Procrastination, ADHD, and Body Doubling

Hey everybody! Russ Barkley, aging disgracefully on YouTube as always. Just a short commentary today to draw your attention to a very nice article that appeared a day or two ago over at homesandgardens.

com. I'll put the link to it in the description. This was an article on the topic of body doubling as a means of dealing with procrastination.

We all know that procrastination is a major problem associated with adult ADHD, but it also occurs in child and adolescent ADHD as well. Body doubling has been recommended as a technique for helping to manage and get around procrastination, whether it be for tasks that you have chosen that you want to get done or tasks that you have been assigned to do. So have a look at the article because it's written by Kiana Dixon, and I thought she did a great job of cutting to the nuts and bolts of this technique.

Now, body doubling isn't some sort of spiritual, woo-woo psychology technique; it is instead something that has been renamed that we've been doing for more than 50 years: finding ways to make yourself publicly accountable to others for the task that you need to get done or that you wish to do. Whether it's exercising and calling somebody and saying, "Hey, would you like to run today? " or "Meet me over at the gym," by making yourself accountable to another for something you want to or need to do, you're much more likely to get it done than if you simply tried to do it on your own without being accountable to another.

Well, body doubling is very similar to that, except in this case, in addition to making yourself accountable to another, you're actually doing the work alongside or in parallel to someone else; hence the concept of body doubling. By the way, as Kiana points out in the article, this doesn't necessarily have to be done with someone in the room; it could be done on Facebook, FaceTime, or Zoom with someone else doing a similar or identical chore or task, or it could be where you are watching YouTube videos that deal with that particular task that you wish to get done. Kiana talks about that when it comes to doing housecleaning, which is one of her areas of procrastination.

Later in the article, we also hear from ADHD coach Dana Baker, where she talks about the critical elements of body doubling to make it more effective. I'm just scrolling down here to have you see where Dana talks about the four main benefits of body doubling, such as accountability, reducing procrastination, enhancing focus, and emotional support. But later on in the article, Kiana and Dana talk about tips for using this technique, so I'm not going to go through all of these with you other than to suggest that you have a look at the article over there.

As I said, I'll put the link in the description in case you're interested. So, yet another very simple, longstanding, proven technique for dealing with some of the issues that ADHD can create in life, in this case, issues having to do with procrastination. All right, everybody, thanks for joining me today!

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