What Co-Working Actually Is (And Why We Require It in Our Academic/EF Coach Certification)
A coach who was one requirement away from certification messaged me recently:
"I have ONE last thing to do...co-working/body doubling. I haven't done it yet because I don't think I know what it is. How do I do this so I can submit my work for graduation!!!!!"
Oopsie daisy.
Somewhere along the way, I'd started assuming co-working was something every coach walked into the Lab already knowing. It's so common in my life, I just assumed it would be common in others'.
Turns out that's not the case, but it's a skill that everyone working with neurodivergent students needs to know about!! So you can teach it to your students. And, as with everything in the Lab, I believe that before we teach it to students we need to try it out in our own lives!!
So to quit making an "ass" out of myself (that's what they say about assumptions, right?) I decided to write this blog post. It's for the folks who go through my Anti-Boring Study Skills Certification, so that they understand how they can fill the requirement. But also, it's for the rest of you too. Because if you don't know about co-working (also known as “body doubling”) you SHOULD!!
What co-working actually is
Co-working is simple to define and easy to undersell: two or more people doing their own separate work in the same space, at the same time, without collaborating on the same task.
Neither person is helping the other with their work. Neither is looking over the other's shoulder. One person might be answering email while another does math homework, or drafts a business plan, or works through a stack of grading. The only shared thing is presence, everyone visibly and quietly in work mode.
That's it. No talking required, beyond stating each person's plan up front, and checking in at the end about what you got accomplished. No teaching happening in the moment. Which is exactly why it's easy to dismiss as filler. It doesn't look like anything in particular. It looks like people sitting in a room — whether it’s a real room or a virtual room.
Where "body doubling" came from
Those of us who engage in coworking find it kind of magical. What we could not get ourselves to do alone can suddenly become surprisingly doable in the presence of other people.
The dishes get washed. The reading gets read. The inbox gets faced. The proposal that has been glaring at you from across the room since Tuesday? Somehow, you are now typing in it.
The phrase body doubling is generally traced to ADHD coach Linda Anderson, who introduced it in 1996 after working with a client, David, who noticed he got more done when his wife was simply nearby. Not coaching him. Not giving him a gold star. Not checking whether he had finally answered that email. Just being there. (ADDA, 2025).
Anderson recognized the pattern from her own coaching work and gave it a name. Her theory was that a body double can provide a calm, focused presence, a kind of external anchor that another person may begin to match. That is a useful practitioner explanation, but it is important to say clearly: it is not yet a scientifically established account of why body doubling helps. (ADDA, 2025).
The research behind co-working
Body doubling is a real, widespread experience
A 2023 study, later expanded into a 2024 journal article, surveyed 220 people who use body doubling. Most participants identified as neurodivergent, and many identified as having ADHD. The researchers weren't trying to prove that body doubling improves productivity. They were doing something more basic, and honestly overdue: documenting the practice itself (Eagle, Baltaxe-Admony, & Ringland, 2024).
Their findings make body doubling look less like one neat trick and more like a whole family of strategies. People body doubled with friends, family members, coworkers, and strangers. They did it in person, over video, through text, and in hybrid arrangements. They used it for studying, paid work, chores, exercise, and all the little tasks that can become weirdly enormous when you have to start them alone (Eagle, Baltaxe-Admony, & Ringland, 2024).
Virtual-reality experiments that suggest it may help
There are now a few small studies beginning to test outcomes more directly, and the results are still preliminary. A 2025 virtual-reality study took a different approach: 12 adults with ADHD completed a bricklaying task alone, with a human body double, and with an AI body double. Participants worked faster in both body-double conditions and reported better sustained attention and perceived accuracy than when they worked alone, though a human partner and an AI partner produced almost identical results (Ara et al., 2025).
That is intriguing. It is also not the final word. It was a tiny study, used a specific virtual task, and is available as a preprint rather than a peer-reviewed journal article. Think of it as an early “huh, maybe we’re onto something,” not a final scientific mic drop.
The presence effect
Body doubling itself may be understudied, but psychology has spent decades studying the broader question of how another person's presence changes behavior.
Back in 1965, psychologist Robert Zajonc proposed that the mere presence of another person can raise our level of arousal and make our most familiar responses more likely to show up. In plain English: if you already know how to do a thing, having another human nearby may make it easier to actually do the thing (Zajonc, 1965).
That might help explain the peculiar magic of opening a document, sorting an inbox, folding laundry, or starting a problem set while someone else quietly works nearby. The body double is not transferring skills into your brain by Wi-Fi. You still know how to write the paragraph, wash the dish, or begin the assignment. Their presence may simply help tip you from "I should" into "I am."
But, and this is a useful but, the presence of others isn't universally fabulous. It can improve performance on familiar or well-practiced tasks while making new, difficult, or high-pressure tasks harder. If your body double makes you feel watched, judged, rushed, or compelled to perform, that is useful information. You may need less interaction, clearer norms, a camera-off option, or a person who feels more like a friendly houseplant than an audience (Zajonc, 1965).
The ADHD-specific angle
One influential set of ADHD models describes differences in executive functioning and in how some people experience delay, reward, and motivation. Put gently: when the payoff for a task is distant, vague, or painfully boring, getting started can be much harder, not because someone does not care, and definitely not because they are lazy (Sonuga-Barke, 2003).
A co-working partner may add immediate structure: a shared start time, a visible cue that it is "work time," a low-stakes sense of company, and a natural transition back to the task after a pause. Those are plausible supports, borrowed from research on ADHD generally rather than tested on body doubling itself, so treat them as informed guesses rather than settled explanations.
So, does the science show that co-working works?
Not yet—not in the strong scientific sense.
What we can say is that body doubling is a real, recognizable, and adaptable practice; preliminary research gives us some intriguing hints that it may help; and decades of research on social facilitation, along with what we know about ADHD, give us plausible reasons why another person's presence might make starting and staying engaged easier.
What we can't yet say is exactly for whom it works best, which version works best, or how large its measurable effects are.
Which is, frankly, an excellent excuse to keep experimenting.
Not magic exactly. But perhaps magic-adjacent.
Different ways to co-work
Co-working isn't one format, and it doesn't require a platform, a subscription, or a special app. The options run from most to least interactive.
Live video, one-on-one or in a group
This is what I use most with students: get on Zoom for an hour or two, say out loud at the top of the session what everyone's planning to work on, then mute and get to it. No chit-chat once you've started—that's not a break, that's a derail.
Camera preferences are genuinely personal. Some people want to see everyone the whole time. I want either to see someone or hear ambient background noise, but not both, and I actively don't want to hear someone if they're also half-on a call themselves. Have the student experiment and find their own version of this.Informal, standing agreements
Some of the most durable co-working relationships I know don't run through any platform at all. I have a group of entrepreneur friends who text each other when we need a co-working partner. The thread was active again just this morning. No app, no booking system, just people who know each other and reach for it when they need it.
Peer-organized, inside a community
The Lab runs on the same principle: members offer co-working to other members, no outside platform required. It's the same tool we're asking coaches to use with students, just peer-to-peer instead of coach-to-student.
Paid membership platforms
Focusmate pairs you one-on-one with a stranger for a scheduled session. Flow Club runs small hosted group sessions with a facilitator. There are also platforms built specifically around professional and entrepreneurial communities, offering structured co-working sessions on a membership basis. These can be a good option for a student who wants built-in structure without having to find their own partner (Focusmate, n.d.)(Flow Club, n.d.).
In person, side by side
The original version, and still the most studied: sitting at the same table or in the same room, each doing separate work. Libraries and cafes function this way by accident; a coaching session can do it on purpose.
Recorded and asynchronous
At the least mutual end of the spectrum are “study with me” videos, where a real person works on camera and you work alongside the recording. These videos and livestreams are widely used as a form of virtual companionship, although research on ‘Study With Me’ has not yet established that recorded or livestreamed presence works the same way as live body doubling (Hou, Jin, He, & Wang, 2025). Still, it can be a reasonable fallback for a student who has no one to co-work with live.
None of these formats has been shown to be "the best" one. A student who "doesn't like body doubling" after one awkward session with a stranger hasn't ruled out co-working. They've ruled out one specific version of it.
Got a hard student coaching question? Bring it to the Lab.
More info about our free monthly-ish Q&A calls is in our library.
Explore the Free Library →How to lead a co-working session
The basic structure is almost ridiculously simple:
Set the time aside. Get yourself one buddy, or more.
Name what you're working on. At the beginning, each person quickly says what they plan to work on.
Work. Quietly do your separate work for 30–90 minutes.
Check in. In the last five minutes, share what you got done and what you noticed about working this way.
That's it. That's the whole thing you've been reading about this whole post.
Common ways co-working goes wrong
Simple doesn't necessarily mean foolproof. I’ve noticed with new Lab members who have not been exposed to body-doubling before that they make a few “rookie mistakes.” Things like:
You spend half the session talking. A little connection at the beginning is lovely. But only as it fosters your sense of accountability. It’s important that you say at the top what you intend to do! But then stop talking and start working
It turns into a collaboration session. At some point, one of you asks the other a question about your work, and suddenly you’re trouble shooting problem solving, collaborating. All these things are WONDERFUL to do with other colleagues, especially new educators with aligned values who you’re excited to meet in the lab. However, co-working is not intended to be collaborating. Notice that you’ve started to do this, and then put a new collaboration session on your calendars together.
You don't actually protect the time. You’re technically co-working, but you’re also checking Slack, answering texts, taking a phone call, getting up to do three other things. Obviously people need bathroom breaks and life happens, but the shared agreement that this is work time is part of the point.
You assume your co-working preferences are universal. Cameras on/off, sound on/off, 30 minutes versus two hours, one person versus six, friend versus stranger. I think this one matters because part of your assignment to Lab members is really experimenting enough to discover their own co-working recipe.
You give up after one bad experience. One awkward session with a stranger—or one format that makes your skin crawl—doesn't tell you whether co-working works for you. It tells you that that version didn't.
The point is not to get co-working “right.” It’s to experiment with it enough to notice what actually helps you. Do you work better with cameras on or off? With a friend or a stranger? For 30 minutes or two hours? In silence or with a little background noise? Try different versions, pay attention to what happens, and figure out your own co-working recipe.
Why we ask coaches to try it themselves
Certification in the Anti-Boring Learning Lab requires coaches to actually co-work, not just read about it. You can't coach someone through the awkwardness of a first session if you've never felt it yourself, and you can't help a student find their own version if you've never gone looking for yours.
Anyone can describe co-working in a paragraph. What makes a coach credible is being able to say, "I've tried this myself," not simply, "Research suggests this might help." It's the same reason we don't teach Study Cycle or Consent Burger from a manual either. Executive function and academic coaches are better coaches when they live inside these tools first.
Whether or not you ever become a certified Anti-Boring Study Skills coach, I want you to get yourself some experience co-working. Try it virtually if that's easier, but in person counts too, maybe even more.
If no one in the Lab is available when you are, you might experiment with Focusmate, an online co-working platform that you can try for free.
Want to go deeper developing coaching skills?
Co-working is one small piece of what we cover in depth inside the Lab's certification training, where coaches practice running it, troubleshooting it, and adapting it for different students. If that's something you're curious about, you can read more here:
Quick Questions About Co-Working
Is body doubling the same as co-working?
Mostly, yes. Body doubling is the term that grew out of ADHD self-help and coaching, while co-working describes the same underlying pattern in professional and shared-work contexts. In the Lab, we tend to use "co-working" because it more clearly signals people doing separate, independent work.
Does the other person have to be doing something similar?
No. Task similarity doesn't matter. You might be writing a report while your co-working partner answers email. The shared element is presence and engagement, not shared subject matter.
Can co-working happen with more than two people?
Absolutely. You can co-work one-on-one or in a group, virtually or in person. As we've seen, there's no single correct format.
Is there strong scientific evidence that body doubling works?
Not yet. Body doubling is a real, widely used practice, and there's some intriguing early evidence that it may help. There's also a plausible theoretical basis in research on social facilitation and ADHD. But direct research on whether body doubling improves outcomes is still limited, so we're not ready for a scientific mic drop.
What if I don't have anyone to co-work with?
Start by asking around—a friend, colleague, or another coach. Most people are more open to this than you'd expect once you explain what it actually involves. If nobody's available, a platform like Focusmate can pair you with another member for a scheduled session, no relationship required (Focusmate, n.d.).
How long should a co-working session be?
There's no fixed rule. Thirty to 90 minutes is a good place to start, but experiment. Part of learning to co-work is figuring out what actually works for your brain.
What if I try co-working and hate it?
Try another version before you write it off. One awkward session with a stranger, a camera setup you hate, or 90 minutes when 30 would have been plenty doesn't tell you whether co-working works for you. It tells you that that version didn't. Experiment with the person, format, length, camera, sound, and level of interaction until you have a better sense of your own co-working recipe.
Your Turn
I'd love to hear from you in the comments:
What are your experiences with in-person or virtual co-working/body doubling?
What's your version of the "camera on or off, sound on or off" preference? What actually works for your brain?
Have you made any of the “rookie mistakes” above—or discovered some I missed?
Drop your answers below. I read every comment, and I'd genuinely love to know what other coaches (and non-coaches!) are discovering.
Works Cited
ADDA. (2025, February 20). The ADHD body double: A unique tool for getting things done. Attention Deficit Disorder Association. https://add.org/the-body-double/. Anderson originally described the strategy in 1996; this is a 2025 republication.
Ara, Z., Bin Rahim, I., Zhou, P., Yu, L., Esmaeili, B., Yu, L.-F., & Hong, S. R. (2025). You are not alone: Designing body doubling for ADHD in virtual reality [Preprint]. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2509.12153
Eagle, T., Baltaxe-Admony, L. B., & Ringland, K. E. (2024). “It was something I naturally found worked and heard about later”: An investigation of body doubling with neurodivergent participants. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing, 17(3), Article 16, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1145/3689648
Eagle, T., Baltaxe-Admony, L. B., & Ringland, K. E. (2023). Proposing body doubling as a continuum of space/time and mutuality: An investigation with neurodivergent participants. ASSETS ’23. https://doi.org/10.1145/3597638.3614486
Flow Club. (n.d.). How it works. https://www.flow.club/how-it-works/
Focusmate. (n.d.). How it works. https://www.focusmate.com/how-it-works/
Hou, R., Jin, L., He, J., & Wang, J.-L. (2025). Peer support and learning outcomes in “Study With Me” among Generation Z college students: Mediating roles of motivation, test anxiety, and self-efficacy. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1582857. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1582857
Sonuga-Barke, E. J. S. (2003). The dual pathway model of AD/HD: An elaboration of neuro-developmental characteristics. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 27(7), 593–604. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2003.08.005
Zajonc, R. B. (1965). Social facilitation. Science, 149(3681), 269–274. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.149.3681.269