Body Doubling: Why ADHD Brains Finish Tasks With Company

Hello.

Hello.

It's Danielle.

And Vida.

So we are from ADHD Upgrade, ADHD Out Loud. So we are talking about the importance of accountability and body doubling, cuz they go together. When you're ADHD, having accountability is helpful, but it's not like the whole package.

Like I can show up to Eddie Hall all the time, but I don't know how many people went to study hall when they were in school, but unless someone's walking around trying to keep everybody on task or just like, hey, that looks awesome, what are you working on? Then study hall, a lot of people went to sleep.

I colored on my arm or my jeans. I didn't actually, and I needed study hall badly. Study hall was no help. But when I went to the resource center, that was like study hall on steroids. I got help and usually the help was, what are you supposed to be working on?

That was it.

Nobody telling me how to do anything or the right way to do the thing. Just what are you supposed to be doing? Which made me think and go, oh yeah, I have that homework period in my book bag that I need to do. And when you are ADHD, whether you have a day job or an entrepreneur or even a stay-at-home mom, just having saying, hey, what's on the agenda for today? It's game changing. It's game changing.

What are your intentions for this next hour? What do you want to get accomplished in this next hour? If your intentions are to just sit around and visit with me and drink some coffee, I'm cool with that as long as I know going in. But if we're here today and your If your intention is to get your laundry folded and this person over here has an intention of filling out some resumes, then y'all are working. I need to do something. I need to find something to work on. That is, I think, the beauty of the accountability and body doubling partnership.

And a lot of it for ADHDers is because we need the reassurance that we're not the only ones struggling to get a task done. It's yesterday. I work for an outside company. Vida and I work for an outside company and we have community body doubling sessions. And the only people that showed up to community body doubling yesterday that I ran was other coaches. Because we were having a hard time getting this task done that we were asked to do by our manager. So we got together and we body doubled to get a task done that we were given by our manager. So like, we're working for somebody else doing tasks. I have one of my clients came on last week and had to do her expense report for a travel that she just did for her day job. So it's not just for entrepreneurs or just for stay-at-home moms to fold their laundry or whatever. It's for everyone to get the thing done that is the annoying task that you need.

Right.

I say this kind of jokingly, You need your emotional support ADHDer for to get done.

Yeah, absolutely. I have used it for so many different things. When I was a teacher, I would use body doubling to help get the 800 IEPs done that I had to write every year. 'Cause if not, they would just kind of sit and pile up and then it would be just like we all do, like the night before I'd have to get it done. So I would use that for that. I've used, I have used it to get laundry done or chores or things that I forgot. There's nothing, I think there's nothing better than being at body doubling, being And like, oh, I don't have anything to work on. And then you start looking through your to-do list and you're like, oh, there's stuff written on the back of this.

Post-it note at the bottom of the page that I forgot about from yesterday. Crap, I gotta do that. Mm-hmm. But it's also like, it's not just like that emotional support. We're more likely as ADHDers to show up for somebody else than we are for ourselves. So if you're there to support somebody else getting things done, you're more likely to get things done yourself.

I, I have a client that goes to her writing group like every morning at 7, and her goal is to be a published writer. And on her own individually, even though she knows what to do, she's not as successful as when she goes to this group. They set their intentions and they write for an hour. If someone is struggling, they help, but they still are there to work on this one thing. And I think last year she told me she had published 4 different things. So, you know, it works and it's— you can make it as niche as possible.

Well, and you can make it as broad as possible. Even if it's the, I have 25-minute things to do and I need to get them done in this hour, you could be making dinner, eating lunch because, you know, we forget to eat and drink water. Speaking of which.

Oh yes.

But having that accountability and that emotional support that goes with that, you wanna know what else it does? It increases your focus and it decreases your executive dysfunction. It decreases your RSD because when your executive dysfunction is really, really high, it sets your RSD and you're overwhelmed and you're burned out and all of those things. So if you can decrease your overwhelm, increase your success loops, increase your dopamine by Having other people who get you, who are showing up on a Zoom call, maybe somebody in pigtails and goofy earrings or with Star Wars stuff behind it, whatever it is, showing up with someone else decreases your overwhelm, RSD, and executive dysfunction. Like this morning, I did a body doubling. I did a 3-hour body doubling that I opened up to our community members just on the fly. I let them know this morning, hey, I have 3 hours and I have a ton of stuff to get done. I will be available to you. And somebody came in to show me all of the content she has scheduled out from now and through the end of March. She was so excited, and because she was so excited and giggly, everybody else was really excited and happy. And at the end of the call, somebody else said, oh, I got so much done because Denise was so happy.

Yeah.

You can just feed on that energy.

Yeah. So, and here's the other accountability group, body doubling group. You are each other's hype people. So my daughter comes in here and she's so excited. Like, I'm still buzzy from that little injection of energy. In your body doubling, someone gets something done, someone gets great news, they share it. Everybody like basically levels up. We are super susceptible susceptible to the energy in a room, so why not lean into it and channel it? So we're gonna pack this room full of people that are doing things productively. We're gonna pack this with people who are celebrating their accomplishments, you know. We're gonna pack this room with people that are like us.

Again, you get success loops, you get energy, you get all of the things just by showing up to Zoom.

I also love the fact that we help each other too, like Hey guys, I'm really struggling with this in this certain program. And someone's like, oh yeah, I can show you how to do that in 5 minutes.

And having a community of like brains, whether you're bipolar or ADHD or AuDHD or just have learning disabilities, or you are an exhausted, overwhelmed mom, which means that your brain is working like an ADHD brain right now, even if you aren't normally, but that's how your brain is working. And you get all of these people in a room and everybody has a solve for whatever the thing is you're dealing with. There is Always a solve by somebody in a room when it comes to it. We had a couple weeks ago, we had somebody come on who has a toddler and he was just throwing a fit and two of us entertained the toddler for a few minutes so mom could get like the one thing done that she wanted. I was playing peekaboo with a toddler on Zoom and you're like, well, how's that helpful? Because mom who was overwhelmed and exhausted was able to get the thing done that was making her feel more overwhelmed and more exhausted. And all I did is play peekaboo for like five minutes with a toddler and I was giggling so hard and had so much like I had so much joy from playing with this little guy for a few minutes. And then I was able to take that into my next task and move on. And then somebody asked, hey, I don't know how to do this. I'm like, well, did you sign in to here? And they're like, oh.

And it's just, I feel like it just cuts straight to the chase. And I think a lot of us that did do study halls when we were kids, we were in there with neurotypical people, neurodivergent people. We were in there with all kinds of things. So it may or may not have been successful for us, or it was very hit or miss. But I'm telling you, body doubling sessions, accountability sessions with people that are like you is 100% different than anything thing you've ever experienced.

It's awesome. It really is awesome.

Yeah. Danielle and I went to a conference and we were out, we were chatting, we were networking in all our sparkly glory. And then we would sit down and we would work an hour because this is what neurodivergence can do. We would get like 4 or 5 hours work done and then we'd go back and we'd network and then we'd take another hour and we would do that and back and forth. So we went to a conference for like a week and I didn't feel behind when we got back.

Because when you're in someone else's energy and it's positive energy, And I remember that while we were at the conference, I had a client thing that I was really struggling with. And I talked to Vida, and Vida gets how my brain— well, Vida is my brain. We're carbon copy brains, I think, sometimes. And I asked her a question, and she's like, well, did you think of it this way? And I was like, well, no, I didn't, but that was dumb.

Thank you.

And I went on and I got the thing done in something I had been struggling to figure out how to communicate or do. And so she answered my question, and I got an energy hit from her being able to answer my question, which meant I was able to give her an energy hit because I was so happy about, you know, and you end up with this amazing It's like this energy vibe that you end up feeding off of each other. And even if somebody comes into one of these sessions and is like just total breakdown mode, everybody, we're so empathetic and we're able to step in and give them whatever it is that they're missing in that moment because they're in that breakdown mode to get them out of it.

One other thing about that. So I know that there are some people probably listening at home or while they're working on the treadmill, whatever, and they're like, but if I go to these bottle doubling sessions, I just need to work. I can't get looped into everybody's stuff. So first off, that is 100% okay. You are gonna work in your little section over here of people that need to get stuff done and don't have the spoons and the bandwidth to help with this over here, because there's going to be 2 or 3 people in there that are like, I got this, and they take them over to the side, they help them, and then we all come back to the group. So I don't want people to miss out on the amazingness of accountability and body doubling because you're afraid you're going to get sucked into someone's dramatic quicksand.

And it's a bit of understanding what you need when you come in. And maybe you don't understand what you need when you come in and you start talking to people and go, oh no, too many spoons, gotta walk away. We have quiet spaces, we have talk spaces, we have listen to music spaces, we have watch a movie space. I watched Star Wars a couple days ago with a client. Because that's what she needed. She needed to watch Star Wars, her request, which made my heart happy. But she wanted to watch Star Wars to get some tasks done. Great. That's what we need. Let's do it. And we're always like, within our community, ADHD Upgrade especially, we're always like, oh yeah, let's do it. And there's always somebody who has your same energy vibe need all of the time. There always is. And maybe it's a, well, yeah, I'm, I'm willing to do that with you. And then you find, oh, that's what I needed today. That's what I was missing. And You don't even necessarily know it when you're going in. But one of the big things, if you're an entrepreneur, people ask me all the time because I've built multiple successful businesses and I've done— I do 20 things at a time. I'm always doing 20 things at a time. And they're like, well, how do you do that? Accountability and body doubling. I don't have a coach that shows me how to do something in my business. I know how to do my business. That's— I don't need somebody to tell me how to be a coach. I don't need somebody to tell me how to be a marketing agency owner. I know how to do that. But I need somebody to remind me that I wrote down this morning that I had 3 things I was going to get done and I haven't worked on 'em yet, and I need somebody to get on a call and say, hey, what you doing right now? To remind me of the thing that I already know I'm supposed to do. And that is the success. And that is the difference between a successful ADHDer and one that's in overwhelm and frustration and shame mode all over the time. That is the only difference. Are there some other tools that go with accountability and body doubling? Yes. And there are tools that we give everybody coming into our world, understanding how executive dysfunction works, understanding all the mechanics of being ADHD. But really, when it comes down to it, the thing that we give them is accountability and body doubling, because we're freaking smart. We know what we're supposed to be doing. That is not an issue.

Oh, I agree. And like, with my education background, I, you know, I was a teacher for so long. There are kids that sit in rooms and you would see them, they're so smart. They were so much smarter than the lesson that was being taught. So of course they were disruptive. My own children were this, like, of course they were disruptive. And they weren't disruptive with Mal intent. They were, you know, wiggling, tapping on their desk, stuff like that. And maybe they were just daydreaming, but they still weren't paying attention because they needed it explained at a higher level. I still butt heads with my son because he's homeschooled, and I still butt heads with him about different things. He's like, "Mom, I can do this math in my head," and I'm like, "I know you can, but I need you to do at least one on paper so that I know you're not missing a step." Because he is so smart, he rushes through it. Sometimes he misses a step, but it's those people that hold us accountable. Like, no, come on, just one, one. Show me that you know how to do these steps, and then you go on and do your thing.

So what is your favorite part of having body doubling available to you all the time?

Oh gosh. So my favorite part is, and, and you have to, this does take a little practice, but you have to be able to recognize when you're starting to get in overwhelm and you're inching towards burnout and your to-do list seems longer at the end of the day than it was at the beginning of the day. So when I start feeling that way, instead of spending a week death spiraling and shaming myself and everything, I will just look and be like, okay, I'm going into body doubling tomorrow and I'm gonna cut this down. It may take me a week of knocking a chunk of my list off every day, but I'm gonna knock it down. And at the end of the week, I'm going to feel 100% better. And so I leaned into what I needed. I cut out the shame and I just got shit done. And that is my favorite part.

It took me from frustrated with myself all the time, the frustration with myself all the time of, I know what I'm supposed to be doing, I know what I'm supposed to be doing, I'm really not lazy, I know what I'm supposed to be doing, this is so hard, why am I having such a hard time? I know what I'm supposed to be doing and I just can't make myself do it. To, oh yeah, that's easy, I can do that, that's not a problem, I'll schedule that for 2 o'clock today when I have body dump.

I agree. And the other thing I think it does is it makes us more mindful of the things we commit Because we overcommit to things. That's part of the reason we get overwhelmed. We overcommit to things. And it doesn't matter if it's within our business, within our personal life or whatever. If I haven't overcommitted to things, I will end up giving myself homework. Like I will just like, let's read this book and take notes on it and do all this. Let's start this online course. Like we do this stuff because I really feel that for a lot of us when we were kids, that if we sat still for too long, people told us to get up and move because we were being lazy or we would get up and do stuff, but it wasn't things that people thought were productive, so we were ashamed that way too. And so I feel like accountability sessions, and, and body doubling for that matter, keeps me from overcommitting to things that I can actually do.

So what is your biggest success story as a mom with using body doubling?

I taught my kids how to do it. They just don't know that's what I taught them to do. And so my favorite educational tactic is that of an educational ninja. So we're gonna play, and I'm gonna teach you something, and you're going to tell Remember, one, that I never make you do any work, but you're gonna learn all this stuff. So I taught the kids how to do body doubling. So the laundry has been on the couch for a week. It's my son's, it needs to be done. So we have a tag team session, it's what we call it. And maybe we'll all do like tag team that task. But a lot of times what it is, is we're just all doing a task and he needed a body double to get the laundry done. So when it's time for them to clean their room, they'll be like, hey mom, can we tag team? Absolutely. And so I'll go in and I'll tell 'em kind of where to start cuz they're still kids and they need help with executive function. And then I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go load the dishwasher. I'll be right back. So I go and do a chore and then I come back. So we body double cleaning at our house. They just don't know that's what we're doing.

That's awesome. I think one of my best successes as a mom is my son now does it with his wife. Oh, that's awesome. Cuz I used to do the same thing with him and hey, let's set a timer. And see what we can get done in 10 minutes. So he does that. I mean, they set timers, they do dance parties, they get things done. I mean, all of those things are things that him and I did when he was a kid. And now he's carried that over to his wife who is ADHD and, well, she's ADHD, didn't, wasn't given the skills that she needed as a kid. So now he's teaching them to her. So their house is clean. They're functional adults. And that's to me, when I was told my son would never be functional, That's awesome.

Yeah.

Now, as an entrepreneur, what's one of the best things that body doubling has done for you?

Oh, as an entrepreneur. Okay. It always helps me get the stuff done that's like kind of the just boring stuff, right? So there's so many shiny bells and whistles that I could twist off on and like create content. I could do this. And there's always that one like ugly stepsister from Cinderella sitting over there, task that I need to do. And it just keeps sitting there because I'm like, no, I don't want to do it. It's not fun. Body doubling keeps me Painful, and it keeps those things done. Because what's going to happen is it's going to sit there so long, it's going to cause a hole in my business and it's going to fall apart, or it's going to cause a hole in my business and then I'm going to just outsource it, which is fine, totally, to outsource it, but that's going to be expenditure that if I would have just sat down for 30 minutes, I could have done it.

For me, I think one of the biggest things was learning that, oh, I can make and close $25,000 in a day if somebody makes me answer my DMs.

Because I hate answering my DMs.

I hate answering my DMs. I get so many of them. Like right now I have 52 unanswered DMs in Facebook.

Girl, you're awesome. I think I have 4.

And I need to answer them. And there's probably money in there.

There might be. Oh my God. You know, okay, this, this is a lesson for everybody. Okay? There's money in Danielle's DMs. She needs to go answer her DMs. A lot of times there's money in your mail. So when you let it sit there and stack up and you don't open it and say like, oh, this is junk mail, you throw it away. I have went through this. doom box of my mail. It'll stack up. I'll go through it, but it'll kind of build up every couple months. I started going through it. I always find money in it. There'll be a check I didn't know it needs to get cashed, like stuff like that. So go like, yeah, that's an awesome—

It's incentive to like clean up the thing you're most dreading is probably where your most success will come in when it comes— when you're a business owner. And if you have a career and you're working for the man or whatever, the task you're avoiding the most, one is probably the shortest task you have to do.

Yeah.

I have a client I had a conversation with yesterday who they've had a broken window in the basement. 4 years, and he's been putting this task off. It took him 5 minutes to call the dude to fix it. The guy came out same day. So 5 minutes to call him, same day, and $25.

Yes.

And I did it while I was— we did it. We body doubled while he called the guy to fix his— he even knew who to call. It wasn't a matter if he had to figure out who to call. Often we work up this thing and he thought it was gonna take him hours and that he was eventually gonna have to figure out how to do it on his And I was like, no, let's make a phone call.

Do you wanna know the number one thing that neurodivergent people procrastinate on? Their taxes. And those are coming up. I'm just putting that out there. So maybe we should run some extra body doubling sessions in our community. Oh, for tax prep.

We should definitely run some for tax prep. I need help with tax prep. I could definitely use it. Yeah, we should definitely do that. And I know we have our ADHD Summit coming and there's some things that I have to do to get ready for that. And I'm gonna ask for some body doubling. And I know that in March we're going to launch a spring And cleaning ADHD style options so that we can help each other body double. And it's gonna be mostly body doubling and I'll give you a task list of what to go clean so you don't have to think about what to clean. You don't think about how to think about how to clean it cuz we'll show you how to do that and we'll body double with you.

Yeah.

So body doubling, accountability, the, like the keys to optimizing and upgrading your ADHD. And that's what, I mean, it really is. You wanna upgrade your ADHD, get a body double.

And, or you can, I mean, if you don't know where to go, we do have ADHD Upgrade Academy. Like Danielle started that and of course I was like, I wanna come play in your pool. And we came over there and we were building up this community for people that are like-minded that need help and, and want to do—

It doesn't matter what you need help with. And it doesn't matter what you need. It's not just for entrepreneurs. It's not just for people with day jobs. It's not just for stay-at-home moms. We've got college kids. We're opening up an area for high school kids. We're just giving every ADHDer over the age of 12 a space to get the help and to upgrade their ADHD. Your ADHD does not have to cripple you.

No, because we found a way. And I mean, Jeff Goldblum says it in Jurassic Park, life finds a way. So if life can find a way in Jurassic Park, neurodivergence can find a way in our community and even out there. Like, you're not a big joiner? Not a problem. We can still help you. Absolutely.

You don't have to be super social to do this either. And I think I've had that question a few times. Oh, but I don't really like to hang out with people. You don't have to talk to anybody, I promise. I mean, you can if you want to. We're here to talk to if you need it. But if you don't really wanna hang out, but you still need the help, let us know. We have an option for you because there's an option for everybody. Cuz we're all, there are days I don't wanna talk to people either. So I get that.

I tell everybody when you're trying to do a behavior, and in this case it's getting the stuff done, you need a high energy option, a mid energy option, and a low energy option. So, you know, going into, if you're gonna participate in body doubling, what's your energy level today? High, medium, or low? And we have specific sections in our body doubling for here's all our low energy people and they're going to sit over there and they're going to do their stuff. Here's all our mid-level, if you need to separate yourselves like that. But I'm telling you, if you're struggling with task paralysis, look at, you know, take stock, see what your energy level is— high, mid, or low— and then pick a task that matches that because you can still get the task done. It just may be one that matches your energy level.

It absolutely does. And there's something different for everyone every single day of the Come join us. If you have questions, message us. There's so many ways to get ahold of us underneath this video, or if you're listening on the podcast, we very much want you to come over on our side and we only charge $20 a month for this. This is something that we believe in so much that we're not trying to get rich quick off of it because we want to offer ADHDers support at a level that they can actually afford because so many of us cannot afford mental health support. And this is what this is at $20 a month. We hope that you'll join us.