO-WORKING WITH PREMIUM UPGRADES

Groove

Groove bills itself as a free accountability club and is targeted toward solopreneurs. It’s not a networking or venture capital matchmaking site, but it does seem to lean into convivial support and the possibility of making connections.

To start, and “to ensure the trust and safety” of their community, you fill out an online form with basic information: name, email, why you want to try Groove, a project you might like to conquer, and how you found out about Groove.

Next, download the Groove app for your mobile device. From the home screen, start a “groove” session, where you will be joined by one-to-three other participants. The app prompts each person through a one-minute video check-in to share goals for the forthcoming groove.

Next, microphones are muted and cameras are turned off, and you’re presented with a screen to enter your goal and break it into distinct tasks. As you work, you check off the tasks, and your fellow Groovers (Groovies?) can cheer your accomplishments via the in-app text chat.

After 50 minutes (the length of two Pomodoros without a break in between), cameras and microphones are turned back on, and there’s another video check-in to debrief.

Each Groove is exactly 60 minutes, including the worktime and the bookending check-ins. After completing one Groove, you can go right into another or just move on with your day. Groove says it helps users “ditch distraction, find focus, and celebrate small wins through social connection and peer support.”

If Groove assigns someone to your session with whom you’ve grooved before, the app adds a little caption to let you know the folks you’ve previously met (so you can say “Nice to see you again” instead of “Nice to meet you,” preventing social embarrassment for those who don’t really remember names or faces).

Groove operates 24/7 around the world, but notes that you’re most likely to encounter fellow Groovers during regular business hours in the US (and, one assumes, Canada).

In addition to ad hoc sessions with whomever is using the platform, you can also start a private Groove with specific individuals or schedule a Groove for later in the week. The latter is restricted to those who have grooved at least five times previously. Instructions are in the site’s FAQ. 

If you’re a solopreneur and are looking for body doubling at no cost, this is a chipper and free option.

I see some potential disadvantages, however. The app is phone based; while some people (read: Millennials and Gen Z) might be comfortable using a phone for this kind of video chat experience and typing goals and tasks into a phone, others may be frustrated.

My vanity has taught me how to set up the light and achieve the best angle when I’m on a video call. Even if talking with strangers, I don’t want to be shot from below and my middle-aged arms can’t comfortably hold a camera up for that long. Also, I can barely type on my phone, so I dictate. I vastly prefer to use a full-sized (with numerical keypad) keyboard with my two desktop iMacs. 

Of course, if the overall approach appeals to you, there are a few solutions. I found this inexpensive aluminum phone stand in a variety of colors, including a purple one that matches my iMac.

Additionally, you could use a small Bluetooth keyboard to type on the phone.

It’s not clear how Groove makes its money. Usually, if you are not the consumer (paying the fee) then you are the consumed, being targeted with advertising. Hm.

 

GoGoDone

I was in the middle of researching this post when Renaissance woman and friend-of-the-blog Kara Cutruzzula of Brass Ring Daily emailed saying, “Since November, I’ve been dropping into “GoGoDone” sessions…Usually small groups, a mix of entrepreneurs and small business owners and marketers. They’ve improved my concentration 110% — and I’m a Questioner! It’s like a free Caveday.”

GoGoDone co-working sessions are conducted over Zoom and are moderated by hosts to keep everything running smoothly. At the start of a session, you share what you’ll be working on during the session, and they recommend bringing tasks at which you’ve been procrastinating.

Work sessions last for 90 or 120 minutes, during which microphones are muted, and there are networking breaks to help “to keep you sharp.”

​Participants can Zoom in from anywhere in the world. Look at the GoGoDone calendar to find a session you’d want to join, and then access the session via Zoom link shared in GoGoDone’s Slack community.

(Registering with Slack, a free website companies and organizations use to communicate in a closed environment, instead of via email, is easy; once you join, you’ll have access to the evergreen Zoom link for sesions. There’s no obligation to participate in GoGoDone’s Slack “channels” (i.e., discussion threads).

Sessions are generally available on weekdays from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time (though there are occasional weekend opportunities). This makes it less useful for night owls like Paper Doll but has fantastic opportunities for you early birds!

GoGoDone is designed specifically for solo professionals to get the camaraderie they need to conquer procrastinated-on work, including producing podcasts and newsletters, developing client proposals and doing the actual work, promoting content via social media, writing, building websites, and more.

In addition to the free co-working community, there are GoGoDone Sprints, two hours each Monday through Thursday for two consecutive weeks (so, 16 hours) to get ahead on projects for which you’ve always wanted to work on but have never set aside the time. Check-ins bookend each two-hour session and there’s a short, fun discussion break to keep brains fresh. With GoGoDone Sprints’ structure, masterminding, and community makes it a short-term accountability group combined with body doubling. Sprint participation is limited and costs $99 (with deep discounts for their newsletter subscribers).

(GoGoDone also has a premium community for anyone seeking extra support and guidance specifically on marketing a solo business. This includes mastermind sessions, 1:1 coaching, co-promotion opportunities, and social outreach sessions.)

​Focusmate

Pitching itself as a virtual co-working model for anyone who wants to get anything done, Focusmate provides body doubling in a more traditional sense. There are only two participants, you and your randomly-assigned Focusmate partner. 

Create an account and then book a session for the time you want, and at the appointment moment, you join a video call. New sessions are available every 15 minutes, so if you’re feeling the need for support, you won’t have to wait long, even on weekends or in the evenings.

Connect via the Focusmate web app in your browser. On your computer, you’ll need to use Chrome. On a mobile device, you can choose Chrome or Safari. You can add virtual backgrounds, screen sharing, and video effects.

Each session is either 25 minutes (the length of a standard Pomodoro), 50 minutes, or 75 minutes, bookended by an opportunity for you each to share your goals and then recap how you did…and celebrate your mutual successes. Your partner remains in a minimized picture-in-picture while you work.

Interestingly, while you are co-working, your camera remains on for the entire session, sound is optional — there’s a mute button — but some people thrive at body doubling when they hear another person’s typing or breathing. However, you are not supposed to converse; there’s a text-based chat for entering the tasks you’re working on, or if you need to communicate. On the plus side, this ensures that you will feel the complete body doubling experience, with the presence of another person matching your energy completing a similarly-styled task.

Although most often used for professional (i.e., desk-based work), the FAQ notes that as long as you keep your camera (and audio) on, you can use the platform for other kinds of tasks, including household tasks like cooking and cleaning, as well as “art, music, writing, reading, even at-home exercise!” 

Although partners are typically randomly assigned, you can “favorite” them by tapping the star (☆) next to your partner’s name in a session, on their profile, or on the People page. Then, you can later choose to schedule a “locked-in” Focusmate session with that specific favorited person. Once you favorite someone, you can “snooze” them so you’re not partnered with them again for a set time.

You can use the Availability setting to control who can book scheduled sessions with you: all Focusmate members (except anyone you might have blocked or snoozed) or only favorites, or refuse all invitations to scheduled sessions.

The FAQ notes that, “Accountability is enforced by Focusmate and its community members. If you’re late or don’t show, Focusmate can detect it and your timeliness score will be reduced, and your account can also be frozen. If your partner goofs off during the session, you can report it using the reporting button on the appointment card in your dashboard.” This is great for rule followers who seek a serene experience, but it feels kind of like how you and your Uber driver rate one another — potentially stressful.

I really like that Focusmate talks about the science-based success of the behavioral triggers of the body double method, similar to what we discussed last week: pre-commitment, implementation intentions, social pressure, accountability, task definition, neurotransmitters and brain chemistry and flow.

Focusmate is free for up to three co-working sessions per week; at the Plus level, it’s $6.99/month if billed annually or $9.99/month if billed monthly.

There are also two separate Community and Team plans with special pricing designed to increase interaction and member connection within far-flung communities or companies without direct supervision. Additionally, businesses (especially those with employees who works off-site and without supervision) can reduce remote workers’ sense of isolation while improving productivity and focus. 

CO-WORKING MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTIONS

Flown 

Want help taking flight with your creative inspiration? Flown’s founder started with Cal Newport’s Deep Work, and then experimented with creating in-person deep work retreats – at a villa in Spain, a chateau in France, and a townhouse in Portugal. (Nice work if you can get it, eh?) COVID scuttled the in-person events, but not the concept, and Flown was born. 

Flocks are group co-(deep)working sessions run on Zoom and facilitated by experts. Choose the session types on the dates you want to attend, and Flown sends you calendar invites to ensure you can have the time blocked out, uninterruptible. Click the link in the invitation, turn on your camera, state your goals, and work! Share your achievements at the end!

Flocks have a wide array of styles and focus areas. Deep Dives, offered five times a day, are silent work sessions for anything you want to focus on. After Flockers (attendees) state their goals, everyone settles into two 50-minute deep-working flights; there’s a “quirky” quick break at the one-hour mark to keep your mind fresh. 

Twice per day, you can attend a sprint-styke Power Hour where you focus on getting key tasks completed. They’re designed for getting you into a flow state for that productivity boost.

Flown also has four 20-minute morning Take-Off sessions, which include a short meditation, handwritten journaling time, and an opportunity to state your day’s intentions to fellow Flockers. Finally, there are 8-hour freestyle Drop-In sessions; arrive and leave whenever you like to take advantage of body-doubling co-working sessions to get your deep work done.

For those who would like a bit of motivation without actually interacting with other humans, you can watch a Flown Porthole, videos of other people doing deep creative work. Pick the ceramicist, author, sculptor, athlete, or others. It’s faux body doubling, similar in theory to what I discussed in Flow and Faux (Accountability): Productivity, Focus, and Alex Trebek), but more motivating.

Flown also offers three recharging events:

• Airflow — Live, coached breathwork sessions to renew focus and boost well-being, side-by-side with other session attendees.
• Almanac — Nugget of inspiring content designed to help you refresh between Pomodoros or other stretches of work sessions; they’re designed to help “fuel divergent thinking.”
• Awe Walks — Live, guided active meditation walks to help you detach from work and refresh your mind.

Flown offers a 30-day free trial, after which there are two membership options. Join Flown Free and participate in Flocks, Take-Offs, Airflow, and Awe Walks for free on Fridays only; avail yourself of Portholes and other on-demand content twice/month with limited access to Flown’s Academy (guides to deep work) and community. Flown Free members can only schedule one live event at a time.

For $19/month ($225 billed annually) or $25/month (billed monthly), Flown Full offers unlimited access to everything and extra booking options. (UK-based members with ADHD can apply for grants for financial support.)

On the down side, Flocks are only offered on weekdays, which makes it less advantageous for working on a side-hustle outside of your Monday-Friday grind. 

Cave Day

Two years ago, this was the best-known, most-researched co-working brand.

Trained focus experts lead Cave Day participants through 1- or 3-hour, pre-scheduled sessions. There are 50+ participants in each session, held via Zoom, though you announce your goals in smaller breakout rooms. Cavers are invited to hide their phones, turn off their mics, keep their cameras on, and settle in for “head-down focus” in their work sprints. 

To maintain energy and focus, each Cave session alternates between deep work sprints and invigorating breaks. Based on efficacy research, sprint lengths vary from 45 to 52 minutes to “optimize the brain’s focus capacity.” The exact length is a surprise so you will immerse yourself in work and not watch the clock. They note, “Because of the nature of deep work and distractions, we don’t allow late arrivals. Sorry.” (You can, however, leave early.)

Click on a Cave in the weekly schedule to book it. Ad hoc drop-in sessions are $20, or you can purchase one of three membership types: $30/month (paid annually), $35/month (paid quarterly) or $39.99 for monthly members.

Flow Club

This online co-working option has a sleek, clean look and a focus on achieving flow, and is particularly promoted to professionals with ADHD.

Flow Club has its own web app, which operates inside your browser. There are hundreds of live sessions each week, around the clock, and session lengths can be 60, 90, or 120 minutes in duration.

Book a session listed on the schedule of upcoming options to “pre-commit” and make yourself more likely to attend. (You can schedule at the last minute, though.) Sessions are hosted to keep everything on track, and there are up to eight participants at any session.

Show up at the appointed time; participants share their goals and then the host sets a timer (and may begin playing focus-inducing music to help induce a flow state. (The schedule indicates which sessions have music, in case that’s something you want to avoid.) Meanwhile, cameras stay on, but everyone is muted and focuses on completing their own deep work. At the conclusion of the session, everyone debriefs and celebrates their achievements (or at least their progress).

You can try Flow Club for free, but then it’s $40/month (or $33.33/month if paid annually) for unlimited access.

TWO MORE OPTIONS AT OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE COST SPECTRUM

Social Pomorodo

Perhaps you want something a little more casual? Don’t want to have to register? Social Pomodoro is about as low-fi as you can get and still be on the computer. Choose one of three options:

• Single Player — To get the hang of it, opt for a computer to be your body double.
• Veteran — Once you know what you’re doing, click on this option to be assigned a work buddy. Traffic is relatively low on this platform, so they suggest clicking Veteran status in “idle mode” and wait for someone to join you. (You can use Single Player in another tab simultaneously.)
• Friend in Mind — Want to body double but don’t want a Zoom, Meet, or Teams account? Have a friend head to Social Pomodoro around the same time, and you can click this button to make sure you get put in the same Pomodoro room.

In all three versions, buddies have 120 seconds to one another in the chat box and text about goals for the session. You’ll see the timer count down to ensure you each get time to talk and are ready to hit the ground running.

Next, work for 25 minutes, a standard Pomodoro measurement, without chatting. The one-screen countdown timer helps you keep pace. At the end of the session, there’s another 120 seconds to share how things went.

Social Pomodoro is a quick alternative if you need your feet held to the fire to complete short tasks like making phone inquiries, scheduling appointments, reading school assignments, drafting emails, or doing a brain dump.

On the up side, it’s free, low-tech, and you don’t have to create an account. However, you’re not going to must live body-doubling suppor unless you bring your own. 

Spacetime Monotasking 

This simultaneously one of the most flexible, most expensive, and most proactively progressive co-working platforms, stating that they are “committed to creating a welcoming environment for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, and people of other systemically marginalized identities.”

Two like-minded women on TikTok founded Spacetime Monotasking (the opposite of multitasking) designed it to “support creatives, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and anyone who wants to use their time differently” by tuning out the outside world and focusing on your priorities. They call it mindfulness in motion.

Spacetime Monotasking hosts live sessions every weekday run through a Discord server. (In case you’re not familiar, think of Discord is a worldwide social media for voice, video, and text chat.) Begin with Spacetime Monotasking’s start page, accept the invitation, and register with Discord.

There are three levels of ongoing memberships: $35 for 5 sessions/month, $55 for 10 sessions/month, and $85/month for unlimited sessions. You can also opt for a drop-in session for $10.

Additionally, individuals can apply for a discounted membership: “Our Boost Rate is intended to uplift BIPOC and others who experience systemic economic disadvantages.” There’s no free trial for the live, hosted monotasking sessions, but you can experience a video version of a Spacetime Monotasking 1-hour sprint:

---

If you don’t belong to an organization that offers co-working sessions and aren’t up for starting your own, would you try one of these platforms? From free up to $1020/year (with many price points in between), from one body double to a crowd of fellow workers, which appeals to you the most for conquering procrastination and getting into that flow state?

Knowing what you have to do and doing it aren’t the same things. If you were raised in the 1980s or 1990s, you learned you were supposed to eat according to the food pyramid. Nowadays, there’s the updated MyPlate approach to healthy eating, to make sure everyone gets the right proportions of fruits and vegetables, grains, protein, and dairy each day.

But knowing how you should eat doesn’t mean that you’ve never contemplated chowing down on break room doughnuts for breakfast. And it’s not just fictional characters like Olivia Pope who’ve had wine and popcorn for dinner.

And while sometimes family, friends, and colleagues can lead us astray from nutritional goals, it’s been proven that hanging out with people whose health goals are similar to yours can help keep you on the straight and narrow.

Simply put, when you’re with people who model good behavior, you’re more likely to participate in that good behavior. So, what does this have to do with organizing or productivity?

BODY DOUBLING AND ACCOUNTABILITY 

Two years ago, I wrote Count on Accountability: 5 Productivity Support Solutions, one of the most popular posts I’ve had in the 15+ years I’ve been writing the Paper Doll blog. The concept of getting accountability support to conquer procrastination and achieve more productivity really resonated.

Perhaps you only know about body doubles in movies or on TV. That kind of body double often appears when the featured character is doing something the actor can’t do, like a backflip or fancy dance move. Subsets of body doubles are stunt doubles, or in the case of some films with a bit of nudity, “butt doubles.” However, when we’re talking about productivity, the “butt” is not about someone else’s; it’s about getting your own derriere into the chair to attack avoided tasks.

In that post two years ago, I explained the body doubling technique developed in the ADHD community. In support groups, participants found that when another person was present, participating in quiet tasks with a similar (non-distracting) energy, it helped the individual maintain focus and motivation. We professional organizers often work as body doubles with clients (both those with ADHD and those without) because it successfully creates an environment for focused work.

Any of us on our own (but particularly clients with ADHD) might (intentionally or unintentionally) delay working on a task or get distracted. Realized or unrealized anxiety about a task — fear of failure, for example — can prevent someone from starting, but you have to start in order to have anything you can improve upon. (See: “You can’t edit a blank page.”)

When a project is hanging over your head, you might find ways to delay or distract yourself, but when someone is there, investing their time in you (and you’re investing your time and money to achieve your goals), body doubling helps you push past the anxiety and be more productive. 

As a professional organizer, when I’m body doubling with a client, we may be working side-by-side or across from one another. I may pre-sort piles of papers into categories (bills to pay, documents to review, items to file) while the client is working through one category at a time to complete distinct tasks. Students quietly studying for an exam in the library or doing homework in study hall are similarly using the body doubling method to achieve focus and productivity.

Scientific research on the benefits of body doubling are scant, but I can think of at least six (interlocking) ways in which body doubling advances an individual’s ability to stick with a task:

• Accountability — By definition, accountability is “the obligation or willingness to accept responsibility for one’s actions.” You may feel like introducing a second party to get your own work done is cheating, but it’s not.

Really, accepting responsibility means marshaling all of your resources to attack a problem and achieve the stated outcome. If a body double, accountability partner, mastermind or study group, workout partners, or anyone else can help you achieve your goals by their mere presence in your life, availing yourself is no different from having a state-of-the-art computer, a current eyeglass prescription, or properly-fitting running shoes. A body double is just a quiet, human-shaped resource for maintaining accountability.

Studying in Library Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

• Social pressure — If someone present with you expects you to get something done, you’re probably going to stick with it and do it. Of course, we’re not all equally responsive to the presence and expectations of others.

Gretchen Rubin’s work on her Four Tendencies framework (how we respond to inner and outer expectations) is a great place to start for understanding the role of social pressure in getting things accomplished.

Some people are Upholders, disciplined at meeting both their own expectations and those of others. Me? I’m an Obliger. I’ve got superior discipline when someone is waiting for me to do something. I am always on time to meetings or appointments, and I deliver what is expected of me by deadlines. However, I’m iffy at goals that only satisfy my own preferences.

Rebels can’t be forced or convinced, but the beauty is that a body double isn’t a boss or a manager telling you what to do. The body double is just mirroring what you’re doing. There’s nothing to rebel against; the body double is just along for the ride. Meanwhile, Questioners can’t be convinced by expectations, only their own pathway to finding meaning in the task. As with Rebels, the body double’s role is as travel companion.

The key is that for those who struggle with getting started or sticking with a task, a partner or several can improve the likelihood of reaching goals.

• Project or task orientation cues — On their own, many people have difficulty maintaining focus on the project at hand. This can be the result of any of a variety of executive function disorders or just a byproduct of living in the 21st century.

For every work-related search you do on Google, you’ll encounter numerous links — both on the search page and then in the sidebars, body, and bottom of the articles you’re reading — specifically designed to take you somewhere else on the web.

On our own, we go down rabbit holes and can’t find our way back to the original link or get trapped in dozens of open browser tabs. Body doubling means that just on the periphery of our consciousness, we’re aware that someone else is present, and that keeps us tethered to our work. We may go astray, but our body double’s presence can bring us (and our focus) back to the here and now.

• Biological cues — The experience of participating in body doubling and mirroring the body double’s behavior can help activate some nifty neurotransmitters. Literally, doing the task cues the bodily systems to kick start, making it easier to hunker down and do the work.

Do It Now Scrabble Tiles by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

• Task execution — “Well begun is half done.” (Aristotle) “You don’t have to be good to start … you just have to start to be good!” (Joe Sabah) “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” (Pablo Picasso)

Such quotes are all well and good, but if you’re using procrastination to soothe your present discomfort, you already know you’re going to feel worse as the deadline approaches. To borrow from what I wrote in my original post on accountability: 

Canadian psychology professor and all-around expert on procrastination, Timothy Pychyl, author of Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: A Concise Guide to Strategies for Change, explains that procrastination isn’t just delay. He explains that procrastination is “a voluntary delay of an intended act,” one where the person procrastinating is cognizant that the delay is going to have a cost, whether that cost is financial, interpersonal, professional, legal, or otherwise.

When we procrastinate, we know that there’s no upside; we aren’t merely weighing a logical choice between two options of equal value. It’s less, “geez, how can I decide on whether to go on this romantic anniversary date with my spouse or prepare for my presentation this week?” and more, “Eek, I’m feeling icky about doing this thing for some reason and I’ll latch on to any random thing, like bingeing a sit-com I’ve seen in its entirety three times!”

Experts like Pychyl have found that at its base, procrastination is “an emotion regulation strategy” – a way to cope with a particular emotion while failing to self-regulate and perform a task we know we need to do. We convince ourselves we’d rather feel good now, thereby causing more trouble for our future selves.

Getting started on those tasks is hard. But the minute you have another person there with you, you’ve got a (silent) partner whose presence makes getting procrastinating less possible and doing the (appropriate) activity a smidgen easier.

• Extended focus — It’s common to have trouble sticking with tasks that are boring, repetitive (and thus boring) or lengthy (again, yawn). The presence of others who match your energy and behavior type (reading, writing, doing math homework, sorting, etc.) sprinkles a little extra fairy dust to keep focus a bit longer.

If you were doing a series of Pomodoros (25 minutes of work, 5 minute breaks) on your own, you might give up after one or two. Someone else doing the same or similar tasks in your nearby environment is kind of like keeping pace with another random jogger or bicyclist on your route. If you were on your own, you might give up, but just a little bit of what I think of “competitive companionship” may be all you need to keep going.

To learn more about body doubling, consider:

Could a Body Double Help You Increase Your Productivity? (CHADD)

‘Body doubling,’ An ADHD Productivity Tool, Is Flourishing Online (Washington Post)

Use Body Doubling to Increase Your Productivity (Life Hacker)

How Body Doubling Helps When You Have ADHD (VeryWellMind.com)

I Tried A ‘Body Doubling’ App To Help With Focus – It’s Weird But It Works (Refinery 29)

What to Know About the ‘Body Doubling’ Trend That’s Keeping People with ADHD on Task (Men’s Health)

CO-WORKING FOR ACCOUNTABILITY

Body doubling as a method of accountability has been on my mind lately. In addition to regular client-related work and this blog, I have four special projects in the course of six weeks. I’m being interviewed for a podcast and for a video summit, participating an online summit requiring me to make a video and appear on live virtual panels, and I’ve got an in-person speaking engagement next week. Yikes!

All of these projects require research, writing, and finessing of verbal expression. (I like to be prepared, even when I will eventually have to be extemporaneous.) Deep down, I know it will be fine, but we all have bits of performance anxiety seep in. Timothy Pychyl might say that my temptation toward procrastination is a bit of (messed-up) emotional regulation strategy. But I’ve had (and will soon have more) help in sorting it all out.

Co-Writing Sessions

I’m a member of the Authorship and Publishing Special Interest Group (SIG) in the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals (NAPO). We have monthly meetings and an email group for supporting one another as we write books, articles, blog posts, presentations, and other projects.

Last week, the SIG began holding weekly two-hour co-writing sessions. A small number of us log on to a Zoom call, talk about what we hope to accomplish, and then settle down to write. We each muted our microphones (especially important for me, as I tend to think out loud, which would make it hard to be a silent body double for anyone else), content in the knowledge that if we needed to reach out to our fellow writers, we could type a message into the Zoom chat.

When I minimized the Zoom window, instead of it dropping into the Mac dock or otherwise hiding, it turned into a tiny, floating, repositionable window (about 3/4″ high by 2″ wide). I could see one of my co-writers — in miniature — and it reminded me that I had a goal and that someone <waves hands> out there is on my side in the effort to get my project done.

At the top of the next hour, we turned our mics back on just long enough to check in, offer support, and return to our writing for another hour. I used the first co-writing session to prepare my notes for the summit interview two days later, and felt so confident and prepared because I had this co-writing time. 

These are drop-in sessions on a fixed day each week; the participants will change according to each writer’s need and availability, but I’m already looking forward to the next one.

“Making Space to Write” Virtual Writing Retreat

In some ways, that co-writing session was a practice run for an event this past Friday, January 27th. Two of our Authorship & Publishing colleagues, Standolyn Robertson and Leslie Hatch Gail, put a lot of planning into the event. Registration was required, and we had an hour-by-hour retreat agenda.

We were encouraged to set our goals in advance, and once we arrived, after brief introductions and some housekeeping announcements, we hunkered down for 45 minutes of quiet writing time, nudged by a slide with a motivating quote. 

(Per participant requests, I am not including any identifying photos.)

Because the live Zoom screen showed the participant gallery and a shared slide, the minimized floating screen wasn’t showing me my colleagues, just the slide. I thought that might lessen my feeling that I was being body doubled, but it didn’t. I was always aware (and calmed by) the slide’s reminder of everyone’s presence.

From then on, at the top of each hour we had 15-minute “human breaks” to stretch, address any biological needs, and answer a prompt slide prompt. Questions were lighthearted and ranged from “What hobbies are you participating in?” to “What was your best purchase in the last year?” We entered our answers on the chat screen, had a little verbal interaction on Zoom, but at the quarter hour mark, we all went back to writing.

What fascinated me was that every time I’d get to a logical stopping point in my writing, ready to take a breather, I’d look at the clock and see it was just the 59 minute mark of the hour! 

Around 1 p.m. (in my time zone), we took an hourlong lunch break. Some attendees had to run errands, but for the majority who stayed, it was like having a lunch with co-workers, something we professional organizers (mostly solopreneurs) rarely get to do. Finally, after a full day of writing, we had a social hour during which time we played a rousing and hysterical online version of Scattergories.

Which Experience Was Better?

Comparing and contrasting these two events, it’s easy to see the differences. The co-writing session was fairly informal, of a short duration, and included only four participants. While we used one member’s Zoom account, there were no real leaders; we each took responsibility for our own behavior.

Conversely, the virtual writing retreat was more formal (with the exception of wardrobe), with Standolyn and Leslie moderating and leading us through activities. It ran from 11a to 6p (including lunch and our day-ending Scattergories socializing) and had about a dozen writers in attendance. 

On an ongoing basis, I can see the advantage of short, weekly co-writing sessions. I’m not usually a fan of events that are too formal or rigid in terms of an agenda. But I absolutely loved the retreat and am hoping we’ll have them a few times a year, as I can picture using the experience to keep me motivated and focused for long-form writing projects.

What’s Next for Paper Doll and Body Doubling Accountability Sessions?

My first experience with these kinds of virtual session was more than a decade ago, when my colleague Deb Lee ran “Action Day” events, which were similar, but run on the telephone. Participants called in, talked about their goals for household or work projects — technology-related tasks were always popular — and stepped off the phone to work. We had various check-ins throughout the day. (In later years, Action Day went high-tech with video conferencing.)

Deb and I used to be on various committees together, but rarely get to chat nowadays. I’d been missing the inspiration she brings to every encounter. After a quick email discussion, we’ve scheduled our own Action Day/Body Doubling/Accountability Extravaganza for mid-February. It’ll be suuuuuuper-informal and only for a few hours, but just anticipating the experience is helping to dispel my procrastination gremlins from their usual hiding places.

FINDING YOUR IDEAL BODY DOUBLE OR ACCOUNTABILITY PLATFORM

My experience has focused on writing, and certainly as evidenced by research summarized in pieces like Writing Accountability Groups (WAGs): A Tool to Help Junior Faculty Members Build Sustainable Writing Habits, it works. But body doubling works to support accountability and boost goal achievement for any activity, from getting your housework done to writing your overdue post-wedding thank you notes. It’s just a matter of finding the right approach and platform for your needs.

In my original post, I focused on five types of accountability options (with some suggested links):

• accountability partners, like friends, colleagues, or people you can meet through apps
• accountability groups, like mastermind groups, in-person or virtual study groups, and professional groups
• professionals, including professional organizers, ADHD coaches, life coaches, and fitness trainers
• apps and gadgets
• accountability events

Not all accountability experiences or platforms are designed for body doubling, per se. For example, mastermind groups tend to focus on support through discussion; all coaches act more like instructors some of the time, though some will offer body doubling support.

Attributes of Body Doubling Platforms

If you want to experiment with body doubling for accountability, consider these factors:

• Formality — Do you prefer things to be structured or loosey-goosey?
• Number of participants — Would you rather only know there’s one other person in a session?
• Familiarity with participants — Would you feel more comfortable with strangers or people you know well (or perhaps people you only know a little bit)?
• Cost — Will you be more motivated if you pay someone (like a professional organizer or coach) or an organization, or might that cause you stress? Would you rather sign up for a monthly membership (like going to the gym) or would you prefer to only pay for drop-in or ad hoc activities?
• Level of communication — Do you want to mostly be a Silent Sam and not have any interaction with your body double(s)? Would you prefer frequent social check-ins, perhaps each hour?

Group Body Doubling For Productivity and Accountability

Two years ago, there were only a few major platforms for group co-working that embraced the body doubling approach as part of accountability groups; now, there are many more. Next time, I’ll be sharing a post comparing the different platforms, their features and costs, and how they work.

And, based on my recent experience, I’ve been considering setting up my own virtual events, perhaps starting with my (in-person and virtual) clients — perhaps a Study Hall for Grownups or Admin Action Adventure. (Yeah, I’ll keep working on the name.)

Similarly, you might gather family, friends, or colleagues to participate on a more ad hoc basis when you need a little support.

---

Have you participated in any (virtual or in-person) body-doubling activities? What do you do when you need accountability support, and don’t want to talk that much about it, but just do it?