Psychological Body-Doubling and Other Ways to get Things Done.

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1:01Hello, everyone. Welcome to Word with Dr. Michael David Clay. I don't know that much about body doubles. And my mind could go multiple directions with that statement if someone said that to me. But, in this particular case, a body double or doubling is an ADHD concept. That is ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as if you didn't know that already. But, it's an intervention or a technique where assistance can be provided to people who otherwise have difficulty staying on task to stay on task and accomplish whatever is then the objective, simply by pairing them up with another person. And in that same sort of a way, we used to call that body doubling really the body system.

2:05When I was younger, social learning modeling, I think it all goes to the essentials that humans do better in some partner sort of dimension. That is, if they can get along. And with that, you can create some common goal, some purpose or reason for collaboration. And they're in, working together. It's a little harder to get off the path or to get out in the proverbial weeds. Today, January, February, 2026, try body doubling and get more done by Ariela, Crystal, PhD. Who is a visiting assistant professor at Yashiva University and affiliated researchers

3:08at the UCLA Anderson School of Management? A few years ago, a grad school classmate was starting to feel that working at home with all his distractions, TV, laundry, a bed right for naps, was eating away at her productivity. She was looking for a guardrail to keep her on track, so we built one. Each morning, we joined a Zoom together, started our goals, stated our goals, hit mute and left our cameras on. After an hour, we'd unmute for a two-minute water cooler chat and then dive back in. I couldn't see her screen, but my silent visible presence was enough to keep her glued to her work instead of cat videos. I was extra productive during those sessions, too.

4:09This simple tactic, known in ADHD circles as body doubling, is based on two proven concepts. First, design beats willpower, changing your environment even just virtually often works better than trying to summon heroic self-discipline. Second, one quirk of our psychology can fix another. We're hypersensitive to the presence of others, and of course to what other people think of us. Body doubling turns that built-in spotlight into motivation, which we can leverage to overcome our equally human urge to procrastinate. You'd be able to power through on our own, maybe, but in real life we get distracted, bored and tempted.

5:12Instead of berating ourselves about it, we can call on a tool that's been hiding in plain sight, another person's presence. How to find it? First, find a buddy, friends, classmates, co-workers, anyone with work to do. Second, set a timer, commit to 30 to 90 minutes. Spreads, break for quick chats in between. Three, keep cameras on and mics off, seeing each other matters more than hearing. Four, share goals up front. A tiny dose of accountability goes a long way, and finally five, repeat as needed. The habit forms fast because it feels good to finish tasks.

6:16Body doubling won't complete your work for you, but it makes showing up and staying on task easier. So the next time you catch yourself hovering over the play next episode button, invite a friend to a silent zoom, let the human desire to say face, do its work, and watch your to-do list shrink. And again, the article's entitled Try Body Doubling and Get More Done by Ariala Crystal PhD, who is a visiting assistant professor at Yashiva University and affiliated researcher at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Let me just confess, when I read this article the first time, it brought back in maybe a bit of a trouble way, it certainly seemed a bit triggering all the ill and the evil

7:20of COVID. Now, I know that was me, it's maybe isn't you. COVID itself and the isolation effect it had by quarantining all of us, including sometimes all of us within the nuclear of a family, seemed not only isolated and being a social creature that was a bit aversive, but also I'm one of those individuals that does not like to be quarantined or stuck in a room or stuck in front of a computer for too long. Maybe I have 80 HD, but I do much better on the move and on my feet and then in a natural more naturalistic sort of way and environment. It can be social, or have psychosocial dimensions, considerations, but I do my best work, I am free to roam, but that aside, and once more confessing, I am me and you are you and you

8:25may not have had any of that. You may have quite enjoyed COVID, you might have enjoyed the lockdown or you may still be in a position where you can truly enjoy working from home virtually. It does seem though that that situation lends itself to quite the contrary, body doubling, although the author, in a very ingenious sort of way, used the principles of social and socialization, and as with psychology, social psychology, socialization, and then even in a management orientation, the team of fact, accountability, the team of fact, partnering, the team of fact working together to accomplish ends, and though I would also, quite possibly,

9:27appreciate the individual aspect of that, it's impossible to not be part of some social network, even if it's a small in dyad sort of terms, a to some nuclear, a family could be extended with kids, extended a bit more, and you get a community effect, you live in a neighborhood, and if not necessarily in a neighborhood, at least there's a neighbor within hopefully some line of sight, dimension, but when you think of work, at least traditionally anything of work, we think of getting together, and in that, most individuals do not work in isolation, and should they, they're still part of a team, they may go out as a team, split up, go off into individual sort of pursuits, and even should they be, as with some lone

10:28dimension in mind, inclined to have to do that without that support, there's always the checking in, these are just really basic management principles, industrial psychology is what we call that, but it is coming back to universally that central premise, humans are social, and for that, that's how we learn, and for that, that's where we best perform, and because of those two features, and maybe others, but at least for the sake of today's podcast and this article, why we are adaptively so, so successful, and in that, or having that in mind, it helps me to appreciate that any time you're setting yourself about a chore or a task, even if it's not

11:31work-related, maybe it's just one of those things that you decide to do as with enhancement to better yourself, having a partner matters, it is in that way resource, not only exponentially to, come together, one, they add to enhance, again, enhancement at that level of resource, brain trust, sharing ideas, creativity, all of those wonderful things that happen when you get along with another person or other persons, but even should you not necessarily be inclined to think exactly the same way, or there may be enough diversity there, obviously, always turn to dissonance, that there's a challenge, embrace it, because even in the challenge, as long as you

12:31harm one another, as long as you don't have so much dissonance or there's not so much potential intrinsic conflict in that to completely separate views of the world, there's a lot to be said for perspective-taking, seeing it from another perspective, working on communication, collaboration, establishment of rapport, and then going back to adaptability and success, it's really creativity as much a prompt for creativity as basic as it gets. There are challenges, and we must adjust, and for that we can own our part in it, our life experiences, but diversity helps, culturally, diversity helps, individually, and even if you come from

13:38somewhat the same culture, playing off of one another helps, exponentially, it assists, which then brings me back to body doubling in the most common form that I see of body doubling, at least in my professional work, relationship counseling, particularly long-term relationship counseling, particularly significant other, something close to if not marriage, and in that long-term committed relationship, why do most marriages fail when there's so much to be gained by body doubling? I know that not all of us are ADHD, I know we're not all free rumors, as I confess myself to be, I know some of us are more, forgive me for going in this direction, low walls,

14:44loaders, we do better when there's just one, and that's us, but seeing how we are social creatures and cannot escape social influence or participation, we would do better to be better at all of that communication, rapport, working together, perspective taking, I didn't mention it, but empathy, emotional connection. We did a podcast several weeks ago where that was one of the factors that research had suggested, contributed most to longevity, could you occupy in empathetic terms, common space, claiming it, reclaiming it, moving in and out of it, to maintaining emotionally, then with perspective taking, establishing

15:45emotional connections, then with perspective taking strategy, thinking through it, problem solving, because life as much as we can't escape, should we think we'd want to, the social element, why would you now that you know the adaptive benefit, but the other thing for certain is that there will always be growth, challenge, development, and skills, acquisition of skill sets, contributions hopefully, as long as it comes back to the individual and then with that at least one other in relationship terms, then all of those skill sets that go into couples counseling,

16:48relationship counseling, marriage counseling, in addition to industrial psychology and social psychology as root, are going to be incredibly beneficial and helpful, and something you want to put in your proverbial toolbox, to learn, to be able to apply, and even within counseling, and even so, individual counseling, even then it's done within that basic, most basic, of diet, relationship, I on one side, you, them, they, on the other, and then we go back and forth, sharing ideas, go back and forth, sharing emotional responses, go back and forth, much like the podcast even, in a conversational way, even as that still might be, or even more basic still,

17:58may be more basically what's going on inside of an individual, most persons are not uncomfortable with the notion of talking to themselves, communicating with themselves, personifying at least another part of themselves, so that we can have this same interplay, this same dialogue, this same conversation, constructive as it is, it requires abstract thought, at least to some extent, but most of that comes online in childhood, so if we don't do that well, there may be genetic and organic reasons, developmental delays, possibly prohibitive organic developmental issues at prohibit, that, but it's hard to imagine, at least at a rudimentary basic level, not being able to conceive

19:02of yourself outside of yourself, and then having a conversation with that other part, when you get into counseling, individual now, not just couples, mirrored relationship, you do that, you express that outwardly with another, they are coming from that same sort of position of having conversations with themselves, but now they're sharing it with you, and then for the sake of me, in the role I'm in, as that agent of counseling, offering such things as these different perspectives, helping assisting persons, to work through the challenges of life, emotionally, psychologically, to coming up with different perspectives creatively coming up with solutions. It's a dynamic, but it's universal, because of why, or what? Because we're social creatures,

20:13why? Because we're social creatures. That is the way implicitly and transically, we have come to in our current state of evolution, or whatever you would like to use to describe that, this is where we are, and I use the word evolution, not feeling uncomfortable at all with that, because it is adaptability. It's just even more so, simply reactivity, it's with calculus now, strategy, learner, again, growth, development, maturation, not only the individual, not only of the individual working with another, but longitudinal over a lifetime, should it be one of those keepers, long-term relationships, or even if it should be somewhat short-lived, put them all together, and come up with

21:15a composite other as with some unidimension to it, it is always helpful. Why then do most marriages, relationships in that way have or are fraught with such then difficulty that they aren't necessarily always long-term, they don't always end in friendly terms themselves, or as you would term it itself, friendly, and with that, not only do not always end, well, even should there be mutuality in agreement to end it? Why can't we end it as friends? That seems that most then take with them from all of that, at least the risk of it being hostile.

22:15You should thank the other person, they should thank you, they've contributed to your life, they taught you not what to do, what not to do, it doesn't have to be bad, it doesn't have to be in some moralistic code or term, evil, it just has to be, it didn't work for us, and we've gone as far as we can, and for that we're going to move on to something a bit different. We're going to embed within a team approach, we're going to collaborate, we're going to body double, we're going to extrapolate and extend that to not only culture as in community, but wherever the community may be, I began by identifying it within industrial or management sort of terms, if only because the author is an affiliated researcher at the UCLA Anderson School of Management,

23:22presumably that has an industrial connotation to it, but that's just one example. It can all be, to that extent, wherever you would find application, it is all universally so, generalizable, generalized, you can generalize it to just about any social situation, but when you look out of that way, and from that perspective, it's not bad, it's growth, now true, growth is always challenging and true, it does require one to lose a bit of themselves, and true, though you may regret that you had to lose that bit of yourself, isn't it better, though, if that means for the better, you've grown, you've adapted, you're doing something

24:27very, very positive, you're moving in a positive direction for the sake then, of not only yourself, which would be the ideal of individual counseling or psychotherapy or psychological counseling, but now for relationship, significant others, and you can add to that, it doesn't have to be your partner in that way, it can be family extended, again, city, community, township, wherever you live, whatever group you belong to, groups you belong to socially, it can be to everybody's benefit, that seems to be the best result, we're now contributing members, and in that same way, we hold others accountable as the article captured it, they're holding us accountable. The basic unit is to, at least minimally,

25:34you can do it with yourself, but I still think extending that for the sake of a little more objectivity when we're in our own head sometimes it gets compromised by subjectivity, and after all, we're only talking to ourselves, and we only know, emotionally as well as perspective, well we know, add someone else, and it's salsa, it brings forward different ways, brings forward creativity wise, nuanced, something different, better, we'll keep searching for the better, it's in us, there's our hope now, it's not lethal, it doesn't kill you, it seems like it might, because it can be very, very challenging when you're growing and developing, but it's not the end, it's just one step along that path or the path, the narrative journey of

26:44one's life. I think that's a good way to look at it, should you also agree, you can certainly reach out to me, we'll start with me, by contacting me at drndeclay at thewordhouse.com directly, you can via email, you can also find us, me online at thewordhouse.com, you can call 304523, word 9673, you can find me, us at wordhouse on social media, but per chance you'd want to see who else is out there, the psychology today website has a director of providers, and there's plenty more like me that you can also find there, and not that I would discourage or want

27:44to discourage you're contacting me, but just knowing that there are others you'd like to survey it to be sure I get that, but the great advantage of the podcast, not only besides the fact that we're doing a bit of all of what we spoke of today in educational primary care sort of terms by disseminating this information and sharing the perspective of someone who does this routinely for a living with you, who's vetted, who's educated, who's credentialed, certified, licensed, but you know a bit about my personality, and maybe that accounts for something, you know, whether or not what I say resonates doesn't, and for that, I'm not sure you'd get that chance in quite the way the podcast affords it, if you would go to anyone else and last day too, would have a podcast and you would have had the chance or opportunity to hear them over an extended

28:45period of time and really know what they think, what they believe, how they're oriented so much so that you could count on that when you come into visit them. Again, I want to thank you though for joining us today on the podcast. We drop it weekly, word with Dr. Michael David Clay, and because we drop it weekly, I hope if you don't reach out to us directly, that you do catch the next podcast, but until we get that chance to meet again, I would like to wish you all the very best of good mind health, good behavioral health, and certainly want to take this moment to say thank you for joining us today, until we get that chance to meet again. At Amika Insurance, we know it's not just what's inside your home that matters, it's who you share it with.

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