Hi there, if you’ve been following along then you will know that I’m taking part in the 30 Day Blogging Challenge with Sarah Arrow (for the 2nd time) and combining it with a content challenge that was running last month in Jenn Scalia’s Little Black Business Book membership group.

Today’s post is all about the 10 Best … I’m sharing the 10 best apps for coaches.

I LOVE apps*. I do love pen and paper too, BIG time, but if ‘there’s an app for that’ I’m on it! I regularly get asked what apps I like to use so thought this would be a good place to share. As with yesterday’s post I think me talking about 10 things on a video will be boring so I’ve shared my top 3 with reasons and then you can read all of them in the list below.

Most of them are free or low cost so they are great if you don’t have a big budget, or would rather spend your money on more books. (Oh, that last bit about books might just be me!)

*Please note I’m using the word ‘app’ here to mean desktop or mobile device programmes.

• Capsule – I had signed up to InfusionSoft and have decided it’s not for me (I’ll do a post on that another day) I wanted something for CRM (Customer Relationship Management), something that would help me manage my contacts and ‘pipes’ (pipeline work – follow ups with potential clients / networking opportunities etc). Capsule fits the bill perfectly. It’s simple, easy to use. You can add password encrypted files to keep my client confidentiality and it’s low cost. A win:win in my book.

• Grid Diary – High up on my list is this little app. It’s an Apple one, but there will be other apps out there that you can research. Why do I think it’s an important app for coaches? We serve, lots of clients. We give our time, energy, support and encouragement. We need to look after ourselves too. Grid Diary is a customisable diary grid. It is set up as 9 grids, each grid containing one question. Each day you simply answer the questions that you’ve set. We talk about journalling with our clients and that’s great when you have the time to sit and do it. I highly encourage it. This app is a condensed version of that. It allows you to capture the key things of your day, the precious moments and/or observations. There is a full list of questions you can choose from or you can create your own. A lot of my questions are now around self-care as I have to continually remind myself of the important of taking care of me so that I can be healthy and ready to help others. The important thing here isn’t the app, it’s the taking care of you, so find something that works. More info on how I use my diary here.

• YouCanBook.Me– This is a game changer! How many times have you played email tennis with your clients, where you’re pinging emails backwards and forwards to set a date? There are lots of online calendars out there – try one out. I love this one – it links in with my calendar and sends me an email when someone books. I can block out times that I want to work and don’t have to worry about figuring out time zones. No more messing around with dates.
• MadMimi – As above bullet point re: InfusionSoft I’m going back to MadMimi. I love it as an email management system, their customer service support is fantastic and it’s fun to use. I know that over time I will need a bigger system but for now it works for me and I highly recommend it (I have insider news that they are also working on lots of exciting upgrades too)

• Pomodoro – The 25-minute timer. If you’ve got a job to get done this is the one for you. It’s a great way to get cracking on jobs that you keep putting off. (I’ve shared the link for the technique itself. There are lots of different apps that you can get for Pomodoro, both on Android or iOS)

• Evernote – This is a brilliant way to store info. It’s fully searchable and you can add photos, categorise what you need and most importantly find things quickly when you need them. One of the main things I use it for is snippets of information. You know those little notes you write down, thinking you’ll find them again when you need them, but never can? Those! With Evernote because of its search function you can find them again easily. You can also add a little widget so that you can take screenshots to save for later, great when you’re in a rush and need to save something quickly.

• RescueTime – Running your own business is fun. There’s LOADS of new things to learn. Social media can be a blessing and a curse though where you get sucked into clicking on ‘just one more link’ before you stop. RescueTime allows you to set up the programmes that you want to monitor so that you can save time. Each week you get a report about the length of time you’ve spent in different areas. I’ve set mine up for things like Facebook, email etc. When you see the time in hours it makes you think very differently about where your time is going.

• Pocket – Another great app for saving info. I use this one more for blog posts. If you come across an article that you think might be useful to share and/or read at a later date you can save it to Pocket and tag it to make it easier to find it again when you need it. If you’re a visual person then you’ll also like the look of it as it saves the pictures from the posts.

• DropBox – An online file storage and file sharing system. You can get lots of space free and it syncs across your devices. It’s great for when you want to be able to access documents wherever you are, plus it saves space on your hard drive.

• BigFile – Want to send a mahoosive file? This is your app. It’s really useful when you need to get something to someone quickly. You upload your file, enter the contact details and send. Simples.

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