How to Create and Maintain a Coaching Log Template

Introduction

A coaching log template is a valuable resource for recording and analyzing your coaching sessions with clients. It enables you to monitor their progress, pinpoint their goals and challenges, and record your strategies and results. 

A properly structured coaching log template can boost your professional growth, accountability, and reputation as a coach. By giving a consistent framework for recording key details from each coaching session, these templates go beyond mere note-taking. They offer a valuable tool for tracking client progress, monitoring areas for improvement in your coaching approach, and reflecting on the effectiveness of your strategies.

What would happen if you go without a record of your coaching process?

A complete hoch-poch of uncertainty during your sessions! This will potentially lead to a failure to deliver the tangible outcomes your client seeks.

This is where a coaching log comes into the picture. It will keep your practice structured and organized by keeping a focused track of your client’s progress and hold them accountable.

In this article, we will guide you on how to create and maintain your coaching log template to effectively capture the key details and insights from your coaching practice.

What is a Coaching Log?

A coaching log is a record-keeping tool that you can use to systematically document session details like progress, goals, and action items of a client. The log can be as extensive as you need and it can be used as an accountability tool so you know where you stand on client coaching. 

Basically, a coaching log is a historic performance report and it consists of snapshots in time of your client’s progress. It details what went on in session notes and what the key takeaways were from each session.

What to Add in Your Coaching Log Template?

You should include sections like date, duration, client name, session number, session goal, coaching techniques, session summary, feedback, action plan, and follow-up in your coaching log. 

Each section should give crisp and clear information that shows the purpose and outcome of the session. For instance, the session goal should mention what the client wanted to accomplish or learn during the session, the session synopsis should spotlight the primary topics and themes of the discussion, and the action strategy should outline the particular steps and resources that the client committed to take or use.

It’s essential for credentialing processes and helps in documenting various types of coaching sessions. A coaching log also keeps you organized and makes your sessions more impactful by keeping your coaching process focused and your client accountable.

Key Reasons to Maintain a Coaching Log

Do you know what is one of the most attractive benefits of keeping a coaching log template? It will help you showcase your coaching skills and expertise to attract new clients and opportunities!

What’s more? It will help you prep-up for certification or accreditation, and meet the needs of your coaching association or organization. By effectively structuring your coaching log template during your practice, you can optimize your coaching results and impact.

Maintaining a coaching log is integral for reasons such as:

• Evaluating Client Growth: Logs help you to objectively assess the effectiveness of coaching strategies and client development. These documents record your clients’ action steps, which helps you identify strengths and weak spots.
• Accountability: Tracking progress holds clients accountable to their goals. The clients can follow-up on their progress and completed tasks through the records in the documents.
• Celebrating Achievements: Logs help in recognizing and celebrating client milestones. This progress report will empower them and acknowledge their achievements.
• Comprehensive Records: Detailed logs ensure that every minute detail of the session is documented for future reference. Giving a clear account of the coaching session, the log makes it easy to remember the coaching conversations.  It allows you to review past logs before a new session to guarantee relevant information about the client’s progress.

How to Create Your Coaching Log Template?

When creating your template:

1. Choose Format: Decide between a paper or digital format such as a spreadsheet, a word processor, or a digital app.
2. Include Essential Elements: Ensure check-ins, desired outcomes, and timelines are incorporated.
3. Customize: Tailor the template to fit your coaching style and objectives.
4. Privacy Measures: Protect the log with necessary privacy and security measures.
5. Review Regularly: Set a cadence for reviewing the log.
6. Action Plans: Use the log to develop targeted action plans for solving client issues.
7. Goal Adjustment: Review logs with clients to adjust goals as needed.
8. Record Details: Document both group and individual sessions, including peer coaching.

Make sure you follow these steps to maintain the process:

1. Track Progress: Use the log to monitor your progress towards certification or accreditation.
2. Reflect and Improve: Reflect on your coaching practices and client feedback to enhance your skills.
3. Adapt Template: Modify the template based on the unique needs of different coaching sessions.

By following these guidelines, you can create and maintain an effective coaching log template that will support your coaching practice and contribute to your professional development.

The KEY is to make sure that your template is easy to access, update, and review.

The Journeys feature offered by Simply.Coach allows you to put your coaching methodology into a structured framework that you can show to your clients and convert them into paying clients. It serves as a flexible roadmap that you can adjust and customize for each client.

Journey allows you to:

• Set up fully customizable, reusable program templates
• Automate workflows, program delivery, pre-set rhythm/cadence
• Personalize & then apply to each client
• Add more stages to the ones you’ve already created of the week for current engagements
• Schedule more sessions, or add in as many as you need
• Assign actions to the client based on their progress
• Provide exclusive content that’s released on time/progress parameters

Protecting Your Coaching Log Template

Your coaching log template holds confidential and sensitive details about both your clients and yourself. It’s crucial to safeguard this template against unauthorized access, loss, or harm. 

Additionally, it’s imperative to uphold your client’s privacy and consent, adhering to the ethical and legal standards of your coaching field and location. This entails encrypting digital files, securing paper notebooks, and routinely backing up data. 

Furthermore, always seek your client’s permission before using or sharing their information for any reason, and anonymize or delete their data when it’s no longer required or requested.

Follow These Tips Before You Start

If you’re new to coaching or aiming to improve your coaching log template, a good starting point is to explore various examples and templates available online or from fellow coaches. 

Additionally, consulting books or articles on coaching practice and documentation can provide valuable insights. From there, you can tailor or develop your own template to suit your specific requirements and preferences. 

Over time, it’s beneficial to test and fine-tune your template, and seek feedback or guidance from other coaches or mentors. Consistently using and refining your coaching log template can lead to improved coaching quality and outcomes.

Keep Your Coaching Sorted with Simply.Coach

Creating a coaching log for every session shapes their effectiveness significantly. However, maintaining overall business organization is equally important.

For simplifying the administrative side of your coaching practice, consider Simply.Coach. It’s an all-in-one online coaching management platform tailored specifically for coaches, covering contracts, scheduling, invoice, payments, digital tools, and beyond.

If you need assistance in creating your own custom forms, questionnaires, documents or PDFs, the Simply.Coach Digital Coaching Tools Repository is the perfect solution. You can create custom forms for any need on the system itself, and send it out directly from the platform.Simply.Coach offers a free 14-day trial so you can try their digital coaching software!