The last few weeks have been full of distractions. It snowed twice in Atlanta, shutting the city down. Before that were the holidays. Traction on software development of my personal project slipped. A developer friend is helping as a favor. All of the above, plus other stuff, impacted our ability to schedule time to work in person on the project.

With snow forecasted for this week, we made a change to get going again. We couldn’t meet in person, so we decided to try a video meeting instead. But we didn’t want to have sessions where we talked. We wanted to have sessions where we got stuff done. So here’s what we did:

• We booked two-hour blocks to meet over video twice this week.
• Beforehand, we defined what we would each do during the working sessions.
• If my friend’s work depended on my completing something, I did it in advance so he wouldn’t be blocked during our session. And vice versa.
• At the end of each session, we discussed, and demoed if applicable, what we worked on.
• And we discussed what we would work on during the next session and what needed to be completed beforehand.

During our working sessions, he wrote software, and I fine-tuned class diagrams, workflows, etc. Our work didn’t overlap unless we had a question. This is where the benefit of this working style became clear to me. Instead of stopping what I was working on, sending an email or text to him, waiting for a response, and restarting work hours or a day later, I could get an answer instantly and keep working. Of course, this was true from his perspective too.

There are a few names for this type of work. Some call it “parallel working.” My developer friend called it “pair programming.” Whatever the right name, I’ve never tried it before this week, but so far, I’m a fan. We were able to get a lot done in a short time.

I was thinking about why the sessions were so effective. A few things stood out to me:

• People block out focus time on their calendars. These sessions are the equivalent of scheduled focus time on a specific project, but for a team.
• Friction and blockers are removed as soon as they arise, so more continuous work gets done.
• There’s an increased level of accountability. You can’t BS during these sessions.
• The work is planned beforehand, so sessions are execution focused, not discussions or attempts to figure out what to work on. I think this is a big reason this works so well.

I’m happy my friend suggested we work like this. I feel like it’s time spent efficiently. I’m also happy this project is rolling again.