In addition to the testimonial she so generously provided last month, Twila Gates offered to write a mini series reviewing the various features of CoachAccountable as a way to share with other coaches her experiences and how she’s made it serve her practice so well.

Recently I’ve had a few requests for a CoachAccountable user’s group, and until that’s ready I imagine Twila’s accounts make a fitting way to fill some of that void.

Twila has opted to start with the basics for her first piece, and herein describes CoachAccountable’s documentation of coaching sessions.  Take it away, Twila!

CoachAccountable is, by far, the very best interface for collaboration and coaching with a client.  After coaching for 19 years, I have several systems in place that I have utilized with my clients to promote success throughout the coaching experience.  One of those systems is documenting the actual coaching session in a way that my clients have added benefit beyond just reading an e-mail.

When I started using CoachAccountable, I was very happy to see that there was a way within the system to document the coaching sessions – even better, the documentation is stored in chronological order within the interface – and is searchable.  This immediately eliminated my need to remember the beginning of the e-mail address of my clients for sending the e-mail to them (I was using Outlook).   I also don’t have to save a copy of the documentation to myself, however, since there is the option to have the notes automatically sent to myself, I go ahead and keep a copy of the documentation in a client Outlook file.  The only reason I do this is in the event I need to review something about a client when I don’t have access to wifi.  Of course… how often does that occur – so I’m probably wasting my time and effort.  Hmmm… I might consider giving that up, now that I think about it!

Being able to pre-create templates for various types of coaching sessions is a real time saver.  It also creates some structure for my busy brain to latch onto so I can write optimal documentation to assist the client.  A typical session is easy enough, but what about “fire drill” sessions OR “focus sessions”…  You stay on track with giving your clients the notes they really need to promote continuity with their needs/desires.  Writing notes becomes easier and even enjoyable through the use of templates

I love the way CoachAccountable appends all actions created to the end of the documentation as an immediate reminder of agreements made during the session.  This creates the entire picture for the client to move forward… and I don’t have to go through gyrations to write notes at the top and the bottom in an e-mail.  It is all automatically pulled from the actions created during the meeting.

Sometimes I do take advantage of the little check box at the bottom of the documentation screen to make the notes private for my eyes only.  This is great for remembering something that might not be appropriate to include on the client’s notes and yet is important to me.  Of utmost importance is that both myself and my client have easy access to all notes since they are web-based.  I can’t tell you how many times my clients asked me to re-send notes previously because they couldn’t remember where they saved them or maybe they deleted them and realized that the notes included important information that they wanted to review.  Having it all online is invaluable.

So, all in all, CoachAccountable provides an excellent package for doing documentation of meetings.  This is a huge added bonus for your clients as you are able to focus on documenting the things that really matter for various types of coaching sessions.  Of course we as coaches need to focus on what our clients need from us in our notes and CoachAccountable supports our efforts in this important endeavor.

Happy documenting with less effort and better outcomes!