People with ADHD tend to collect the best productivity tricks in the book, and it's not because we're naturally organized. It's because we have to be. Unless you're medicated, you're mostly on your own, left to patch a brain that doesn't want to sit still. So you start improving your routine out of pure necessity, nitpicking the tiniest details and tweaking them one by one, like atomic habits in a way, until something finally sticks.
One of those tricks worked so well for me that I had to write about it. It's called body doubling, which is a fancy way of saying "studying or working with another person in the room."
TL;DR
Body doubling means doing your focused work quietly alongside another person. For ADHD brains it's one of the most effective focus tricks out there. The catch: it only works with the right person, and it doesn't really scale. Use it as an occasional multiplier, keep a solid solo routine for everything else, and try a service like FocusMate if you can't find a willing human.
What body doubling actually is
I'd heard about body doubling for years, somewhere in the back of my mind, but I almost never actually did it. So I never really understood why people swore by it.
The idea is simple: you do your focused work next to someone else who's also doing their own thing. You're not collaborating. You're just there, together, quietly working in parallel. Something about another person being present makes it much harder to wander off and open a fifth tab you never meant to open.
The catch nobody mentions
Here's the part most productivity blogs gloss over: body doubling cuts both ways. Pick the wrong person and your study session ends up worse than if you'd just stayed home alone.
The whole thing only works if it's someone you can sit in comfortable silence with. Too much chatting and the session is over before it starts.
I learned this the hard way. Whenever I tried to study with friends, I'd get nothing done. Either we'd start talking, or I'd go quiet, overhear them talking to each other, and immediately feel like I was missing out. My urge to join in (read: yap) would spike, and that was the end of any real focus.
Why my study partner is my mom
Funnily enough, the best results I've ever gotten came from studying with my mom.
The reason is a little embarrassing: I'm slightly anxious around her. She's strict and stern, and that quiet discomfort is exactly what keeps me off social media and away from every distracting site I'd normally drift toward. With her sitting nearby, opening Instagram feels like a genuinely bad idea, so I don't. I just work.
The problem: it doesn't really scale
Now for the obvious flaw. This method isn't practical, and it isn't convenient. I can only really ask this favor of my mom maybe two or three times a week, and usually only at night.
But here's why I keep doing it anyway: that occasional boost punches way above its weight. Three hours of genuinely focused study can beat six, sometimes even nine, hours of the distracted kind where you're only half paying attention. So even a couple of good sessions a week can quietly carry the rest.
That said, you can't lean on this too hard, and not just because of the scheduling. I've noticed that the more you abuse a clever trick, the less effective it becomes, and that seems to hold true across the board. So I'd balance it out. Most of your studying is still going to happen alone, which means you still need a solid solo routine you can stick to without anyone watching. Treat body doubling as the occasional multiplier, not the foundation.
If you don't have someone: FocusMate and friends
If finding a willing human at the right time sounds annoying, it is. But there's apparently a fix. There are whole websites built around this, like FocusMate, that pair you with a stranger for a scheduled session over video. In theory that solves the entire inconvenience problem: no more begging your mom, no more matching schedules.
I'll be honest, I haven't tried these myself, so I can't vouch for how well they work. But I've heard great things, and it seems well worth experimenting with to see if it clicks for you.
How to actually try this
- Pick the right person first. Someone you can sit in silence with, not your most fun friend.
- Kill the small talk. Agree up front that you're both there to work, not to catch up.
- Start small. Two or three sessions a week is plenty. This is a multiplier, not your whole routine.
- Keep a solo routine too. Most of your work still happens alone, so don't let this replace your own system.
- No willing human? Try FocusMate. A scheduled stranger over video can do the same job.
Links: https://www.focusmate.com/
Try it once with someone you can share an awkward silence with. If it works the way it works for me, you'll understand the hype pretty fast.
