Body doubling: The productivity hack you didn’t know you needed

What is it about working alongside other people that boosts our productivity? And how can we get purposeful about this powerful pairing?

I remember there would be a giddiness to the newsrooms I used to work in as deadlines approached. Heads would be down, but we would all surface for air, have a chat about what we were working on, and plunge back into our articles. Now, I largely work at home and alone. As a mother, the flexibility is invaluable, but there are days where I lack motivation. I miss the buzz of being around other people, but it’s also more than that. I miss sharing ideas, getting feedback, and being accountable within a team.

So, it was with that in mind that I found myself hurriedly climbing over piles of unsorted washing and ignoring the temptation to make another piece of toast to log onto a call with Anna Bartter, a friend and lifestyle journalist. We were going to test out a productivity strategy called ‘body doubling’. The idea is that you work on your own projects, but alongside someone else. This can be in the same physical space or online. There are now even websites like CaveDay, Flown, Focusmate, or Flow Club that you can log onto to body double with strangers.

The strategy first gained traction in helping people with ADHD. Dr J Russell Ramsay, founding co-director of the University of Pennsylvania’s ADHD Treatment and Research Program, has written extensively about its impact. He explains to me: “Body doubling is a form of externalisation of motivation. Because of working memory difficulties, adults with ADHD benefit from externalisation of information, such as recording appointments in a calendar or tasks on a to-do list that can be referenced later, rather than relying on calling them up in one’s mind.

“Agreeing to do something with someone else, such as walking, studying, or even virtual workgroups, adds a social element to the task that makes it much more likely an adult with ADHD will follow through, show up, and thereby engage in a desired task.”

The strategy, however, has now gathered followers beyond its original sphere, prompting articles on news sites like CNN, and thousands of videos on TikTok. Dr Ramsay says this is because “being with someone else provides a cue to stay on task”. This cue is mirroring. Seeing someone else doing certain tasks activates specific neurons in the brain, so we are instinctively prompted to do the same.

These mirror neurons were discovered by neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti at the University of Parma, Italy, while studying macaque monkeys. He determined that these neurons explain how we learn through mimicry – but also why we empathise. In the journal Current Biology, scientists J M Kilner and R N Lemon wrote: “[…]The discovery of mirror neurons was exciting, because it has led to a new way of thinking about how we generate our own actions, and how we monitor and interpret the actions of others.”

It has also been suggested that body doubling can give us a dopamine hit as it’s the right kind of social interaction – one in which we feel empowered and supported. There are also theories that it taps into our instincts to perform better when we have an ‘audience’, or when we are working alongside people who we feel are high-achievers, which we then emulate.

For me, it provided an immediate catalyst to start my day. I didn’t dawdle by the kettle, but was ready for the call – and had also thought about my intentions for my working day. I scribbled down which articles I needed to turn my attention to most urgently, and how much I wanted to achieve by lunchtime. Anna had done the same, so we kicked off our call with our goals and when we would check in with each other again. I was on a news shift while she had the gargantuan life admin task to tackle, which she had broken down into chunks. We agreed to check in after an hour, and got our heads down. I felt the familiar thrum of urgency that had been the base note of my in-house journalism career. I shut down my email, hid my phone, and got to work.

I am not going to claim that I didn’t get distracted as we worked through the morning, but the strategy did make a huge difference. I hit my targets and also felt refreshed to crack on after talking to Anna at each check-in. These were brief conversations but we shared what we had achieved, had a little giggle, asked a few opinions, and then said what we were going to tackle next.

After three hours, we had a virtual cup of tea, and Anna admitted she had been pessimistic but also concerned that body doubling could be distracting. She added: “I also worried that I would find the pressure of you potentially being more productive than me intimidating.”

However, in the end, she was surprised by how effective it had been. “Rather than procrastinating for an hour, I knuckled straight down to the task I’d set myself, and I actually finished it. Every time I was tempted to start scrolling on social media or wander off looking for a snack, I was motivated by the thought of checking in with you. I wanted to be able to tell you that I’d ticked something off my list.”

This accountability was a huge driver for me, and was particularly effective for us as two people working in the same industry. But body doubling works for everything from work assignments to mundane tasks around our homes, argues Dr Ramsay and his team.

It seems that having an accountability buddy can make it easier to achieve our goals. The next step for our body doubling duo is a morning of working in the same space, and I wonder if it will be as easy to stay on track. I’m confident that the reward of a chat at the end of our session will keep me working, as will the drive to hit whatever goal I set myself because I’ll have shared it. And, it might just be the impetus I need to tackle the pile of unsorted washing before I let my friend through my front door.