[HN Gopher] Body Doubling
___________________________________________________________________
Body Doubling
Author : snee
Score : 212 points
Date : 2022-11-05 06:31 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (bodydoubling.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bodydoubling.com)
| c7b wrote:
| I read about influencers who basically stream themselves while
| studying, seems to be a similar idea with more even participation
| (and less likelihood of becoming internet-rich).
| Spivak wrote:
| Even participation isn't really a good unto itself. Most people
| can successfully body double to a stream or Youtube video and
| so one person can provide the "passive" service to millions of
| people.
|
| Having this kind of content plentiful and available 24/7 is
| really helpful.
| c7b wrote:
| You're presenting it as if there was something intrinsically
| better or more efficient about streaming, but the millions of
| people could also be matched in pairs or small groups. There
| would be a bit more friction, but also more personal touch.
|
| Objectively, I think they're fairly similar. It really does
| come down whether you value even participation or the chance
| to participate in a lottery that will may propel a few
| individuals to stardom (and leave a lot more disappointed)
| more, which is ultimately subjective.
| marshmallowmad wrote:
| I think this is the reason why in-person work environments will
| be more productive over the longer term for any larger
| organization. Not saying I'm against remote work, as I actually
| prefer it myself.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Surely it'll depend on many factors: employees' own
| preferences, level and sincerity of support-in-principle from
| leadership, actual working environments, relative distribution
| of remote vs in-person, level and burden of effort to
| accommodate mixed teams.
|
| I also prefer remote (and have been remote probably 75% of my
| career). I'm also ADHD, and while I'd never even heard of "body
| doubling" by name it's something I've found helpful _sometimes,
| under some circumstances_.
|
| For the minority of my career spent in office, it's ranged from
| wildly productive (great team fit, good balance in favor of
| focus time) to hilariously counterproductive (excessive
| meetings and process ceremony, continuous interruptions whether
| ostensibly work-related or social, unbearably noisy).
|
| For the times I've worked on mixed remote/office, I've
| generally felt my own and my teams' productivity is great
| _except_ when leadership found the arrangement objectionable
| (self-fulfilling prophecy I guess), or when team communications
| became challenging at scale (eg we found it hard to do
| "standups" with ~15 people in office and ~10 people on a
| screen; but realistically we shouldn't have had that many
| people in _any meetings_ ).
| Riseed wrote:
| To add on to your "helpful sometimes":
|
| As someone else with ADHD, I've found that one of the
| downfalls of "body doubling" is that it works both ways.
| Productivity can lead to more productivity because the body
| double can help me overcome the urge to research woodgas
| vehicles or the history of bread in Mesoamerica. But the
| double's lack of focus (e.g. being social, or forced
| meetings) destroys all focus because it's already enough of a
| task to manage my own executive functioning in a good
| environment.
|
| The best balance I've found is remote work (so I am my only
| distraction), maybe with occasional in-person focused work
| sessions (a la hackathon), and occasional remote "body
| doubling" sessions with a friend or internet stranger.
|
| TLDR: Solo remote work is better than attempting body
| doubling in an office environment, but remote "body doubling"
| is also occasionally helpful.
| klenwell wrote:
| I actually do this more effectively working from home with my
| wife. For people who like the aesthetics and atmosphere of an
| office for some reason, I think a coworking space would as
| productive or moreso than the company office. (Is this Body
| Doubling website coworking industry guerrilla marketing?)
|
| I was dragged back into the office for a couple months in 2021.
| I was stupefied by how pointless it all was. From the time and
| resources wasted driving to and fro to the office every day to
| the meetings which were still largely done online (since we
| were a distributed team.)
|
| I had to go 5 days a week. The company bled people. Most the
| people who were sticking around as I was leaving confided to me
| that they weren't happy about it. The company struggled to hire
| new workers. That's probably all abated to some extent since
| then. With a flexible hybrid schedule, I think they could have
| found a sweet spot.
| 2devnull wrote:
| Seems like a pretty coarse level of analysis asking if "in-
| person" is better. What's more productive for a manager will be
| different, maybe the exact opposite of what's productive for a
| programmer. Some people get paid to talk, but many of us do
| not. The talking is paid for by our sacrifice of personal time,
| time spent with kids, or exercising or whatever. Managers,
| being decision makers, will push us back to offices because
| they benefit from it, because they are paid to talk. Something
| to be sensitive to, if you're not already.
| marshmallowmad wrote:
| I agree with you that productivity for managers versus
| programmers is different, but my view is that the majority of
| workers do more work in person and people actually really
| enjoy being productive! The "body doubling" that goes on in
| offices is IMHO an underestimated phenomenon, especially for
| new employees coming into the workforce. For remote work to
| be a permanent choice, I think we need to be a bit more
| honest about the benefits of being in-office. Giving
| employees the choice is very important to me, just trying to
| give my perspective.
| nec4b wrote:
| In my view majority of workers are as productive at home as
| they are in the office or more. The "body doubling" also
| happens at home, when more family members work from home.
| There is also much less interruptions and noise polution at
| home. We should also not pretend office work is without
| serious down sides compared to work from home. E.g. so much
| time wasted in traffic.
| marshmallowmad wrote:
| And I respect your view that generally workers are more
| productive at home. We can agree to disagree there. Also,
| work commutes in traffic are indeed silly.
|
| This post is about body doubling, which happens far more
| in offices. That is a fact. Your reply makes it seem like
| that's not the case. But, I agree with your gripes about
| in office work, which is why I work from home :)
|
| Edit: my point is that what's best for you, me, and other
| individuals may not be best for organizations. Do I care
| about organizations more than myself? No, but it's at
| least something to recognize because I still care for
| some of them.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I'm pretty sure ADHD people have known about this all their
| lives.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| What makes you think people with ADHD already know about it? I
| can't see any reason why they could be expected to, let alone
| for all their lives.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| My family is nearly 100% ADHD. We all know it. And we're not
| special.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| The reason that you "all know it" is not that knowing it is
| a characteristic feature of ADHD. Rather, it is because you
| are all related and in contact with each other. 100% of
| your family having ADHD does not make your family
| representative of the general ADHD population.
| nr2x wrote:
| Yeah, still not giving up WFH.
| cabirum wrote:
| A rubber duck. $1.99, no subscription, no monthly payments.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
| andybak wrote:
| My problem is I'd have an overpowering urge to interrupt the
| other person whenever I was stuck. That and my other mutterings,
| pacings etc would probably be intolerable.
| CSSer wrote:
| Everyone on my team, including myself, mutters to themselves
| like this. I've asked some of my team members about it to
| determine if it bothers them and was surprised to find they
| feel the same way I do. It's actually somewhat endearing.
| Granted, we could be drawing the line at different places here.
| I just curse under my breath at things that have me stumped,
| sulk for a moment to collect my thoughts, and then get back to
| it.
| grepLeigh wrote:
| Muttering under your breath, cursing, etc is a form of
| emotional regulation. That's why it helps you focus, which is
| very cool.
|
| If you were hooked up to an MRI and asked to do a coding
| challenge, but were prohibited from talking/regulating, I'd
| bet your amygdala would be more engaged compared to your
| control.
| varjag wrote:
| I found that am super productive when travel by air, just sitting
| and working at the gate or mid flight. Now I wonder if that's the
| effect of all the people around.
| pydry wrote:
| I am like that too. I discovered one reason for this was that I
| was super hydrated - drinking up all my water before going
| through security had a noticeable effect on my ability to
| concentrate.
| junon wrote:
| Is there a term for this phenomenon? Always been curious why this
| is the case for me.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| I like the concept but I really wish they would lay it on a
| little less thick about this being for neurodivergent people.
| ilaksh wrote:
| The name seems like ridiculous marketing to me. Kind of like
| clickbait.
|
| I think more accurate would just be something like "silent work
| partners".
|
| It's also bizarre that people seem to think that having trouble
| concentrating for a significant period of time on something
| tedious means you have ADHD. It's not at all abnormal to struggle
| with this at times. It's really more extreme cases that should be
| considered ADHD.
| montecarl wrote:
| It may sound like it, but the term is in common use. Google
| "body doubling" and you will see many articles on the topic in
| connection to ADD.
| atemerev wrote:
| ADHD is not just "having trouble concentrating". It is a
| completely broken prioritizer, executive function deficit, and
| nearly non-existing ability to linearize tasks into
| intermediate-scale command sequences. And tons of other things,
| some of them good (like immediate recall of association trees,
| whether we like it or not; this helps if you want some original
| ideas), but most of them bad.
|
| About 3% of population have ADHD. And it is quite easily
| recognizable and distinct from just "troubles of
| concentration".
| manmal wrote:
| Fully agree, and 3% might actually be a very conservative
| number.
| ilaksh wrote:
| That's my point. The article is written as if trouble
| concentrating = ADHD.
| zach_garwood wrote:
| It's weird to me to call this "doubling" instead of "mirroring"
| but anyway, I'm not neurodivergent, but I've always found it nice
| to sit with someone else in silence, reading or studying. Its a
| very calming experience.
| peacharonies wrote:
| Mirroring has you copying the other's actions, thus performing
| the same task. Doubling allows each to work on their own
| separate tasks, from what I've understood.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| It's still a confusing choice of words.
|
| With my spouse I just call it like, "Could you be there for
| moral support while I rake the leaves / open bills / do
| whatever I don't wanna do"
| Ilasky wrote:
| Body doubling (or doing something with others around) is an
| awesome technique to overcome a motivational hurdle for
| activities. While the term originated in ADHD circles, it is
| definitely applicable to those outside of the ADHD community as
| well.
|
| We're actually building something just for this (
| https://doubleapp.xyz ) and it can be for any sort of activity -
| cooking, running, working, studying, etc.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Very cool. I wish there was a "join now" group rather than
| scheduling?
| Ilasky wrote:
| Thanks! And for sure - on the top of the Double page we have
| Double communities you're able to join right now instead of
| scheduling a Double for the future.
| duncan-donuts wrote:
| Is that the "Let's get going" button? It's also not clear
| to me where I can start doing this right now.
|
| If it is that button I'd suggest some sort of soft sign up
| flow. It'd be really nice if I could join a double
| immediately, give an email or some identifying info, and
| that's it. After my first session make me finish the sign
| up.
| Ilasky wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback! We'll keep working to make it
| clearer for sure.
|
| To answer your question: yes, once you hit "let's get
| going" you should be brought to a soft sign-up. After
| that, you'll be redirected to a page that let's you join
| a Double community immediately via the "start now"
| button.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| There is a similar app where you are on Skype. My only concern is
| some ppl might try to use this as a dating service, or something
| else off topic.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Historically, this could be the underlying reason for the
| existence of various professions: adjutant, batman, valet,
| secretary, personal assitant - perhaps the main function they
| provided was just providing a presence?
| CSSer wrote:
| Perhaps a function but I don't think I would go so far as to
| say primary. They also lugged their stuff around and handled
| all of the boring parts of life, like opening doors, writing
| letters and so on, that they didn't want to deal with.
| djbusby wrote:
| Batman?
| joombaga wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman
| klyrs wrote:
| No, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Pennyworth
| Magi604 wrote:
| Batman stands in your presence, menacingly.
| playingalong wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(military)
| mrighele wrote:
| So Robin is Batman's batman?
| munificent wrote:
| There was a thread on Reddit recently asking what leisure time
| was like for people before radio, TV, and the Internet. Someone
| mentioned a memoir they'd read from the early 1900s and the part
| that stuck with them was how _social_ everyone was.
|
| After work, people would go to friends houses, putter around town
| and catch up with neighbors, visit shops where they knew
| everyone, etc.
|
| I can't but think that _so many_ of the malaises that people
| suffer today, which we ascribe as individual psychological
| problems, are really just a result of how profoundly lonely and
| isolating media consumption is. (The irony of posting this on the
| Internet is not lost on me.)
|
| We are a tribal species. We need the company of others in our
| physical environment in order to feel safe and at home.
| Obviously, some amount of solitude is important too, but for a
| communal species like Homo sapiens, being alone or around
| strangers most of the day is the environmental equivalent of
| being in a desert with no shade.
| ddingus wrote:
| Very interesting observation!
|
| And yes, I strongly agree! Just hanging out was the thing
| people did.
|
| Kind of miss that. Time to maybe fix it some.
| vjk800 wrote:
| This is also how I remember my childhood and even early teenage
| years. My friends would just pop over unannounced and ask me
| out to play or play sports or something. Also relatives and
| grandparents would do this occasionally since basically my
| whole extended family lived in the same village. I also feel
| like things would have continued the same way if it wasn't for
| everyone (including me) moving away to study, work, etc. As an
| adult, it's very difficult to reconstruct the same kind of
| social network once it has been broken.
|
| I think it helps to think of our social environment as some
| kind of ecosystem that has evolved to fulfill various needs and
| shouldn't be messed with. The results will be similar to if you
| take a few species from biological ecosystems and just randomly
| put them together - the result is not going to look very
| pretty.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| >I think it helps to think of our social environment as some
| kind of ecosystem that has evolved to fulfill various needs
| and shouldn't be messed with. The results will be similar to
| if you take a few species from biological ecosystems and just
| randomly put them together - the result is not going to look
| very pretty.
|
| This is just a real gem of an analogy.
| elcritch wrote:
| My teenage years were similar. Cells phones were a thing but
| relatively rare and texting was limited. Friends in HS would
| often enough just drop by. Nowadays, if you just stop by a
| friends house, it feels borderline rude or intruding.
|
| My hypothesis is that given the rise of everyone having
| always connected cell phones, texting, etc, that
| subconsciously we've all shifted to viewing our physical
| homes as our form of privacy. Essentially dropping in takes
| away the last place we feel we can control our interactions
| with others.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I wonder how much of the changed behavior comes from the
| less intrusive communication options having gotten much
| lower effort. Even calling someone unannounced is almost
| unthinkable except if it's an emergency. I think that's
| because it's so easy to just send a text message first to
| ask if it's convenient. In the past text messages weren't
| as common. Before that, I could have called for example
| before stopping by a friend's house. However, I would have
| had to call the landline which nobody might have answered
| because maybe they were outside. It would also have been
| disruptive because anyone in their household would have
| felt like they needed to answer. So why not just stop by if
| I am passing by anyways? Now though, I better first send a
| text, then it's not ideal right now because they are
| cooking or something, so we postpone, even though I could
| have just helped with the cooking. But nobody wants to
| propose cooking together. It feels like you are imposing
| from both sides, but probably both sides would enjoy it. We
| are just overthinking it.
|
| Anecdotal data for another factor: Too much effort is made!
| I've recently tried to make an effort to build up more of a
| friend network and turn some acquaintances into friends.
| I've noticed that we try to make everything so "nice" that
| it becomes inconvenient. The hosts always spend at least an
| hour getting their place ready and prepping food. This
| leads to a "barrier entry" for getting together that makes
| these events less. I even brought that up one time, but
| hosts seem unable to reduce the effort they make. Guests
| commonly bring gifts. Nobody needs the gifts or the super
| tidy home to visit. Just ring the doorbell, grab a beer and
| let's just hang! I say that, but I'd never do this either
| because it would feel like a transgression. The only
| exception I've noticed is that sometimes we'll end up
| chatting with neighbors for a prolonged time when we
| randomly run into each other while going for a walk or
| something. However, nobody would ever say "let's take this
| party inside". It seems to have become cultural and I am
| not sure how to fix this as an individual. I think part of
| it is that we are always busy now or feel like we should
| be. Gotta run those errands, work on my side project, etc.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| As a reminder, you can still do those things. Have a weekly
| hangout day with friends with no firm plans. Spend time at
| hobbyist shops on the regular. Play board games with strangers.
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| It's theoretically possible, but not really if you're honest.
|
| People have gotten used to the isolation, so they're not
| gonna enjoy it if you randomly invite yourself literally
| every day of the week. You'll need like-minded friends and
| that's not something you can really "just decided" to change.
| kingkawn wrote:
| you'll make new friends if you stick to it
| afarrell wrote:
| The trick is to have a living room and a regular habit of
| hosting something like "Monday night in" where people come
| over and just hang out.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| I'm seconding what the others say. I see a few close
| friends 1-3 times a week in relatively unstructured or
| impulsive situations, and I also go to martial arts and
| latin dance clubs at no regular interval (although I should
| work on getting that back on a regular schedule), and play
| dungeons and dragons once a month. You can absolutely meet
| people with mutual interests in person, and it is worth
| pursuing regardless of whether you consider yourself an
| introvert or not.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I didn't pick random examples, I just used my regular
| practices.
| uoaei wrote:
| The great thing about joining a club is that you know
| everyone there is already interested enough in the subject
| of the club to participate with you whenever they've
| availed their time to be at the clubhouse.
|
| You don't have to drag your old friends out so much as make
| a couple new (low stakes, with boundaries at first, if you
| are anxious about it) friends.
| imsaw wrote:
| Is this why people like working in a cafe?
| salty_biscuits wrote:
| I don't know, plenty of alienation in 19th century literature
| where everyone was living in everyone else's pocket. A lot has
| changed in that time, including our openness to expression of
| our internal suffering. I grew up in a similar way, my
| overwhelming memory was that it felt utterly stifling! I
| couldn't wait to move away and be anonymous.
| unity1001 wrote:
| > many of the malaises that people suffer today, which we
| ascribe as individual psychological problems, are really just a
| result of how profoundly lonely and isolating media consumption
| is
|
| Media consumption is just a replacement for social interaction.
| And it exists only because people dont have time and energy
| left for socialization and other activities after work. Our
| society is geared towards extracting maximum profits from
| people. It does not permit them to have any excess energy left
| at the end of the workday.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >And it exists only because people dont have time and energy
| left for socialization and other activities after work.
|
| Did people not socialize in the days before worker
| protections demanded worker protections? I just don't think
| your reasoning covers the causes well, especially in the
| suburbanite 40 hour week type that travel by car for an hour+
| a day to a single family home.
|
| Media consumption exists because technology has allowed media
| to show up everywhere at all times very rapidly and we have
| not had a society wide inoculation to its negative effects.
| watwut wrote:
| They were actually exhausted. Fairly often, they just got
| drunk quickly after work and went to sleep.
|
| Both parents were working 12 hours a day so many kids were
| unsupervised from age of 4 whole day. Before that,
| supervised by one older kid.
| klenwell wrote:
| On this topic, I find this article fascinating:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23758087
|
| _But life in New Jersey was not working out for Yarima. It
| wasn 't the weather, food or modern technology but the absence
| of close human relations. The Yanomami day begins and ends in
| the shapono, open to relatives, friends, neighbours and
| enemies. But Yarima's day in the US began and ended in a closed
| box, cut off from society._
| squokko wrote:
| Not even just the neighbors and friends - people used to live
| in large family units with 10+ people per household. This meant
| a much broader support network if, for example, you got ill and
| couldn't take care of your kid for awhile.
| celtain wrote:
| 3 more family members are about to move into my house. No
| matter how much I tell myself that having a larger household
| and more social time will be "good for me", and of course
| having help with childcare will be hugely convenient, I'm
| really starting to dread the loss of privacy.
| mjcohen wrote:
| Put a lock on your door.
| squokko wrote:
| I'd feel the same way, and that's because I was raised in
| the Western environment of single-family nuclear
| households.
| kelnos wrote:
| That's just a function of how you (and I) grew up. In many
| cultures, the norm is that offspring live with their
| parents until marriage, and in some, even the married
| couple lives with one set of parents.
|
| This is just a reminder that a lot of the things we find
| comfortable aren't inherent; they're just a reflection of
| what the norms where during our formative childhood and
| early adult years.
| watwut wrote:
| It also means you need to help others and sometime take time
| off work from it. People in age range 16-55 were actually
| people doing more help then receiving it.
|
| On HN it always sounds like you are only receiving, but
| actual deal ia you provide until you are really old or sick.
| watwut wrote:
| All of that os possible only if you work 8 or less hours a day
| and then go home close to work. It is not possible with current
| "if you work less then 60 hours a week you are not passionate"
| frequent ideology. Nor with long commute actually.
|
| What you praise here is called being lazy. And also it relied
| on kids being unsupervised which was ok at the time.
| geuis wrote:
| That's a really interesting anecdote about that memoir. It
| immediately reminds me of a lot of fantasy type novels I've
| read.
|
| For example, I'm a big fan of the Wandering Inn series.
| Essentially, one of the main characters is a young woman
| transported to a fantasy-style world who takes over an
| abandoned inn outside a major city. A large part of her story
| is about interacting with the locals, just wandering around
| shops and visiting friends she makes along the way, etc. Very
| reminiscent of the book you mention.
|
| When I look at a lot of other similar books, they often rely on
| the same style of small community interactions among the
| characters.
|
| Makes me wonder if part of the reason such stories are so
| popular is because we're missing so much of that in our
| everyday lives.
|
| One thing I like about living in SF is that despite its
| problems, a lot of the city is based around neighborhoods and
| being walkable. I see the same folks at the local restaurants
| and hang out with friends and associates at the local pub each
| week. So I still get some amount of that traditional daily
| interaction, and unfortunately some of the drama that comes
| with it.
| klysm wrote:
| This is one of the reasons living in a college dorm can be
| incredibly fun.
| uoaei wrote:
| I have noticed in social circles that skew heavily Western that
| a large majority of small talk revolves around media
| consumption, whether it's recounting TV episodes, quoting
| movies, meme-ing Spongebob, etc.
|
| There's a lot of factors to blame for our feelings of
| isolation. I tend to look toward the fortress-ing of private
| homes and the sprawl of suburban developments, which encourage
| seeking enjoyment through pseudo-socialization with the
| characters on your screen.
|
| Parasocial relationships were a thing long before Twitch and
| OnlyFans, only people were attaching to fictional characters so
| the effect wasn't quite as pronounced until actual humans
| became the objects of consumption (see: Disney adults, MCU
| ultrafans, etc.). This probably has to do with isolation from
| social groups as you describe, particularly as people in
| general lost community centers such as churches due to the
| sprawl and pace of modern life.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| Seeing parasocial relationships infect the internet like
| regular celebrities in the past is really a bummer and not
| what I had hoped for the technology. Real life interactions
| are the way to go more often than not.
| rospaya wrote:
| I don't get it. Do people not do that anymore?
| pixl97 wrote:
| I grew up in the midwest and I remember a lot of non-
| commercial social events like potlucks that were commonplace.
| Some based around churches, others family groups, and others
| friend/community based. Talking to my family that still lives
| there, the number of these events over the decades has
| dropped dramatically. In general these types of events were
| low cost and had high socialization. It is thought by some
| that the commercialization of leisure [1] in advertising
| culture gives too much time and importance to high expense
| low socialization gatherings and focuses on convincing the
| consumer to consume more media thereby increasing
| advertising. Many social media outlets are thought to worsen
| this situation by optimizing to keep clicking an app (anger
| clicking, parasocial relationships, etc) rather than focusing
| on closer in person relationships.
|
| So I would say yes, a lot less people meet in person [2]
|
| [1] https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-
| almana...
|
| [2] https://theconversation.com/teens-have-less-face-time-
| with-t...
| jvm___ wrote:
| profoundly lonely and isolating media consumption is
|
| This is the main problem in my marriage, we don't consume the
| same media - we've tried to find something in common to watch,
| but mostly spend it on our phones watching our own media
| streams, edu-tainment YouTubers for me and
| Netflix/Disney/Facebook watch for her.
|
| You can't make cultural references or have inside jokes if you
| don't consume the same media.
| comprev wrote:
| Put the phones away and find activities which you both enjoy?
| 1-6 wrote:
| I oftentimes want something like this as well. I'm not looking
| for a taskmaster or someone who could report my work but simply a
| nonjudgmental human who is just busy themself.
| SevenNation wrote:
| > In simple terms, it's merely being in the same room with
| another person who is having trouble getting things done on their
| own. As a body double, you don't need to help or even say
| anything. All you need to do is just be there in the room, and
| through some invisible power, the other person is able to focus
| and finish their work. ...
|
| I had to do a double take there to make sure this wasn't parody.
| Being _more_ productive with another person in the room? But they
| don 't actually do the work? And they help through an "invisible
| power"?
|
| That's unexpected.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Why not just have the tv palying in the background? Works for me.
| tsumnia wrote:
| Whenever I visit for my parents for holidays, they have the TV
| playing something. However, I've always found the ads
| incredibly distracting, like they're intentionally designed to
| get my attention.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Netflix with a show you've seen multiple times?
| andybak wrote:
| I can't code with anything else going on - except very limited
| forms of music.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| Same - for music specially, absolutely no vocal lyrics.
| CSSer wrote:
| Does distant/muffled coffee shop music fall under limited
| forms? I'm like you but I've found lately that this works for
| me. I'm beginning to suspect the fidelity of modern consumer
| speakers and headphones are just too good for focus because
| they seize my attention. It makes me wonder what would happen
| if I tried an EQ that cut bass/mids.
|
| My problem is that "focus" music is often pretty repetitive.
| It can drive me nuts if I listen to it for 8 hours.
| zach_garwood wrote:
| I've heard others say that as well, but for me the presence of
| another body and the explicit silence is really soothing.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Set the tv to mute?
| pella wrote:
| Is it like a https://www.focusmate.com/ ?
|
| _" Distraction-free productivity Focusmate virtual coworking
| helps you get things done."_
| romeros wrote:
| focusmate is 1:1 and only costs $5 a month.. its golden..
| caveday is 50:1 and is a tad expensive and that one works too..
| soci wrote:
| Body doubling might help on not getting up from the chair while
| working on a computer. However, not having someone watching over
| my screen -which I'd rather not do for obvious reasons- allows me
| for infinite procrastination. For other kind of tasks like
| studying, writing on paper, or doing phone calls, I agree body
| doubling does the trick.
| iandanforth wrote:
| Again pop-sci loves to invent terms and then sell those terms.
| Psychology is regularly guilty of this.
|
| This is not a "phenomenon" with "invisible power" and it doesn't
| need a litany of semi-awed, near mystical, and pseudoscientific
| testimonials. That's just nonsense branding.
|
| This isn't new or magical and there are other services that do
| just this with less BS.
| kelnos wrote:
| Yeah, I was pretty turned off by that. I clicked on the link
| wondering if it was some sort of cloning technology, or perhaps
| just some sort of video editing/generation technology, but was
| disappointed to see it's just "co-working" or "physically-
| present emotional support" if you want to capture the essence
| of it. Sure, that latter term is a bit wordy, but "body
| doubling" is IMO just a very strange thing to call this.
| astura wrote:
| I learned about this concept from this article - Why half a
| million people watch me study on TikTok -
| https://www.bbc.com/news/education-61305442
|
| It makes sense. Really wish this sort of stuff was around when I
| was in college.
| Ocha wrote:
| This is great. I like how I did not have to sign up for separate
| account to use this. Instead it just Took me to discord channel
| and I got started right away.
| WallyFunk wrote:
| I'm reminded of this meme[0]. For me, typing commands into my
| terminal with someone looking at the screen gives me feelings of
| power. They assume I'm an elite hacker, but really I'm clearing
| my bash history.
|
| [0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/what-gives-people-feelings-
| of...
| klyrs wrote:
| If you weren't an elite hacker, would you be erasing the record
| of your activities?
| pmarreck wrote:
| this might explain my I miss being in the office to get work
| done, and really loathe the switch to 100% remote
| thallium205 wrote:
| I read this while I lay next to my toddler so he can sleep more
| soundly.
| nearmuse wrote:
| Sounds like the Japanese cuddling as a service.
| carapace wrote:
| Does the effect fall off with the square of the distance? Is it
| linear? Is there a threshold?
|
| Does adding a third person (or more people) affect it?
|
| How is it different from, say, sitting in a cafe with another
| person? Do you have to know each other? If there is a difference
| what criteria determine that difference? Can one "pretend" that
| one is "body double"-ing with a unknowing stranger? Or does each
| person have to know they're doing it?
|
| If you really want to investigate this IMO you're going to have
| to look at everything from near-field EM to Ramana Maharshi (who
| often taught in silence), you should study Cybernetics (by which
| I basically mean read "Introduction to Cybernetics" by Ashby),
| you should take high-speed video of people doing this and then
| analyze it for e.g. unconscious synchronization, etc...
| sfink wrote:
| > Does the effect fall off with the square of the distance? Is
| it linear? Is there a threshold?
|
| You seem to want to treat it as some sort of physical field or
| force. IANAP (I am not a psychologist), but it seems fairly
| self-evident that the effect arises from the awareness of being
| observed, which leads to you observing and mediating your own
| actions. Based on that, I would predict that physical distance
| is only indirectly relevant. The strength of the effect is
| going to depend on how many of your activities are
| theoretically knowable by the other person. If they are
| physically present but farther away, you can "get away with"
| doing more things without them knowing, so you'll omit such
| behaviors from the self-monitoring loop. If they are virtually
| present, I would imagine that the strength of the effect
| depends on how clearly _you_ can observe _them_ (because we can
| 't see how they see us, but we'll assume that it's roughly the
| same).
|
| Which would make for an interesting experiment: do body
| doubling with very asymmetric visual quality, size, and latency
| but without informing the participants that they are seeing
| anything different. My guess is that the one who sees a better
| quality signal will experience a much stronger effect.
|
| Like many things in psychology, though, there are tons of
| confounding variables. Your relationship to the person matters
| --specifically, how much you care about their opinion of you
| and your actions. I would imagine body doubling with a dog
| would work temporarily and then the effect would fade away as
| you got comfortable with goofing off in front of them.
|
| Anybody you double with, you'll place on a scale from somewhere
| between "dog" and "attractive person I am desperate to
| impress". (And the latter end of the scale can be paralyzing,
| so this isn't a small-large effect scale.)
| carapace wrote:
| > You seem to want to treat it as some sort of physical field
| or force.
|
| Of course (I'm a rational materialist) it's "some sort of
| physical field or force", there's nothing else it could be,
| eh?
|
| How much of the effect is due to _power_ (in the physical
| sense) and how much due to modulation (communication)?
|
| (Not to be coy, I'm a rational materialist _but I 'm also a
| Reiki Level III Master_ and I would really really like
| someone somewhere to _do science_ to that. If I can influence
| these folks to take a more scientific materialist tack on
| their investigation they might discover something relevant to
| my own curiosities.)
| autoexec wrote:
| from the linked site https://psychcentral.com/adhd/adhd-body-
| doubling:
|
| > "While there's not a lot of research on ADHD and body doubling,
| anecdotal clinical reports seem to point to its utility," Roberts
| says.
|
| Shame this stuff isn't backed by research. Hopefully it gets
| looked into. I wouldn't be surprised if it's helpful for some
| people though.
| Spivak wrote:
| What's the question you want the research to answer?
|
| Because you don't really need a study to figure out if it works
| for you. Just try it! Because I can literally feel my
| understimulation block fade when there's another person around
| -- it stokes a little guilt and anxiety to get you started and
| then they act like a pace runner providing some artificial
| forward momentum.
|
| It's not one of those things where you won't be sure whether
| it's working or not.
| autoexec wrote:
| > What's the question you want the research to answer?
|
| Is it actually effective at all? Who is it
| effective/ineffective for? Why is it effective or ineffective
| for them? How effective is it? How can its effectiveness be
| optimized? In what other ways can its effectiveness be
| achieved? What other types of problems can this be used to
| help with?
|
| Maybe I try it and find that it works, but maybe that's
| simply a placebo, the way someone might find that crystals or
| charms help them. It's easy to say it shouldn't matter so
| long as it works for someone, but I think we'd agree that its
| better to have things properly researched and understood.
|
| Maybe I try it and it doesn't work but could have with some
| modifications to accommodate my needs or situation. Maybe a
| sort of digital avatar or AI works or can work just as well
| for a body double as a real person! Maybe it even works
| better than a real person in some cases! How great would it
| be not to always have to coordinate schedules with another
| person or impose on their time to get those same benefits!
| Maybe employers could benefit from pairing people for work in
| certain tasks!
|
| It's all idle speculation, theory, and guesswork until people
| put in the time and effort to research it all properly. The
| anecdotal evidence is encouraging, but only the start.
| Ilasky wrote:
| There are adjacent areas of research, such as "joint attention"
| and "joint action" that touch upon similar phenomenon. However,
| for body doubling research it seems that it is still in its
| infancy.
|
| We're really looking to push this phenomenon into the limelight
| and accelerate its research because there's definitely
| something powerful here. Speaking from personal experience,
| body doubling is almost like magic with how it works.
| danboarder wrote:
| This idea of body doubling is the same idea that makes a coffee
| shop or co-working space productive, in my experience.
| golemotron wrote:
| Remote office workers reinvent the office.
| Spivak wrote:
| Not at all the same. At least not how offices are usually
| structured. It doesn't work as well with groups which is why
| "just go work at the library" isn't also a solution.
|
| An office set up for body doubling would be pairs or small
| groups of people from completely different teams sharing an
| semi-isolated space.
| klyrs wrote:
| Not me! My chosen field is what I naturally hyperfocus on,
| which is the typical recipe for high functioning ADHD. The WFH
| struggle for me is _stopping_ work.
|
| It's the rest of life that I struggle with, and I've had
| friends literally come to my house to veg out in front of the
| TV while I clean. And then, once the kitchen is clean, it's
| suddenly easy to cook a meal. It's honestly quite embarrassing
| to need that as an adult, but by making it win-win, I've
| managed to convince myself to do it. Cool to see that other
| folks do this.
| apienx wrote:
| There's probably some effect from the "commitment device" aspect
| (implicit as it may be).
| pj_mukh wrote:
| Another option I've loved is https://www.flow.club/
|
| Basically body doubling with 4-5 other people over 60-180 min
| sessions. Works really great.
| dsiroker wrote:
| Agreed! It also incorporates goal setting and time boxing,
| which are critical.
| wardedVibe wrote:
| As someone with mild social anxiety, doing this results in
| greater distraction thinking about it than any gain from the
| actual process.
| munificent wrote:
| As someone who also has social anxiety, I suspect that it would
| be very difficult for us at first but if we pushed through
| that, it would not just help us be more productive, but also
| help with our social anxiety.
| ck2 wrote:
| I wonder if it's vaguely related to the evolutionary "fight or
| flight" response?
|
| I run way faster with other people than by myself based on that
| effect.
|
| It's definitely a mental/adrenal response.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I don't have ADHD as far as I know(which it seems is helpful to
| those folks), but I still use body doubling. My use of body
| doubling tends towards tasks that I have an negative emotional
| response or apprehension towards. For example, paying an
| unexpected bill, or making a difficult phone call, or writing
| an email to someone I don't like. You could say these
| situations are triggering in the sense that they trigger the
| fight or flight response and arranging to have someone in the
| same room during those tasks down regulates that response.
| allisdust wrote:
| I don't know how but personally, this actually works.
|
| Another thing that works is setting a not so exciting but also
| not so boring tv series playing on your mobile next to you and do
| work while it plays on. Again no clue how or why it works. My pet
| theory is that adhd brains just like multi tasking and keeping a
| portion of extra bandwidth zoned out is helpful in not getting
| distracted.
| [deleted]
| thimkerbell wrote:
| I wish they wouldn't call it that.
| telesilla wrote:
| I finished my thesis thanks to a group of people scattered over
| the internet, all agreeing to do pomodoro. In the breaks we'd
| chat about our day to day lives then get back to work when the
| bell rang. I'll always be grateful for their presence, getting me
| through hard times when I'd perhaps have given up if I felt
| completely alone; or at least not worked so deeply and
| thoroughly.
| criddell wrote:
| It might be a good way to run an office. Define pomodoro blocks
| in which you cannot interrupt your coworkers. No slacks, texts,
| phone calls, or conversations until the cycle ends.
| hammock wrote:
| The old shift whistle
| carvink wrote:
| It's common to find people on https://shutupwrite.com/ doing
| the same.
| Multicomp wrote:
| I built my writer's habit using the London Writers Salon
| Writer's Hour daily zoom meetings, this concept has merit as
| well!
| bnralt wrote:
| Where did you find the group?
| telesilla wrote:
| It was an early (private invite) precursor to what others
| have linked in this forum for focused study groups.
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