The Body Double

As a business and personal coach, I specialize in working with highly skilled and creative, if sometimes overwhelmed, Attention Miss Disorder ( ADHD ) adults. Among a miscellany of coaching skills, I use many organizational tools and techniques to help my clients spread their goals. Over the senility I’ ve gathered some unusual tools and techniques for both the superficial chore of conformation space and for the internal job of clearing away the casual, prioritizing what remains, setting next response steps and staying the course.

Some of these tools I have learned from my clients themselves. I ' d like to share with you such a tool, in this event, a expedient for transitioning into and completing an mismatched boggling assignment. It was a client, whom I will call David, who first brought this tool to my attention. I have since come to direct to it as the body double.

When I first met David, he was a retired vice doyen of a major field. In his retirement, he was running three businesses out of his home - based office, two of them overseas. In observing David in his work space, I all found him to be entirely organized. He wasn’ t sitting look at high in papers. In reality, he little had any papers around him at all, and he had many working systems in place, but he felt utterly slaphappy and distracted.

Much to his surprise, David had been recently diagnosed with ADHD, which explained to him and to his wife, a abiding difficulty in accomplishing certain mundane tasks that others seemed to haft with ease. As a v. p. in the corporate world, he had always had an executive assistant to connect the dots and pull loose ends together. Now, he had the time to do these tasks, and he had will to do them, but he couldn’ t keep on lane. David’ s wife also ran a business out of their home and had her own well organized office. She offered to advise him, but they both agreed that this just didn’ t work. That ' s when they asked for help.

Together, David and I made modifications to his storage systems to better access for frequently needed items. We honed time management and prioritization systems to work better for him in his style of business. This, however, did not superscription the problem of his inattention and distraction. He explained that there were days when he easily got off path or would find it hard transitioning from one mission into heavier. Frustrated, puzzled and fairly embarrassed, he confessed, “ You know, it seems that, sometimes, if I just have someone sitting in a chair nearby, even my wife, I can accomplish more than if I’ m alone. ” Wittily having in addition human being sitting nearby, enabled David to stay on lane.

David had identified something which I had noticed before, when I worked specifically as an organizational coach, with somewhere other clients. There were times when just being in proximity, not endorsement, sorting, or strategizing, brought clarity and focus to the client. I felt it. I knew the client felt it, too. This phenomenon of just being there, David first described, and I now cite to as the body double principle.

But why does a body double work? There are at leading a few possible explanations. The simplest explanation is that the body double serves as a physical and emotional moor for the distracted respective who feels more centered by the presence of greater person in their space. The distracted ADDer may feel both authoritative to and for the body double. This perception translates as, “ I can’ t go-ahead this place, until I’ m done” or “ my body double can’ t tolerance, until I’ m done.

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The body double may also serve to feather not only a physical boundary, as a sort of living fence, but is also a physical stop pocket watch or clock by which the frequently time - challenged ADD brain can now measure itself - “ I need to plunge into this now and work toward production, while I have my body double here. ”

Climactically higher explanation might be that the body double serves as a big of mirror - a display for the indiviual with ADHD of how his or her over - stimulated mind and body would like to be at the moment. The body double accordingly becomes a model of upper hand, and a mirror confidently reflecting back the message, “ I can get together. I am working. I am focused. ”

One last explanation - in eastern cultures energy is referred to as chi ( or qi ) and is viewed as being either in or out of balance in the human body and in the surrounding environment. Acupuncturists deed chi to put the body back in balance. There are many forms of exercise and meditation, such as tai chi and chi gung among them, which are about the management and flow of energy. Feng shui, ( fung shway ), is the 5000 moment senescent art of balancing positive and negative chi in the spell around us, with the goal in mind of optimizing energy in one’ s living and racket moment.

So, what exactly does chi have to do with a body double? The body double knack be a obliging of chi balancer or monkey wrench allotment to contain the flux of energy and rationalizing in an ADD brain at venture of spilling out into the amazed creation. The body double qualification also prejudice as a buffer against distracting energy from the exterior, flashing to bombard the highly - hypersensitive discrete.

Whether you hoist the practical, psychological, or supernatural explanation for the capability of the body double, scan it a provision from David and all of the others, who have experienced what they, too, discovered, but were fussy to admit. If a assignment at hand requires your attention and seems impossible to complete consult the possibility of beg, borrowing or on track for a body double to sit in the chair next to you.

Who and what should you look for in a body double? Find someone who can be fairly silent. He or she can sit, read or scribe enlightenment. They might even do some small job without interrupting you, being it requires energy to instruct, regulate or be interrupted by fresh person, and that expenditure of energy equates to distraction.

This is not to say that there is a definite time and need to hire guise help - a coach, competent log, or office assistants. There is such a time. I expectant David to hire a student, housewife or partner retired sanctum quota to sit and keep him company. We both agreed that his wife may not be the best person for the job but, perhaps, he could use her in a perplexity. In the months to follow David hired populous short term office rest help, who served sometimes as body double, other times as office assistants. Sagacious when to hire someone to help with office work or with just victorious the bills, is also a useful tool.

The body double, at its simplest, is a chair holder, space taker - upper, karmic berth, a wedge between you and the door. This might be a useful tool in your own magic bag of tricks to use at just the right time for getting a job done and staying on path.