When I’m alone, I need a lot of structure to be focused and productive: Pomodoro technique blocks; lockdown programs on my computer/phone; rituals; a lot of metacognitive monitoring. Even then, it can be a struggle to remain focused when the work is difficult. But when I spend my morning working blocks collaborating live with someone else, I notice that it’s vastly easier to remain happily focused for the entire workday.
What’s interesting to me is that this isn’t because of a negative concern—oh, I’m not going to look at my email because they’ll judge me. It’s more that those kinds of Displacement activity just don’t seem like a salient option. Lulls in my attention or thinking are often filled by the other person. Conversation abhors a vacuum, so if I’m silent for 30s, the other person will often suggest something. Mechanistically, I think this amounts to combatting dullness (Dullness and distraction in creative work may arise from the same causes as in meditation).
Aligning with It’s hard to do difficult creative work for more than a few hours a day, I don’t really find that I can do longer days working with someone else. My brain starts to crap out after roughly the same number of hours. But there’s less strain during the working time.