[Crossposted from LW with permission from the author, Parker Conley. Related post here: EA Focusmate Group Announcement.]
Focusmate changed my life. I started using it mid-2023 and have been a power user since 2023. Here are the high-level stats:
Focusmate is a coworking website. For the length of 25, 50, or 75 minutes, you work in a 1-on-1 video call with a partner. Most people use the app to hold themselves accountable on work projects, and the body-doubling effect helps keep users on task. To get started, create an account, book a session, and work with someone the algorithm pairs you with. Each person states their task for the session, then we work separately until a chime signals the end of the session, at which time we report back on our progress (or lack thereof!). Over time, you can “favorite” people and develop regular partners.
The productivity benefits of Focusmate are obvious and immediate. Co-working holds you accountable for your goals and creates structure where there often is none. This guide will not explain how or why to use Focusmate. Instead, I want to teach you how to make Focusmate your third place.
The modern world lacks third places. We have first places (home) and second places (work), but lack meaningful third places—voluntarily chosen social settings distinct from home and work, where people gather primarily for informal interaction. The modern world has social media apps, but socializing on these apps lacks the richness and connection that video interaction provides. In-person third places include coffee shops, gyms, and meetup groups, but often lack the selection effects of social media. By selection effects, I mean the ability of social media to enable finding people with incredibly similar interests or compatible personalities.
To successfully build a third place on Focusmate, you will have to spend multiple hours a week working on a regular schedule for a few months. Building a social life anywhere takes time; the same is true on Focusmate. This guide has the potential to transform your social life, especially if you're a remote worker or student.
The general flow of a Focusmate session is as follows:
Making conversation at the end of sessions is key to making friends on Focusmate.
Small talk is fundamental in building connections of any kind. Whatever third place you seek to develop relationships in, you must make small talk. You must start conversations.
At first, making conversations at the end of a Focusmate session was scary for me. Scary because I wondered “What if my Focusmate didn't want to make conversation? What if they reject me?” It's quite possible they will reject you. People are busy. That said, I'd say 80% of your Focusmate will be around for at least a couple of lines of conversation.
In addition to being scary, starting conversations at the end of Focusmate sessions can be awkward, at least at first. What should I say? Here's what I do: ask questions. Ask what your partner was working on, specifically. Ask about a shared interest from their profile. If something they say reveals their profession, ask them about that. This may be clumsy at first, but after the 500th time, you'll know the social scripts that a post-session conversation can take.
If you struggle with or want to become better at conversations, I recommend the blog post Good conversations have lots of doorknobs by psychology researcher and improvisationalist Adam Mastroianni. I’ve used the post’s framework for conversations as sequences of doorknobs consistently since I read it.
Focusmate is not automatically a third place.
This Tyler Alterman thread — starting, "Ppl underestimate how proactive you need to be to make friends as an adult” — is excellent.
If you want to build connections on Focusmate, you must go out of your way to build new social habits. While similar in some respects, making friends on Focusmate is not like making friends in college or at work. Making Focusmate friends requires being proactive.
Many Focusmate users do not go out of their way to make Focusmate their third place. It's possible you'll look weird to these people. That's completely fine, you have different goals than them: you're looking to use Focusmate as a third place, maybe they’re just looking for focus.
There are many thousands of Focusmate users. You'll almost always have a partner.
If you see someone once and neither of you favorite the other, it will likely be weeks or months before you see each other again. If you want to see someone again, favorite them. I favorite people from whom I get even a minimal signal of shared interests and cool vibes.
Additionally, you don't like your partner's vibe, snooze them. Do this systematically. There are thousands of Focusmate users, so even if you tried, you can't snooze everyone! Another thing you can do is snooze people on intervals. For example, if you enjoy seeing someone once per week or month, snooze them for a month and re-snooze them next time you see them.
This habit of favoriting and snoozing people will change your Focusmate experience drastically over time.
The flow of developing close friends on Focusmate has generally followed this structure:
Over time, a common pattern for people's Focusmate habits is to go from breadth to depth. You'll know you successfully cultivated your third place when you have a calendar full of favorite Focusmate partners whom you're excited to see every week. You could even think of it as a nice little neighborhood!
I didn't know there was a way to reach people after sessions until someone messaged me via the message box. If you click on a session, the Focusmate client gives you the option of sending a note to your past partners. Note that this is only available for a week after a session. Use it to share the reference of a book or a link to an interesting video you talked about, and perhaps offer your email address as a way to get back to you if they so desire.
Friendships are developed through recurring interactions. To make friends at a coffee shop, you need to be at the coffee shop when you expect the people you want to connect with to be there, too. This implies two things: you need to commit to a minimum of a few hours per week, and to have a recurring schedule of sorts. For me, this was working for a block of a few hours per day in the mornings. Eventually, I would find someone who also works at that time and I also have shared rapport with.
This is crucial. Do not expect to have made friends within the first days, weeks, or even months. You’ll need to think long-term if you’d like to build a third place on Focusmate. Friendship, trust, and rapport are built through recurring interactions that build trust over a long period of time.
Much of the skills that go into cultivating your Focusmate third place apply to human social life generally. Some people are naturally better at it than others. That said, social skills can be learned.
The two resources above, Good conversations have lots of doorknobs and Tyler Alterman's thread are excellent. I also remember skimming and enjoying the advice in How to Win Friends and Influence People when I was younger.
It would make me very happy if this blog post allowed just one person to enjoy the benefits that I’ve gotten out of Focusmate. I would love to hear any thoughts or feedback on the above, either anonymously or by contacting me. If you don’t already have an account, create one using my referral link (clickable) to enjoy a free month. You will always have the benefit of a few free sessions every week, and if you decide to sign up and make Focusmate your third place, I’ll get a free month, too! Favorite me and let’s lock in a session!
Thanks to Brigitte Gemme, Masoud Taki, Scotty Eckenthal, and Skyler Crossman for their thoughts and feedback on this post.
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