A few years ago, I worked on a project for about 11 months with one other guy and we paired almost all the time. Yes, it was mentally exhausting, yes we had som

A few years ago, I worked on a project for about 11 months with one other guy and we paired almost all the time. Yes, it was mentally exhausting, yes we had some natural resistance to it at first. But damn was it effective, in producing higher quality code (two eyes on the code, two people to work out every problem or bug, always having someone to ping ideas off), in terms of knowledge sharing (we both understood every single bit of the code) and in terms of shipping on time. It was a complex project (reliably delivering large libraries of content to fleets of airplanes over satellite internet) and we delivered it from start to finish in under a year. Some mornings I would wake up and really not want to pair, but I'd do it anyway because its what we agreed we'd do, and after an hour or so, I got over it and we were super productive. Sometimes I miss it, especially since I'm mostly working on my own these days. I don't work there anymore, but last I checked with former colleagues the code was still ticking along in production with no issues. When pairing, its important to take regular breaks and also to not overdo it (don't work overtime). It IS mentally draining. Most people are also naturally resistant to the idea and I don't think it can work unless all involved people buy into it. But I found it was the most effective way I've ever worked and also quite rewarding.