Full transcript
The whole conversation, word for word. She named body doubling in 1996; this was recorded thirty years later, at her home in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
82 minutes · Recorded 2026 · Back to the story
Every timecode below plays that moment in the video, without leaving the page and without losing your place — once it is playing, the video follows you down as a mini player.
(This passage is lifted from 00:03:54 in the interview and replayed here as the opening. Full context at that timecode.)
00:00:00LindaYou know, he said, sometimes if my wife sits in a chair over there and does her own work, she had her own business...or even knits, she could knit, too. He said, I will get work done. And the way he said it, almost like he was revealing a deep dark secret — and the very fact that he said it sent a shiver down my spine, because I thought, I get it.
(Narration by Ricky Yean over title cards and music, with two archive clips: Dr. Russell Barkley, and Jessica McCabe of How to ADHD.)
00:00:30Ricky (VO)30 years ago, a simple but powerful idea was given the name: body doubling.
00:00:35MontageBody doubling? … Is body double? … Body doubling? … Body doubling. … Body doubling. … It's body doubling. … It's body doubling.
00:00:41Ricky (VO)The term exploded in popularity during the pandemic, when all of us experienced difficulty focusing at home.
00:00:48Dr. Russell Barkley (clip)Now, body doubling isn't some sort of spiritual woo-woo psychology.
00:00:51Jessica McCabe, How to ADHD (clip)In the ADHD community, body doubling is a productivity strategy designed to help us stay focused on what we're trying to do.
00:00:56Ricky (VO)This is the first extended conversation all about body doubling with the ADHD coach who first coined the term. Her name is Linda Anderson. I'm Ricky Yean, the founder of Flow Club, the online body doubling platform. We hope you enjoy this interview.
00:01:14RickyI am really excited to have a conversation all about body doubling, because it's changed my life. It's changed, I'm sure, millions of people's lives. And I don't think we really have gotten a chance to hear too much from you. And so we'd love to just talk to you for the next hour, hour and a half, about body doubling.
00:01:41LindaWell, that would be great. That would be fun.
00:01:44RickyOkay. So I think the best place for us to start is to take us back to, by the way, exactly 30 years ago when you wrote the article.
00:01:56LindaOkay.
00:01:56RickyThat coined the term body doubling.
00:01:59LindaAll right.
00:02:00RickyYeah. There was this person named David.
00:02:03LindaWe call him David in my article that I wrote.
00:02:05RickyYeah, yeah, yeah. And so could you just take us back to David?
00:02:10LindaSo on the path toward what I'm doing now becoming a coach, I was a professional organizer for a short time because a friend invited me into her business. She said, you'd be great at this. And I went, I would? And I followed her into this. And the very first client I had led me to the next and the next. And one of those clients was, and I would go and visit people in their office or home space. So this particular individual lived in a very pretty part of Bucks County, or not Bucks County, I'm saying Montgomery County, which is down Chester Way. He was retired. His wife had figured out that he had ADD. We called it ADD back then. And what we realized was he did such an incredible job for the major corporation that he was a VP of
00:02:59Linda because he always had an executive [assistant, for the] executive function part to his brain, hired to work at the desk there in front of him, or in another office but close to him, to do the things that he could maybe forget or not put all in order. And then he could be free to be the expert in whatever that area was. Yeah. So I went there. I went to the house, I went up to his office, and it was very organized, and I was quite surprised by that. So we sat and talked about things. We also did look at some of his systems...like, you could approach this this way, you know, and that might be easier for you. Yeah. And in the part of the conversation that moved along, he said to me, very sheepishly, almost embarrassed...yeah, you know, he said, sometimes
00:03:53LindaIf my wife sits in a chair over there and does her own work, she had her own business, or even knits, she could knit, too. He said, I will get work done. And the way he said it, almost like he was revealing a deep, dark secret. And the very fact that he said it sent a shiver down my spine because I thought, I get it. I can understand how that would work. And I realized that there's an element of working with other clients, although I've been hired to come in and maybe do, you know, the organizing-specific offer of my advice, I realized that there was an aspect of my just being there that helped a person get something done.
00:04:39RickyYeah. So you got it because you provided that effect to some of the other clients. You were.
00:04:46LindaYes. Yeah, I didn't think of it. Yes. That's exactly it. And again, when you're going in as an organizer or even when I'm working as a coach, you bring tools with you, more so as an organizer, but I had always approached this from the very first client that I had as wanting to sort of sit beside the person, figuratively speaking, and look at things through their eyes because this kind of order that came naturally to me does not come naturally to other people. And it was with that first client that I was also introduced to the whole concept of ADD. She asked me, do you know what ADD is? She was definitely ADD, but I didn't know what it was. And that started me on a journey to discover, what is this thing that really boggles people in their space? Some people will have stuff
00:05:39LindaAll over the place. Unlike David, it was in his head. It was like he couldn't put, he couldn't initiate action and he couldn't follow it through. He would just be absorbed in, I have a bunch of stuff to do. Yeah. So along with that came this ability to learn about this tool.
00:05:59RickyYeah. So he told you that when his wife is around, he suddenly can get all these things done.
00:06:07LindaYes. And he almost whispered it.
00:06:09RickyYeah. Right. And it sent a shiver down your spine because you understood it right away.
00:06:17LindaI did. I got it right in a visceral kind of feeling about this.
00:06:21RickyLike what was that? What was that feeling? How did you know? Oh, because you were coming in, you have all these different tools, you have all these different techniques and this doesn't even feel like a technique.
00:06:36LindaRight. It is much more of kind of an intuitive feeling. It is a hit. And you've probably had intuitive feelings now and then yourself and you don't know where it hits you in your body, but it really just kind of rippled through like, this is a thing, this works, this is great. Other people could do this. I could hand this to them.
00:06:57RickyOther people might already do it. We would do it naturally, potentially.
00:07:02LindaI was not hearing of anybody doing it and coming across individuals. I was then soon presenting at meetings and both for organizers and for people with ADD and learning from everyone. It wasn't something people were thinking of that could be useful because the concept comes with, like, what do you mean by body double? Oh, could I have my sister to do that? I don't know. And it really depends on who that person is. Better that they're not an intimate relation of yours. It was kind of magical that his wife could be there doing something else and that that worked for him.
00:07:41RickyYeah.
00:07:43LindaYeah, it's very hard to kind of just say you, somebody in your family or a relative. But on the other hand, if you could define for somebody, this is your role. You can just sit over there and do your thing, I don't want to be asked questions. Just be there.
00:07:58RickyBut at that point, you had to start kind of describing what you saw to other people. So you have to come up with this term body doubling that I find very interesting. It's a very fun word. It does make people give you that reaction. Body double? What is that? What is this?
00:08:16LindaSo perhaps some people have the references that I had in mind. There was a movie, an old movie with John Travolta, where he's filmed somebody dying in a car crash. Actually, it was in the Philadelphia area. And over the course of it, I believe that's where there was a body double in the accident. But that's where the term just kind of came from. But everybody else might have heard of it relevant to, you know, movies where somebody's going to step in. It wasn't a direct link. It was just like, oh, I'm going to call it this body double. It's like, because maybe that's an element of it. That's a quiet me sitting over there working. That was one of the things. I eventually began to think about,
00:09:03LindaWell, why does this work? What's working? So I have my kind of humorous and then not so humorous ideas as to why it might work. But that very initial thought was, well, that's me sitting over there
00:09:14Linda— quietly. I don't have to pay attention to them. I'm just going to do what I'm going to do.
00:09:17RickyYeah. The term itself really helped. Language is how we understand the world around us. And especially for the ADHD crowd, we like things a little bit fun, a little bit quirky. So when there's a term like body doubling, it makes you almost want to chuckle a little bit. It makes you ask what it is.
00:09:38LindaExactly. There's humor in it, too. I love humor.
00:09:42RickyAnd the activity itself could be a little bit weird — or it seems a little like, what do you mean, sitting next to somebody can make you focus better, or more productive? Why would this work?
00:09:58LindaWhy would this work?
00:09:59RickyBut that is almost a good thing, because it makes you ask that question, rather than just write it off, or not even do a double take.
00:10:09RickySo I really love that term. I don't know if that's the reaction that you've been —
00:10:16LindaYes. And when I wrote that, then people would send me — they'd either send a comment in a seminar that I presented, or they would send me an email to say, yes, yes, it's as if I had named something they understood and didn't want to believe that it could work, but it worked. So there was appreciation for it. Yeah. I know that you and in your business, you have people who say, oh, no, I don't want, you know, we have the fear and anxiety coming up in it. But for the people who heard me speak about it and understood it worked, it was like, there's a name for it. And it was like magic to them.
00:10:56RickyYeah. I think you mentioned early on when you first coined the phrase and you started talking about it, you experienced some pushbacks from people. What kind of, I think you said you experienced some pushbacks from fellow coaches as well, in addition to clients.
00:11:17LindaI'm not so sure from coaches. Not coaches, or other organizers. And it's not that I could, if I was presenting it to somebody say, I'm going to be this for you, I would tell them, you know, on your own. I loved that people could continue in some way, whatever we did, like in some small aspect, could they put a little more order to the chaos because chaos is really painful. And there are all different levels of chaos or disorder. So there would be resistance in the way of not understanding how this could work. If it didn't ever occur to you or you didn't have serendipitously an experience where someone was in that chair nearby you when you got something done, then all of the things jumped to the forefront as to why this is never going to work.
00:12:06LindaSo that kind of pushback was there.
00:12:08RickyYeah, I think it really comes down to, have you had an experience where you walked into a room, or you joined a group, that made you better? In the past, have you ever had an experience like that, where you became better as part of a group? Or not as a group, but just by being next to someone else who maybe you admire, or you're inspired by, and that made you better as a person? If you had that experience, versus if you had joined a group that you find kind of annoying — so maybe that's where the initial reaction comes from. Whether you've had a good experience.
00:12:51LindaYeah, yeah, yeah. I think that is it. When somebody has — or when that idea just hits somebody the right way — they can see the possibilities. But the person who's anxious, or who's feeling like, how could this work? They're going to bring up resistance. Because individuals have their own level of — there's the person who can go to Starbucks and work happily with all the noise in the background, but there's another person who goes, I couldn't tolerate that, I need to even put a headset on or earphones to have it quiet. So this falls a little bit outside of both of those, in that it's a choice you make to have somebody be there, and it's a choice you can make to do that, so that you would kind of give yourself the space to work with somebody, or have them be your body double. And in that time you could do some more. You're putting a little more intention around it.
00:13:57RickyToday, how would you define body double, or body doubling?
00:14:02LindaI would define it as, I have to clear my throat for this, having someone you're willing to ask into your space or not even your space in that you can work with them for a time being. And in fact, it doesn't have to be just for you. That person could also do their work. And you might set out the sense that we're going to do that for an hour. Just an hour, okay? I don't care if you, now that we can do this, you know, across states and countries, you can be doing what you're going to do over there, and I'm going to be working on this. You could be working on your PhD, or you could be over here working on the kitchen organizing it. It's like, I just want to kind of have that space to tell me that's it. I have a
00:14:53LindaBeginning. I'm going to work through it, and then there will be an end of it, and sort of a completion. And I want that satisfaction. So you're either asking somebody, to be a body double for you, if they would, or you are asking another person to share in that space with you.
00:15:09RickyYeah.
00:15:10LindaAnd it's a workspace. It's a space to get something done that you might not have otherwise wanted to begin, let alone could imagine finishing. You wanted somebody that's going to be kind of your anchor, and that's one of my definitions to it, is that body double can be your anchor.
00:15:29RickyYeah. Yeah. Yeah, and is that, you know, a lot of people say, okay, oh, so is that like going to a coffee shop? Is that the same as body doubling?
00:15:40LindaI think it's a shade of it, but it's not quite as specific as a body double, is that other person who's engaging with me.
00:15:48RickyRight.
00:15:48LindaWhether I've asked them to do it or whether they're going to do their thing and I'm going to do mine. The choice to go to the coffee house is simply, I can work there. You're kind of still working on your own.
00:15:58RickyYeah.
00:15:58LindaIt's just that all of the noise in the background is actually kind of soothing, or it doesn't take your attention away — it
00:16:08Linda— almost helps you spend time doing what you're going to do.
00:16:11RickyIs the difference that there is a mutual intention behind it? When you've got two people involved, it's a mutual intention. So I commit to working with you, you commit to working with me, in this space that we are — it could be in person, it could be online — in this space that's framed by the time that we agreed on.
00:16:44LindaYes.
00:16:46RickyAnd when the time begins, the space begins, the two of us do our own things, and at the end it ends.
00:16:54LindaYeah. Thank you for helping me. Yeah, like that.
00:16:56LindaYeah. So, as in what you have developed, Flow Club, it's possible for people who live in very different places to find that piece of time. And it's more convenient, in a way, if you can look up and say, oh, somebody's going to be there, I want to do this this afternoon, or tomorrow at such a time. That convenience factor is a bit magical — I'm going to use that word — that you can make it happen. And it can be a lot harder without that entity like Flow Club helping to connect you, when you're out there on your own trying to figure out, who could I ask to do this, and how do I explain it to them?
00:17:40RickyYeah, how do I not, you know… asking people is hard. How do I not inconvenience them?
00:17:47LindaExactly.
00:17:47RickyHow do I find people who actually understand the terms? They want to get something done too, so they're not going to be inconvenienced or, in fact, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement.
00:18:00LindaThat's right. So now this thing can be mutual.
00:18:03RickyYeah.
00:18:04LindaThat's a whole other element to it. That's great.
00:18:06RickyYeah. And so when you're choosing this person or you're finding a space like this, how do you be a good body double to somebody?
00:18:16LindaWell, if we're in the purest, if we're in the beginning definition stage back then, you know, and I still kind of hold to it now. It's like letting that person know that they're not there to supervise you. They're not your coach. They don't need to say, hey, how are you doing? Or did you get it done yet? Because that's a little bit more in the teacher, now you're being supervised kind of role. And I really like that the idea of somebody being your body double and you are that you've given yourself permission to go into that place and not be tutored or taught or watched and coached. It's like, this is my choice. I'm going to be doing this. You're going to do what you're going to do? Cool.
00:19:02RickyI think this is a very common reframe a lot of people have when they hear the term body double and then they hear the concept explain to them is, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to have somebody who is watching over my shoulder. I don't want the risk of somebody backseat drive, you know, tell me what to do or tell me how to do it better. I don't need that.
00:19:29LindaExactly.
00:19:30RickyYeah, that's really but that's not what body doubling is. If that happens, that's no longer body doubling. Okay.
00:19:37LindaBut that's certainly the fear that people, when they're expressing it, that they're going to be watched, that somebody's holding them to a thing. And when you're talking about neurodivergent thinking, or in particular in ADD, ADHD, you've had a lot of starting things and stopping — and you just, or couldn't even get your energy into… You're wrapped around starting something, let alone also finish it or complete it. So there's this internal voice that's always critiquing like, what's wrong with you? Why don't you just start this? You've been wasting a lot of time. That internal critic is so overdeveloped. And this is meant to take out the internal critic. You're making a choice to work on something. You could even, maybe you didn't quite work on
00:20:35Linda— what you said you would work on, but you committed to that time, and you did. What did you do? Okay, I did this. So: the element of choice, the element of not being seen, not being supervised, and not having to have that internal critic just go, what is wrong with you? You could get that done.
00:20:54RickyI think this is actually probably very different for those people who haven't tried or experienced body doubling, or maybe experienced a not-so-great version of it. This is different from what they expect — that having someone around you as an anchor actually quiets down that inner critic somehow.
00:21:28LindaYeah. But you're making me, can you see there's intuition happening? Because I wasn't thinking, I didn't write about that, that other person helps quiet down the inner critic. We need to put another paragraph in there because that's really an element of it.
00:21:47RickyWhy or how do you think that works? Why does having someone around you suddenly quiets down that inner chatter?
00:21:55LindaMaybe it's in the same way, but using a totally different modality as the person who can go to Starbucks, have all that noise around and can work. There's sort of this inner chatter that can go on in someone's brain. Or like, as once a doctor described to somebody, your brain can be like a computer where the screen just keeps shifting and shifting. You know, information keeps coming and coming. You can't stop it. So whether somebody can go to Starbucks or whether you can dare to jump into a, you know, body double session, that's you taking permission to do it. And it kind of quiets down that chatter. And that inner critic can definitely be part of the chatter.
00:22:41RickyYeah. Yeah. Tell me more about how you, like, why you think body doubling is so effective. I think you mentioned anchor
00:22:53LindaYeah. Well, I have ideas now. I wrote an article the first time with a bit of humor in it, because I'm just hypothesizing why...what might be creating that. The element of somebody kind of being an anchor, in a softer sense of the word, is very pivotal. There's just somebody there. Maybe they're holding down the chi. We've talked about a little bit maybe about chi, that as in the Chinese culture, Chi is in the environment around you. It's in the room, the way you design it — either invite in healthy energy, or you can also block it. So maybe it's some kind of chi tool. It's like the energy is balancing between the two of you. You know, it's getting down to a certain level of comfort where you can work.
00:23:45RickyYeah, I like that. And the word chi actually is the same word in Chinese as the word for air, the air that we breathe. And so there's that phrase like reading the air. Interesting, right? And I think it's a, you know, I've been trying to figure out how to explain why body doubling is so magical. And I think it is a human ability to come into a space and read the air in the space to kind of understand, oh, like, what's, you know, what is this space about? What are we doing if other people are heads down working or, you know, focusing on their own town. I ought to do the same. It's a very natural thing that humans do. So I think that there's definitely something about the chi. And you also mention, you know, the concept of mirror neurons.
00:24:48LindaYes, yes. I always, I found that really interesting that back then they'd done studies, I think, probably with some primate, and recognize that — but yet I don't believe it is scientific enough that it's been proven. But there's something going on between two entities where there are mirror neurons, where what you're doing, I can see, and then I start to imitate it. And so, you know, I threw that hypothesis out there that maybe mirror neurons are just that, that you're seeing this other person doing something quietly and whatever, and you're, okay, your energy, your mirror neurons are doing the same thing. So who knows what the actual principle is. It's just that it does work.
00:25:37RickyYeah. I think someone else explained it. Like if someone is my body double, they would notice if I, you know, get up and start like opening up my cabinets to look for snacks or start, you know, cleaning my kitchen counter instead of doing what I say I was going to do. Maybe it's a little bit of that too. I think it's, you know — you go to the coffee shop, there are other people around, and maybe you will still be on your phone scrolling, but maybe you wouldn't scroll that long, simply because there are other people around. There's something to the — I don't know what it is, but there's something to that.
00:26:28LindaAnd I think that the person who knows that they can work in a coffee shop, or somewhere, and do it comfortably with a certain noise around — they know that about themselves. The person that realizes they could only study in the library, with nobody else and no other noise, because even a little distraction. They know that about themselves. So again, the whole body double session can be different from both of those, because you're going to enter into this intention to work for a period of time. And I guess I would allow that you could work with somebody and agree that you want to be able to say, I was working on this, or report to them. I never had that in my head at the time of creating this concept. It's meant entirely to be a choice.
00:27:37RickySo I think, going back to what you said about there's no supervising, there's no advising. As long as you are choosing to be in the arrangement. If you're choosing to say, hey, let's do a little bit more, let's share with each other our goals, and then when we wrap up let's share with each other how we did. No judgment, we're here to support each other. If you choose that arrangement, that's fine. And if you choose something more passive … we see this in our community. We see people body double in all kinds of ways. Some people choose to have minimal interaction, and others really, really crave the extra accountability that goes into talking, sharing our goals. But what's shared across all of these different modalities is that there is no judgment. It's only positive, because we are all here to spend time intentionally. And that itself is
00:28:49LindaSo the no judgment phrase is quintessential. Yeah. That is, again, I think of it from now, the years in which I've been a coach specializing and working with ADHD clients. Judgment, everyone who carries that labeled category understands what it's like to be judged for having forgotten something. My good friend once, she wrote about having bought all of the fixings for Thanksgiving dinner and then leaving them in the car. And these kinds of things are done by very smart, very creative individuals who are successful, in another realm, but that part of their brain that is different and that causes them to not do everything the way they would like to do it. There's the inner judge. So having another external judge tell you, you know, that you, it's great if somebody
00:29:49LindaSays, if that judge is saying, hey, good job. But we usually are, you know, being judged in a different way.
00:29:58RickyYeah. You and I were talking about the body doubling session as a container. And I think I intuitively understand that. Could you maybe say a little bit more about what you mean by that?
00:30:16LindaThat was another realization on you and I talking recently that something I had often presented on to, the different groups, was the concept of containers being very, something we really like. You have a container when you open up the silverware drawer and there's the knives, fork, spoons. It's helpful. But your home is a container. Your car is. The week is a container. And it has a beginning. We've assigned it those definitions and a middle and, you know, then a space at the end here. So a container is meant to actually make life easier for us. It's not a restraining device. It's meant to be a safe place to be. And I think often of a vase, you know — and what color can it be made of? What color is yours? You know, is it
00:31:11Linda— made of clay? Is it clear? Is it a gorgeous blue? What is it? But there are many individuals who I worked with over time, and it was almost as if they knew there was a gift, something special they could do, coming from someplace outside of them but in them, but falling through open fingers, as if you were pouring water and it just was spilling. So having helpful containers is wonderful for all of us. But I think you made me think of this when we were talking, that that coaching body double session is a kind of container. So it has a beginning, middle and end. It has sides.
00:31:52RickyYeah. I think about it, you know, like, say we're doing a body doubling session between two to four in the afternoon. I think about the contrast between, oh, I wake up and my entire day is — I can do anything, and in fact there's so many things I could be doing, and I start getting overwhelmed. But when I'm in that chunk of time, it's much simpler. I know what I'm there to do. I don't have to deal with the rest of how I'm going to use the rest of my time or what I'm going to be doing for the other 22 hours. Yeah. And that simplifies a lot of things.
00:32:34LindaYes, it can actually simplify things, right.
00:32:38RickyYeah, and I think that's really helpful if you, you, yeah, if you are easily overwhelmed or... Yeah.
00:32:50LindaNow, overwhelmed to me is a classic term. There isn't one person who has lived with having ADD or ADHD that, that I'm going to come up with a double negative here that doesn't understand that concept of overwhelm. It's just, it can be extremely painful, but it can also be just a momentary thing. It can be a shutdown for a couple of days. But this is also the tool is to get somebody before they go into overwhelm or get somebody out of overwhelm. So you're committing to a smaller chunk of something that you could begin this project in. So it's a way of beginning something, of connecting to flow where flow hasn't been felt.
00:33:38RickyYeah. And I think you were also, talking about a rhythm being a good thing.
00:33:45LindaRhythm is a kind of container.
00:33:47RickyRight.
00:33:47LindaYes. So the right kind of music can also be perfect for each individual knowing what it is. Oddly enough, I had a client who lived in Qatar — I think that is the right way to say it; Qatar, many of us say — okay. And she was delightful. She was so creative. I think her parents had found me as a coach for her. Artistic, writing, drawing, careening all over the place. She was the one that introduced me to the fact that there were certain jobs her family wanted her to be able to do like the vacuuming, but she hated because she lived at home still. She was headed to college. And if she played a certain kind of music, she could do that job. And that certain kind of music was like Renaissance music, not what you're thinking.
00:34:38LindaThink of swords clashing and lots of noise. And that helped her do this kind of task. She had different kinds of music she'd listened to to do different tasks. So I think, yeah, I really think of music as a container too. I mean, it can create flow connection.
00:34:56RickyYeah, and I think that it might also be that the music kind of cues her in and it's a, there's a level of familiarity.
00:35:04LindaYes.
00:35:05RickyI've been doing a body doubling session with this person on our platform every day — every weekday at 6:30, for an hour, for the last few weeks. And every time we, I think he's a law student, and he's been, you know, diligently studying every night. And I'm showing up to his session, working on whatever I need to work on. And we are so delighted to see each other every time. And it helps me, because I know what I'm doing at 6:30. He knows who he's going to see at 6:30. And that kind of brings some really welcome familiarity and order to our otherwise. Yes, a rhythm.
00:35:47LindaThat's, and it is welcome. You use the word, yeah, you can look forward to it.
00:35:52RickyYeah. A lot of people have been fascinated by body doubling, and different people have been trying to explain why it works so well. I want to get your reaction to some of the explanations.
00:36:11LindaSure.
00:36:12RickyTo see how, you know, how close.
00:36:15LindaI just do it like this.
00:36:16RickyYeah, like how close it is to your, what you think is the mechanism behind it? Okay, so this is from Dr. Russell Barkley.
00:36:27LindaOkay.
00:36:28RickyAnd he thinks body doubling is something that we've been doing for a long time — is just finding ways for yourself to be publicly accountable to others for the tasks that you wish to do. What do you think about that? So the first time I read that,
00:36:42LindaI thought, oh, Dr. Barkley, don't necessarily agree with that. He is a brilliant mind. He's what Dr. Ari Tuckman would call a researcher of researchers. So I felt a little bit more of a twinge when I read it, of somebody's making me accountable. But I really felt, if we go back to the purest form: David, in his office, was in awe of the feeling that he was just getting something done with this quiet presence over there. So there's something more spiritual, or magical, to it, to me, than the science-based, oh, that person's there, therefore I need to work — because that puts that element of judgment, or self-judgment, in there. So I like to say that the body double idea is meant to get rid of that part.
00:37:34RickyYeah. I also get the sense that for body doubling to work. I think maybe there's definitely a little bit of accountability in it. Yes. But it's something that we don't want to emphasize.
00:37:51LindaRight. But it is your choice.
00:37:52RickyIt's your choice.
00:37:52LindaTo have that space allotted, and be accountable for it, for what you're going to do. Yeah. So that element of choice, along with the commitment.
00:38:02RickyYeah. Choose how much you want it. And what suits — and it might change throughout the day.
00:38:09RickyAnother one is from Kati Morton. And she says it works because it keeps your nervous system more regulated. You're less likely to spiral into overthinking or avoidance. It's like a brain saying, we're all working right now, so I guess I'll work too.
00:38:27LindaYeah, that's sort of a little bit of the mirror neuron thing too — like, well, if she's doing that, I can do this. But she's also touching on this: people who have had a lifetime of ADD or ADHD know that bit of anxiety. That anxiety leads to overwhelm, and anxiety leads to not starting a thing, because you kind of know what's coming up ahead of you. So you just avoid it completely, because it's too much to entertain. So she's got a great little real-life description of that — like, then your mind starts spiraling. And so this is meant to stop that.
00:39:14RickyYeah, yeah, yeah. That resonates with me quite a bit. Because the overthinking, the avoidance, when left to my own devices, is there all the time. And it feels like I have to figure out a way to get rid of it. But it kind of naturally settles away when I'm with other people.
00:39:40LindaThat is a great feeling. And it is a feeling, as much as it is a mental choice — you've got this feeling that's coming into play, so that you can think better.
00:39:51RickyYeah. So, is there in your mind a right way or a wrong way to do body doubling? Is there something where it's just like, that is clearly not how you do this? We've talked about the backseat driving, the intervention, the advising — not that. Is there?
00:40:14LindaI would say that this should kind of be — well, there's no shoulds, but it works so well to not have that kind of structure. But who's to say that you haven't found this person that absolutely wants to do that with you? But if you come at this with, that's what I think I would like and the other person doesn't. Are they going to be afraid to, you know, well, I don't know that I want to do it that way. Would they say, can I pick a different body double? I don't know. So I really like that space to be protected as choice. But you can't stop somebody who wants to put a little more structure to that.
00:40:51RickyYeah, why not? So if there is not alignment, then maybe that's not body doubling.
00:40:58LindaThere you go. There's not alignment.
00:41:02RickyYeah. If somebody says, let's clean our living room to loud music, and you're like, that doesn't work for me — then, yeah.
00:41:18RickySo, you shared with me yesterday a model from Dr. Thomas Brown —
00:41:26LindaYes, that's right.
00:41:26Ricky— on what doing a task actually looks like. A model for what doing a task actually looks like. And I thought it was really interesting, because it gave me some clues as to why body doubling is so helpful. Do you remember?
00:41:56LindaI remember talking to you about that. And I know that Dr. Brown broke it into certain constructs in terms of executive functioning, skills, your frontal lobe doing the job of thinking. And you can have challenges with some of these, but you don't have to have challenges with all of them. So one of them is about activation, initiation.
00:42:21RickyTask initiation.
00:42:22LindaAnother one is about follow-through.
00:42:24LindaFollow-through. There are a few there that are subtle, that you can look up in the Thomas Brown model.
00:42:28RickyYeah, the emotions.
00:42:29LindaAnd emotions actually take a role also in terms of your frontal lobe getting a job done.
00:42:36RickyYeah.
00:42:36LindaAnd that can be a place where you could be highly sensitive and that interferes with this, getting things done. Yeah. And so what's one of those other construct areas? The ability to maintain motivation is one thing, but the ability to sustain is definitely like a whole other component of this.
00:42:56RickyYeah, and I think it was really enlightening because if you struggled with doing a task and you don't know why, if you were to look at that model, and maybe I could kind of share that model with as part of this video, but if you looked at the model, you understand, oh, doing a task — there's challenges around initiating a task and sustaining the effort, planning and analyzing and thinking about it, the emotional part of it, the memory part of it. The memory part of it, too. Yeah. And if you were to understand, oh, like, doing a task is not just doing a task. Doing a task is doing all of these things together at the same time successfully.
00:43:55RickyThat makes me, then you might have a little bit more, first of all, grace for yourself. But then you might realize, oh, like, all I need is something like a body double to help me initiate a task, which is something that we hear a lot.
00:44:12LindaRight.
00:44:13RickyIs I'm here because I find it really hard to start. And other people come because I'm here because I'm dreading this thing. It makes me think all kinds of bad thoughts about myself. That's why I don't, so it's the emotional part that they're trying to overcome. Yes. And all of those things come to play.
00:44:34LindaAnd not to forget, you mentioned memory too. Some people with executive challenges have a really poor working memory. It doesn't sit there on the plate long enough before it jumps off. So that comes into creating anxiety about learning or doing something, or especially writing, you know, and you can get into perfecting, oh, and writing that sentence over and over and over again. So again, this ability, you were making me think of something, feel something when you were just talking that, again, you're coming into it by choice. Oh, I can do this instead of being, trying to drag yourself in to attention, you know, and get this done, you know, and avoiding it like crazy because you don't want to do it.
00:45:23LindaThis is like, you can step lightly into this container.
00:45:27RickyI think in one of the articles you wrote, you actually talk about managing attention as someone experiencing ADHD, some type of ADHD, as dragging a wagon behind you and trying to drag your attention to attention. And then I think you also said it's almost like herding helium balloons.
00:45:49LindaAnd that's a whole different. And each person who's lived with the ADD will tell you, oh, that's me. It's like there's just so many helium balloons up there in the air or so many cats to try to manage. But there is that person who I remember describing it that way to her. It's like you're constantly trying to drag your attention to attention. You're trying to wake it up.
00:46:12RickyYeah.
00:46:12LindaIt's in a wagon behind you. And she said, oh, my Lord, yes.
00:46:18RickyYeah.
00:46:18LindaHowever, one experiences not having the attention they want to have, they can probably come up with an image that says, this is how it feels to me.
00:46:29RickyYeah. And I think that's really — I think it's validating when you can provide someone with visuals like that.
00:46:38RickyI was wondering if you would indulge me in reading you some of the Internet's takes on body doubling.
00:46:49LindaAll right. I was wondering what I was going to indulge you in.
00:46:52RickyYeah. I just get to react. Yeah, because I have compiled some of the most common reactions to body doubling. So I'll just read. These are from Reddit. Okay. So I'm not going to try to say it like I imagine what they sound like when they're typing on the internet. But okay, here's one. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I can't be watched. I would immediately wither and die.
00:47:22LindaYeah. What do you think? That's just perfect. I think you're doing a very good job of representing that voice. You've got to keep that up. I mean, I can just feel like in my gut the person's anxiety about this because they are picturing themselves, again, being watched. I mean, and it probably goes back, actually, for that individual and everybody else who feels like that, there's some place in their past, maybe several of those places, where that was done, somebody trying to get them to work, trying to do a mother over the shoulder or a teacher who, you know, we know what you're smart, what's wrong with you. But these repeated kinds of things, and this individual just described it, like, oh, no, no,
00:48:04LindaI don't want to go there.
00:48:05RickyYeah. It's such a common reaction. I wish I could dispel that for people. That's not — if you feel like you're being watched, that's body doubling that's not done correctly. Yeah.
00:48:27RickySo here's a.
00:48:29LindaAnd probably the individuals who are writing about this, recognizing, they could be a part of your own, you know, Flow Club, but whoa, don't understand too where they're going to be in the space. Do I have to be here or can I be off the camera? Can I be over here doing this? Yeah. So there is that sense of being watched for getting people comfortable with
00:48:51RickyWhere they're going to be. Yeah, I think sometimes I almost want to point out like, you know, you, when you go to a coffee shop and you work alongside these other patrons, like, no one's watching you either, right? Like, no one's really watching you. And so, uh, similar when you're in a body doubling arrangement, no one's really watching you. We're just there next to each other.
00:49:18LindaAnd that's the really, that's the nub of it right there. Yeah. Nobody's going to be watching
00:49:23RickyYou. Yeah. You feel like that's what it's like and it's not like that. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, if you look over, they probably forgot that you existed. They're focusing on whatever they're doing.
00:49:34RickySo, okay. Here's another one. I cannot body double either because I do not shut up. If someone's with me, it's social time.
00:49:48LindaOkay.
00:49:49RickyYeah. What do you think about that?
00:49:50LindaThat person has ADHD. And they're very verbal. So they're a verbal processor.
00:49:55RickyRight.
00:49:55LindaAnd they just feel like if there's somebody there, I'm going to be talking to them. But it's kind of cool. Let somebody get out that agita, that anxiety, and say, you know, you have in your past somewhere done work where you weren't the person doing all the talk. You think you're going to be talking. But if nobody's talking back at you, you might find that it's very different than you think.
00:50:21RickyYeah. Yeah. I think another version of it is from this other Reddit user who says, whenever someone's in the room with me, I feel like I should be playing hostess. Oh, and so it makes me, I think it's actually, it feels rude. It feels rude if she's not taking care of the other person.
00:50:41LindaWell, I think the thing that shifts that, of course, is that that person isn't doing nothing over there in their space. They're busy doing their own work. So it's sort of like, oh, that's a different level of, oh, they're not, the time spent is not watching me, and they're not going to be checking up on things. Well, they're working too. So maybe that mirror neuron thing again, it's like, or, you know, that little bit of an anchor is going to help you.
00:51:10RickyAnd perhaps I would also tell this Reddit user who wants to play hostess: actually, the right way you can play the hostess in a body doubling arrangement is by doing you. Right? It's by —
00:51:25LindaThat's a great one. Good, good, good.
00:51:27RickyBy doing you, the other person benefits from seeing you do you.
00:51:32LindaYou're not taking care of them. That's not, that's something that someone does to feel more comfortable themselves in the space. You know, can I get you this? Can you do that? Whatever. So you're not going to be taking care of that person. They're going to be taking care of themselves. So you're going to be choosing the thing you want to put some attention to.
00:51:53RickyYeah, yeah. Just by, I think this is the magic and the beauty of body doubling is just by showing up for yourself, you are also showing up your body double and everyone wins. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:52:10RickyOkay. Here's another one, and this is an interesting one. Okay. I've come to hate it because my partner seems to think that me having to body double indefinitely for him to do basic step is fine and a substitute for actually treating his disorder.
00:52:28LindaSo we had a magical word in there. It wasn't so magical. My partner, I'm assuming that these are two people that know each other. It really, it doesn't work well, I don't think. You might have this exceptional being that you live with, whether you're married to this person or not, who can work on something while you work on something. But there's a whole other dynamic there that is built on the relationship you already have or don't have where somebody has said to you, why didn't you put that away? Or, you know, if you just did, or you forgot this again. So it's very hard to pick somebody close to you if we're talking actual partner. Yeah, I think that's what it says. Yeah, I think that's how it felt rather than, because you don't tend to think of this person
00:53:20LindaYou're going to do this body double session with over there as a partner. They're, you know, they're a companion. They're a participant with you in this. Partner — we're looking at a different relationship there. You don't want that. Great, you're free of that. Don't expect that person, and don't do it for them.
00:53:37RickyYeah, it's a very common reaction, response. You know, I do it with my partner and I don't like...I think you're just adding a layer to the relationship that makes it more brittle.
00:53:58LindaAnd where did it start from? Did it start from my partner suggesting this would be something that would help me?
00:54:06RickyYeah.
00:54:06LindaOr am I thinking I will be helpful to my partner if I do this? Either way, danger. Danger, Will Robinson, danger.
00:54:15RickyYeah. Yeah. Okay. But if you don't do it with your partner, you might be doing it with a stranger.
00:54:24LindaYeah.
00:54:24RickyAnd here's a reaction: It's awkward. Cringe. You know, I can't do it because it's awkward. Yeah. What do you think?
00:54:34LindaI think that's great, that somebody's putting it out there, right on the table in front of you. It's cringey, whatever. I mean, if you have a conversation with that person, it's all about finding out where they're feeling, where they're coming from, what's bothering them about it. Maybe they just need more time to wrap themselves around it, complain about it, or do whatever.
00:54:55RickyYeah, that's just anxiety talking. Yeah. And it's a fundamentally human arrangement, and so we all have to try to overcome the social anxiety that comes from it.
00:55:12LindaFrom it, yeah. And I suppose there is a little bit, I mean, when you're entering into this kind of agreement to do this, you are taking a bit of a step into an unknown container. And so, yeah, good for you. You're willing to do this. And it's great. These are each kind of diverse come-froms that people are speaking to here and their fears, their anxiety about how it's not
00:55:36RickyGoing to work. Yeah. And maybe we can talk about how we might make...because we think about this a lot at Flow Club. We understand the power in this body doubling concept. But how do we make this container more inviting for people to come and try out this experience? Do you have any thoughts on how to make body doubling safer?
00:56:11LindaI would guess that if more people could see even five minutes of something. Is it a split screen? Is it split this way, rather than horizontal[?] this way? And this is what it is, folks. Ricky's going to be here, David's going to be here. This is what we're doing for these next three or four minutes. I'll show you what it's like.
00:56:32RickyYeah.
00:56:33LindaJust this demonstration is it. The people who get it, like when I was first bringing that idea out and sharing it, they got it because they understood that it worked in their life in a way.
00:56:45RickyYeah.
00:56:46LindaAnd yet they were afraid to believe it. But you're starting off from a premise of, okay, now they're hearing this. They don't know what it's about. I'll go and make it a little more familiar.
00:56:55RickyYeah. Yeah. Why do you think they're afraid of believe it?
00:57:00LindaOh, we're all afraid of believing certain things. You know, it's just in us. Our beliefs, it's a big thing we deal with in coaching because that can stop you. The thing that you're feeding yourself, this isn't going to work because, or I think that she's thinking that way about me, and so I don't want to talk to my boss about this. We have lots of beliefs, but the tough part is that we tend to treat them like they're facts. And that's another kind of real liberating place to get to is being aware of the beliefs that are guiding you or stopping you versus, is that a fact? Oh, or is it just my belief that it's that way.
00:57:42RickyYeah. I have a take on that. That maybe body doubling is too magical, that it's hard to believe. Because I think a lot of the tools and techniques require you to use it or to practice it intentionally. But body doubling just doesn't take practice. It doesn't. It's just situating yourself in that arrangement and suddenly you become capable. It's almost like it didn't earn it. But you did. You got yourself in that arrangement. Yeah. And maybe. Is it, I don't know. I like that.
00:58:18LindaI like that, of course, because it's all about giving yourself permission to do something, choosing to go into to something. There's just, there's something about that element of choice. Yeah. And that can
00:58:29RickyHelp a person step over past their, their fears. Yeah. I think it's really important because going back to the point of having that choice, we always tell people like, Flow Club is only as powerful as you believe it to be, right? Body doubling is only as powerful as you are intentional about coming in and doing this arrangement. It's choosing to be here. If you intentionally choose to be here and do what you need to do, it will happen if you believe it.
00:59:07LindaSo in this case, you are actually inviting people to believe and therefore step past some of that bias, some of that anxiety. And that's okay, asking them in that way, to a place that you know, safe, where you could believe that and still experiment.
00:59:26RickyOkay, here's some hot takes. Okay: is body doubling just motivation driven by fear of being perceived as lazy?
00:59:35LindaSo, you know, I'm going to say no to that. Because it's not about...we need to get away from those labels. And again, that whole history of a person having been accused, in various ways subtle and not subtle, that if you just worked harder...We have enough science behind it all to get past that. There are people who really do get stuck. Go back to those Dr. Brown constructs again, of where the executive functioning part of the brain can just get stuck. And so that one's stuck on judgment.
01:00:17RickyYeah, I wish this person would be able to recognize that body doubling is. I think we were talking about this yesterday. We're trying to hold you, right? Hold you, lift you up, and help you feel buoyed in this container. It's not about the negative association, it's not about restraint.
01:00:49LindaRestraint. It's not about stopping you from doing something, or trying to manage you. That's another way of stopping you. We're going to manage you back this. It's much more about going into a place where you've got permission.
01:01:03RickyYeah. Permission.
01:01:07RickyA journalist had a take that body doubling is just performance culture, applied to work. So we're all just performing work for each other.
01:01:20LindaWell, those are lovely tags that sit very well if you're going to make that judgment. But I think it's skipping all the things we just talked about, you know, why it can work, why it does work for people, why it is a comfortable workspace, and gets you started oftentimes on something you just didn't want to get to, but the other part of you does want to get to it. So, yeah, that's a, you can label it that way, but obviously we don't see it that way.
01:01:55RickyYeah.
01:01:56RickyOkay, here's a Reddit take: if I need someone else to help me with my basic adulting, am I just failing when I'm alone?
01:02:06LindaWell, now we're really going to get philosophical, right?
01:02:09RickyYeah.
01:02:10LindaSo it's not about failing while you're alone. Alone, there's all types of alone, alone when you get things done and when you're not feeling so productive. But that's another space as separate from this place where you're choosing to do something and to be with someone. That person's existence is there to help you. It is there to be kind of a mirror, but a quiet one, not a judgmental one.
01:02:41RickyYeah. I also, I can imagine this person maybe feel like the need to do a lot of things on their own. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's all I have for reacting to the internet. I think it's quite interesting to see how worked up people get. It's interesting. Yeah. And to me, that's always a clue. I would think that
01:03:15LindaIn terms of the clinical world, therapist too, where somebody is worked up is the very thing, you know, that has the kernel of what to pay attention to. But basically, just between you and me, when you're listening to people worked up, anxiety. So what scares them? And then how does that relate to, I mean, they bothered to respond to it. Can they entertain the idea, gee, that if it worked, if it felt good? Oh, I mean, they're not there. They're holding on to this idea of what it might be. But they're still foreign.
01:03:51RickyYeah, yeah. But if they're, if they're responding or reacting to it, they're still curious, you know.
01:03:57LindaYes.
01:03:58RickyThey wanted to work. Maybe they wanted to work. Maybe they haven't gone there to actually believe that it could work yet.
01:04:05LindaThat's right. So they're going to argue with it first. [?]
01:04:10RickyEspecially it's, you know, like work is so personal. And we try so many different things to try to help us, and it could get exhausting after a while. Yeah, so I can see the reason behind the reactions. Okay, okay, yeah.
01:04:34RickyOkay, so I was wondering, it's 30 years since the article came out. Did you have an inkling that body doubling was going to be?
01:04:51LindaNot at all. Not at all. It's just that I had to write about it and I had to use humor because I was like, why is it working? Is it this? Is it that? And so it just felt, and I was doing things like a blog and e-news, different things back then that I'm not bothering with now. So I liked having certain things to share that I was learning from the people I worked with. And the body double piece was just so there. It's like, oh, this is, I've got it right about it. I had no sense of, no. And at that time, there were no other people creating those sessions online in any capacity.
01:05:31RickyYeah.
01:05:32LindaSo, no, I didn't know.
01:05:35RickyAnd did you start noticing it over time?
01:05:39LindaYeah, absolutely.
01:05:40LindaAnd people would write me.
01:05:42LindaAnd then there was, for example, Matilda Gustafsson[?], who called from Sweden, She writes for a major newspaper, and she interviewed me at length on different occasions and wrote an article. So that idea then had traveled that far. She had read it. And so that's kind of, that makes you realize, oh, this is an idea that really has wings.
01:06:08RickyYeah.
01:06:09LindaYeah.
01:06:14RickyAnd what's it like watching, watching it, you know, develop wings and travel to different parts of the world.
01:06:20LindaIt's kind of delightful. I mean, this is like, I'm going to, this is a pointless story, so we'll probably take this out of this taping. But when I grew up in a rather religious family background, I remember once with the youth group going to this big Jack Wurtson[?], I can remember his name, this big event that all people our age were filling this armory building in D.C. from Rhode Island. And I was bored. I always like to have humor. I was like, and I thought, oh, I'm up way in a balcony. And I took this little Dentyne wrapper and I turned it into an airplane. And then suddenly three, four people are doing it around me. Eventually, the whole place was sending airplanes.
01:07:10LindaSo it has a little bit of that feeling like when you talk about it,
01:07:14LindaWhen you called me to say, I'd like to talk with you about this. You know, it's like, oh, I sent a little airplane, and other people like that idea.
01:07:22RickyYeah, it became something bigger than, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:07:29RickyBut I think part of why it's gotten so much resonance around the world is also because today we're dealing with unprecedented levels of distraction.
01:07:43LindaDistraction.
01:07:44RickyThings are trying to steal our attention.
01:07:45LindaYou don't have to be just ADD or ADHD, you are constantly. I mean, your phone is constant interruption and diversion and distraction. You know, let me see what else is coming my way.
01:07:57RickyYeah. I almost think the, I was thinking like the phone is almost like the anti-body double. It's always with you, like a body double, but it's actually trying to.
01:08:08LindaIt's trying to distract you.
01:08:09RickyTake your, yeah, yeah, take it.
01:08:11LindaAnd all of those forms of media, absolutely.
01:08:14RickyYeah. How do you think body doubling fits into today's media environment, and all the devices that we have?
01:08:30LindaMaybe one device. The thing that could connect us, so that you could be in Albania and I could be here. But we're also keeping that space. Nobody's calling up to do a body double session and saying, well, I'm going to work on my phone. So it keeps us away from those kinds of tools that are distracting, that actually don't allow us to put any concentrated energy toward something, or a chosen amount of energy toward doing something. So it's perfect for a culture like this, where we are distracted in so many different ways. This is a quieter space. We're not talking to each other — that's part of the thing. But there's still the energy of another human being over there, sitting, thinking and doing. So it's a subtler kind of energy.
01:09:28RickyYeah, I think the contrast is almost starker inside the container and outside the container. Because the outside is increasingly crazier, but inside the container it's the same — the same pristine thing.
01:09:45Linda— pristine. And the fact that people want to do it for a set period of time, because they realize it's a unique design. It's almost designed for smaller. You said some people are actually interested in doing a three-hour session. That's an unusual thing. But if that's what somebody wants to do, that's neat.
01:10:06RickyThat's a commitment. Yeah.
01:10:08RickyI feel like I have to ask about AI. In some ways it's trained to give us what we want, and so it's the ultimate kind of dopamine machine. In a way, even more than our phones, and it makes things on our phones even more powerful. And you can even maybe body double with an AI. Have you thought about that?
01:10:50LindaYou could, I guess.
01:10:52RickyYeah.
01:10:53LindaBut you're missing that human component, that living breathing component. And what are you going to leave that AI on for an hour while you're doing this? You're going to be using up all that energy. We're all aware of the cost of what it is to have this AI thing.
01:11:12LindaIt's scary. And yet it's not. You're right. It's like another hit of dopamine: I can go to AI and ask this, and ask this. So it's different from that. This involves humans.
01:11:26RickyYeah. And I think there's something to kind of coming together with fellow humans. And I think one of our users, a long time ago...we actually, I think, I like the quote so much, I put it on the website. It was something like, in the age of all this technology, the simple act of coming together and checking in on each other is magical. And we don't do that anymore. It's so much easier to not do that.
01:12:05LindaYeah. Yeah. And so much easier, well, I'll send that text.
01:12:09RickyYeah.
01:12:10LindaAnd it is not the same thing. Is that a human voice?
01:12:13RickyYeah.
01:12:14RickyI think one of the things that you mentioned went in your original writing about body doubling is that you've, over the years, have collected different, interesting, a little bit weird tools to help people with ADHD, kind of manage what they need to manage. I'm curious if you have any other things like body doubling that could become the next.
01:12:46LindaAnd thinking about those things that you help somebody with that works for them, and then it becomes more magical because it worked for them. I was saying before how I'm helping people get unstuck, and so get either clear about what it is they want to do or clear about that one thing. And so I will say, don't keep heading at this like this. And that is what somebody's trying to do when they're trying to finish this piece of whatever that they're trying to do. But if we could change the way you're doing it, if we can change the way you look at it, if we can change this at a 45-degree angle, so you don't come at it so frontally. So the change, therefore, is, oh, instead of me attempting to write this to say that from four to five, I'm going to do this on my own, I'm going to try out this body double session.
01:13:42LindaAnd that allows me to come somewhat at an angle. The real task at hand is, I know what it is, but I get to put it into a container. I get to try it this way rather than sit down, Linda, and do it this way. So I like to say that, come at an angle. I will tell people that if they're sharing something about a conversation they want to have with somebody that is a change, a difficult kind of thing. So they may be sharing how they're approaching. And I said, can we come at an angle instead? Maybe in the way that I said I would come in as an organizer, but I always saw myself standing beside somebody or sitting beside them. So that it wasn't this, I'm here, I'm the expert, or do it this way.
01:14:26RickyIt's like, let me look from your perspective. That's interesting. So it's almost like the body doubling concept actually came from you looking at things from an angle.
01:14:39LindaThere's a part of it that is together — there's probably a connection there. I just felt this always: let's go at this at an angle.
01:14:47LindaThe other tool I would use often was, can we change the size of this thing? You are trying to get all of this together … One woman was working on her PhD in psychology, and she was getting stuck. This was years ago, and she taught me. She said, I've got to go paint a wall. I said, you what? She said, I'm going to go paint the wall in the kitchen. Okay. And then several times during the span of time we worked together, she's going to paint it a different color. Now, obsessive, you could say — but no. She was very intent on, I need to do the physical aspect of something. And that was getting her going. That was jumping over into — because I wasn't presenting body doubling to her — but to get past that impasse, that stuck point.
01:15:37LindaSo I would share that with others: can you go paint a wall? There was a young man working on his medical doctorate and studying. He painted a wall in chalkboard material. He could do this and then just think bigger, write out things in chalk. So you get to move physically in learning something. Change the size of it. I'll tell people who are trying to work through a scheduling — we have all sorts of calendars that work better, or this and that, but I'll say, do you need to do it on paper? Do you need to have a visual thing up there on the wall too, a different way of looking at this this time, and how these projects overlap? You can have this very structured one that you and all the people at work are looking at, but you need something different to change your perspective.
01:16:25LindaPerspective. So changing perspective is a great kind of aspect of what's fun to do, help people do.
01:16:33RickyI think that's really empowering because I think especially if you're neurodivergent, you know, ADHD, I think you naturally kind of resist, you don't want to fixate and go at it, you know, directly. You actually want to jump around and try to take an angle or go do something completely, seemingly unrelated like painting a wall. And you actually arrive at where you're trying to arrive potentially a little faster. When that works. And again, it has to do
01:17:04LindaWith the person. You just sort of get that that's ready. The person's ready for that approach.
01:17:09LindaMy other favorite thing is not my origination, but I've used it in so many different ways, is to narrow down rather than you come into work, you have this whole list of things you're supposed to do and over here, I'll help people understand that. That is your dump list. There's a term used by others. You've dumped everything for the day on this. But there's no way you can do all of that. So you need to go through that list. Pick the three things that are most important. Put them over here and look at them. Work on those three. And I might tell another person, what's the one thing, or ask them? It's the one thing if you did it would give you the most gratification.
01:17:54LindaI love that question. And then we'll look at that one thing because they're looking at the whole, the mass, and that's obviously boggling and they're not getting done. So it's how to help people focus, you know, how to help them and give them permission to understand that. Nobody else is working off that big list. Maybe some people can sort of do that and move back and forth. Most people can't. People with ADHD cannot. So let's look at a way that you can look at what's less on your plate. If you cross one thing off, you can add another one, but don't go adding a whole bunch of others. You're limited to three.
01:18:35RickyYeah.
01:18:36LindaSo try to help someone learn a way to focus.
01:18:39RickyYeah.
01:18:43RickyYeah. I like that, because you're pointing out different things for different people. But there's this — at least for me — it seems like when I look for solutions to my challenges, I always just want to find the answer. And that's why books are written all about doing just one thing, for example. But then it might not work for you. And so I think giving people permission to kind of try out …
01:19:25LindaYes, yeah, yeah — a lot less threatening.
01:19:28LindaI can only think of maybe one other tool, which I call Five Easy Pieces, named after a movie that was back then, Five Easy Pieces. And it's like, you go into your workspace, you're just kind of overwhelmed by the clutter, you can't look at the whole, go to the desk alone, pick the five easiest pieces. Is there a pen that goes in a drawer? Is there something you can throw out? Okay, there is a file for that, but you're picking easy, five easy pieces. And that's all you're committing to. So it has a nice structure to it, a rhythm. One, two, three, four, five. Sometimes people will, say, and I wanted to do five more. I said, that's okay, you can, but you're just committed to the five easy pieces.
01:20:15LindaAnd therefore, that also is a nice container. And it feels doable. And if you're starting with the easiest, okay, that gives you a method, too, for moving
01:20:27RickyInto something. Yeah, yeah.
01:20:29RickyWe have this opportunity to have this conversation because 30 years ago you coined this term. Okay — and so, you don't know, it's perfectly fine if you don't have an answer — but these last 30 years, a lot has changed in terms of our understanding of ADHD and all the tools that we have to manage it. What do you wish for, I guess, in another 30 years?
01:21:02LindaSo that one I think I could answer, in terms of what would I wish for. There's just so much uncertainty for people today. I mean, AI is a magical thing and it's a frightening thing, in terms of how it's going to change the lives of people. And everyone kind of knows that we don't know where that will take us. But in a world where we have something as basic as this body double idea, it's saying that people still matter. So what will be the ways that we can connect, and matter, and be in that kind of human container where we're helping each other, but we're not overdoing it — we're not over-scheduling, over whatever. It's just kind of a quiet place to go to get something done. So let's hope that there's
01:21:57LindaMore of that, and there are more ways for us to connect — because we certainly know the electronic devices that disconnect us, or that scare us in terms of what the future might hold. So more in the way of people.
01:22:13RickyYeah, I think that's awesome. I think that's a great place to end. And also it's time for Milo.
01:22:20LindaAnd Milo wants his dinner.
01:22:21RickyYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:22:23LindaRight, Milo?
01:22:24RickyOkay, well, thanks for having this conversation.
01:22:27LindaThank you for coming all this way, because you wanted to talk about this.
01:22:30RickyYes, I love it. Thank you.
01:22:32LindaThank you. Thank you.
The reactions in the second half are real posts, quoted as written. Each link opens the thread; the timecode plays Linda's reply.
The easiest way to body double is in Flow Club. Give it a try for free today.
Find a session to join