Review: Coach.me Instant Coaching
I was approached a couple of months back and asked to look at an App called “Lift” – Now called Coach.me – which is a community based motivation and coaching tool.
The idea behind Coach.me is that you choose a goal (or goals) that you wish to complete, get better at or just do and the App allows you to check in and keep track of your progress.
Coach.me is accessible from the web or through iPhone and Android app so it’s easy enough to carry around with you and keep track of what you’re up to.
Choose your goals
Goals are split into categories such as personal growth, fitness, diets etc. Drill down through the categories and find the habit you’re after or use the search feature to find what you want to track.
To start with, I chose a couple of tasks that I felt I was capable of achieving easily (is that cheating?!) but could do with keeping track of to provide extra motivation.
On choosing a goal, you’re then presented with options on how often you want to complete it, when to be reminded about it, whether the goal is public or not and whether you want a coach (more on those in a moment).
The home screen of the app shows a list of your chosen goals and a simple “tick” mark to enable you to say “Yup, I’ve done that today” which, when clicked, highlights to goal in a satisfying green colour.
You can also see the progress of your weekly targets on this screen too via circles under the task.
What makes Coach.me different?
So far, so normal goal tracking app right? The interesting part of Coach.me is the community aspect.
If you set a goal to public, other people can see that you’re participating in that goal and in return you can see who else is attempting to complete the goals you’re working on. You can give “Props” to those people and ask questions to the group regarding the goal although some more generalised questions do creep in.
You can also connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts to find your “real-life” friends and keep track of their progress too.
Keeping track of your progress
You can receive daily digest emails showing your progress. The app also reminds you through your notification pane that “Today would be a good day to do …. x”.
I have to admit that I’m finding these notifications a bit intrusive as I seem to be receiving them for goals I’ve not set reminders for, and each goal gets its own notification rather than the way it handles the “props” notifications which is to roll them into one (note, this is on Android and may be different for iPhone users).
Also, you need an active internet connection (3G or Wi-Fi) for the app to run (it won’t open if you’re offline) so you can’t check into goals if you’re not connected. You can go back up to 7 days to check in to tasks, but I really feel you should be able to check in to a task offline and have the app sync to your Coach.me account when re-connected.
One-To-One Coaching
One of the more interesting aspects of the Coach.me ecosystem though is personal coaching.
For any one of your goals you can find a coach who, through a text-based chat system within the app, will help motivate you and answer any questions you may have.
The coaches come from a wide variety of backgrounds who all have a proven track record in the goal that they are coaching but, if you’re not happy with the coach you’ve chosen, you can easily swap and choose another.
The app itself is free to download and use but if you want a personal coach it’ll cost you $14.99 a week which, at a couple of dollars per session is a lot cheaper than a therapist! Tip: Use the code “COACHME” to get a free 7 day trial.
Final Thoughts
I’ve been using Coach.me since the end of November, and it’s good at reminding me to do tasks I may otherwise put off doing. Knowing that I’ve “Uncluttered” 3 days this week and can see it in black-and-white (well, technically green) gives a sense of satisfaction and and impetus to keep going with the goal.
I have to admit that I haven’t used the personal coaching section of the app. The company did offer me a 2 week free trial for review purposes but I have I struggled to find a goal that I really wanted personal coaching on. I don’t really need to diet, I’ve given up smoking and the only time you’ll see me run is if a zombie is chasing me but I think if you have a particular goal in mind then it may well be worth you looking into the paid coaching option if you need an extra kick in the backside.
I will keep using it though as I find it a useful tool to remind me to do certain tasks that don’t necessarily warrant their own place on my to-do list for one reason or another – in fact I’ve just added another goal whilst writing this review!
Coach me is available for iPhone, Android and on the web.
Disclaimer: Whilst I was contacted directly by Lift (owners of coach.me) asking me to review their product, the views in this review are my own and this post is not sponsored.
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