👯‍♀️ WHY VIRTUAL COWORKING IS SO POWERFUL

It's almost time for our first live pom queen coworking session, Nikki .

Have you saved your spot yet? 🍅👑✨

I didn't want to wait till Thursday to get into the coworking spirit, so I'm actually writing this email during my first-ever Focusmate session.

My coworker (who has done over 2300 Focusmate sessions!) is studying for her medical board.

If you haven't heard of it before, Focusmate is a very affordable (free or $10/mo currently) platform that knows how to harness the full creation power of digital coworking.

With a flex schedule as my first grader is home building a rocket on his last day of cootie camp, I booked this free session just 15 minutes before hopping on. 😍

*This is not an ad, I don't think they even have affiliates. It's just brilliant and I can't think of anyone (over their required minimum age of 17) who couldn't benefit from using it.*

I hosted my first paid coworking experience back in 2017, and it's been an element of every group offering I've created since. I'm a big believer in the power of a mutual inspiration society.

I was looking around the Focusmate site the other day and found this delightfully nerdy page explaining the science behind WHY this style of working is so effective for many of us:

focusmate.com/science

Today as part of this reminder / invite, I wanted to share my notes with you - to show you there are legit, science-backed benefits to committing to real-time, camera-on co-working sessions.

If you'd rather listen, you can find these notes in podcast form here:
🧠 boosting brainwidth with coworking [OHT 048]

WHY VIRTUAL COWORKING IS SO POWERFUL

*these are my notes based on info found at focusmate.com/science*

BEHAVIORAL TRIGGERS

Precommitment - bubble wrapping your work times in advance. Specific and concrete commitments. More time to prep and boost ambition.

Implementation intentions - increasing efficacy. You commit, you register and tell me you’re committing, you tell us in chat what you’re working on.

Social pressure - ahh, peer pressure. improves performance. 16 to 32%.

Presence of others, intentions in chat, want to focus to preserve your rep as a great coworker!

Accountability - flight attendant closes the gate 15 minutes prior to departure. We’ll lock the room at 5 after for first pom.

Specificity in task definition - 90% show a significant positive impact when specific and challenging.

HACKING BRAIN CHEMISTRY
For more productivity, less conscious exertion.

>> Dopamine - enthusiasm, perseverance, low procrastination and self doubt, breaking into small steps, scheduling, logging in, finishing a sesh

>> Seratonin - feeling special, important with human connection, part of something bigger than ourselves, celebrating accomplishments and acknowledgement

>> Oxytocin - creates intimacy and trust, feel safe and connected. Greetings, checking in, feeling more connected than working alone all day.

>> Endorphins - alleviating pain, stress, anxiety, depression.

🚨Reality check for when we rely on adrenaline 🚨

"People who procrastinate rely heavily on adrenaline to be productive…Research by Teresa Amabile at Harvard shows that people in this adrenaline-induced state are not as productive as they think they are. Amabile showed when people are intensely busy they feel good but overestimate the quality of their work, and rarely have creative breakthroughs. The best way to get important work done is with low to medium pressure, and accountability from just one or two people."

Sooooo.... what do you think?

Ready to cowork with us Thursday?

Refreshing your site, writing an email, recording a podcast, outlining a chapter of your book... BYOCreativeProject.

We'll meet in my Zoom room from 11am - 12:30pm Central, share our intentions and focus for the hour, and get to work.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER + GET YOUR LINK TO THE ZOOM ROOM.

And in the meantime, head over to Focusmate to try a free session and see how it goes!

You've got nothing to lose but the likelihood of procrastination.