Client help sheet: ‘Fast, efficient task entry and import’

In Skoach, there’s a hard way and a smart way to enter tasks and task lists.

Tips for clients are available at Fast Effective Task Entry and Import in the Skoach Approach blog.

Project 2 for clients available: set up task entry by email

Emailing to task list serves two important purposes for ADHD support.

The first is to quickly and safely get distractions or appointments off the mind and into the Skoach task list.

The second is to quickly turn incoming emails that require action into a task that can be evaluated in context with other tasks and priorities. Forward an email to Skoach, and it goes into the task list with the body of the orginal email attached in the notes, so the client has the information needed right alongside the task.

Both great time and attention savers!

The first step towards this support is setting up a skoach e-mail-to-task address. Project 2 gives screen shots and step by step instructions for your clients to set up and test this great Skoach function.

Project instructions are in the Skoach Approach blog at www.skoach.wordpress.com. You can send interested clients to this link:

Project 2: Create Skoach tasks from your email box.

Project 1 for clients available: setting up Skoach phone reminders

Reminders by phone help your client stay on track. This project in the Skoach Approach blog offers easy project directions and screenshots, so your clients should be able to set up phone reminders for themselves quickly.

To see the project page, check out the link below or direct interested clients to The Skoach Approach at www.skoach.wordpress.com.

Project 1: Setting up reminders by cell phone

Using Skoach with clients: 2 keys for successful setup

To take advantage of Skoach’s potential, it’s important to clarify that Skoach is an interactive program.

It simplifies setup tremendously if you know where Skoach gets its information for interactive scheduling. This lets you start your clients off on the right foot without detailed explanations. Even if your client won’t be using AutoScheduler at first, the same setup will guide your client in manual scheduling.

1) Skoach compares time categories between the Time Map and individual tasks to match tasks with their proper place in the schedule.

What goes wrong: A time category labeled ‘kids‘ may be intended to mean ‘time with kids‘, but your client can easily confuse tasks done for the kids with tasks to be done with the kids when considering individual tasks. Result: Large messy project for the school bake sale scheduled when the preschoolers are underfoot, which may not be what your client had in mind.

How to prevent it: When coaching your clients on pattern planning with the time map, help your clients choose time category labels they won’t easily misunderstand in the context of assigning task time categories.

Perhaps as coaches you’ve noticed the same thing I’ve noticed in myself and my friends with ADD. We each have very structured, specific ways of thinking about time and tasks. There’s something about the time map that pulls people to express their philosophy and perspective on time. When I first started beta-testing Skoach, I had time map categories labeled with goals, roles, context, etc. willy-nilly. It’s a real testament to Skoach that it eventually managed to straighten my thinking out, given that I had essentially given the AutoScheduler ADD via my time map, but it was rocky. Moral of the story: channel creative time expression into task tags instead, which Skoach doesn’t depend on.

2) “Fixed” means you or your client can reschedule a task, but Skoach won’t.

The problem with ground-breaking features is naming them understandably. Skoach has a few of these labeling problems; there hasn’t been much call for a term telling your computer not to schedule a task for you. Ok, so that was a brag.

Auto-scheduling is wonderful ADD support–that’s straight from the heart, from someone with ADD–but all that power and flexibility comes with a price.

The price is this: You have to tell Skoach when it can adjust a task, and when it can’t. Skoach offers intelligent scheduling, but not mind reading. (I’ve requested mind reading for the future, but you can’t expect everything in beta, after all.)

What goes wrong: if clients enter appointments through the task panel, Skoach assumes them to be unfixed. Meaning, they can be shifted when earlier tasks run overtime, swapped by the user, rescheduled by autoscheduler, or unscheduled when your client runs UnScheduler, Result: your client walks into the doctor’s office two days after the original appointment, which was shifted to the next corresponding time category block when your client dragged another task into the original time slot. Which is bad, but frankly ADD can do this on its own without Skoach’s help. I’ve come close to this once with Skoach, which is a vast improvement on my record without Skoach.

How to prevent it: Encourage clients to draw appointments directly on the calendar, which tells Skoach it’s ‘fixed’–hands off. I recommend that people who are starting out with Skoach include the time and date in the name of the task/appointment. This makes a misplaced appointment ‘jump out’ visually from the schedule, and also ensures your client will know where to put it back. Skoach user education addresses the purpose of ‘fixed’ tasks as well. Tasks can also be marked fixed through right-clicking on the task in the schedule or task panel, so appointments can be checked and ‘fixed’ quickly.

So now you know about the biggies and baddies, and you may be thinking, “Wow. That could be bad. Is the ability to autoschedule really worth it?” Oh, yeah.

It doesn’t happen right away, but delegating clock-watching and schedule recovery to Skoach frees up an astonishing amount of mental energy and focus that your client probably doesn’t realize is being consumed by ADD at the moment. I think that as coaches you’ll see your clients gaining momentum as they reach this point, but I’m looking forward to hearing about your experiences with this.

Quick-start: setting up your clients with Skoach

As a coach, there are two ways you can “work with clients” through Skoach: Joint account access and Skoach Connect. Let’s take one at a time.

Joint account access is what you’ll use to monitor your client’s progress between appointments, view his/her task list and schedule, and set up email or text-message reminders. To set this up, you’ll need to follow these steps:

1. Have your client create a Skoach account (if he has not already) at www.skoach.com
2. Go to your personal coach’s account access-page (which is the page you see once you log in) , and copy the link (it’s part of step two there). Paste this link into an email to your client.
3. Instruct your client to follow this link to give Skoach permission to allow his coach (you) access to his account. Once done, a link to the client’s account will appear on your personal coach-page.

Skoach Connect, on the other hand, allows coach and client to share a single screen for real-time Skoach collaboration. This is especially well-suited to remote sessions, allowing coach and client to create task-trees together or brain-storm and plan while viewing the same Skoach-page. To set up Skoach Connect, follow these steps:

1. You’ll need two files: SkoachCoach.exe for the coach, and SkoachConnect.exe for your client. To request links to these files, email us at pioneers@skoach.com (these files are unique to each coach).
2. SkoachCoach.exe will appear as a link on the bottom of your personal coach page.  SkoachConnect.exe will appear as a link on the top of your client’s Skoach page (under “more”).
3. When you’re ready to connect, call up your client and have him/her download and run SkoachConnect-YourName.exe while you download and run your SkoachCoach-YourName.exe

That’s it! You can now view your client’s computer screen in real-time. Have your client access his/her Skoach page, and you’re ready to start collaborating. When the session is over (or at any time), the client can right click on the small blue Skoach-clock icon in the system tray (bottom right) to close SkoachConnect and cut the connection. Note that the coach can never view the client’s computer unless the client first gives permission by running SkoachConnect-YourName.exe again for each session. Happy Skoaching!

Welcome To Skoach!

Dear Skoach Coaches,

I’m excited to be posting the first blog entry to the Skoach Coach blog. Those of you that know me, know that in my long years as a psychologist my focus has always been on helping people figure out ways to take charge of their lives and learn how to reach their dreams. My book “ADD-friendly Ways to Organize Your Life” was written to help people learn ways to manage their time and their home and work environments. Now, with Skoach, some of the ideas in my book have been developed even more, while sticking to the basic concept that all the time management strategies in the world won’t be helpful unless an individual has adequate structure and support to learn those strategies and to use them consistently until they become a habitual part of their life.

 

Coaching and Skoach forms the perfect partnership, allowing coaches to provide maximum support to clients that need it, and even allowing coaches to “be there” with the client between coaching sessions through the structure and support that the coach has created in Skoach. As a coach, you can work with your client to customize their Skoach page, recording goals and strategies as part of the client’s Skoach task list and schedule. In effect, a coach can continue to support and influence their client between coaching sessions inside the very tool that their client will be managing their time and making decisions throughout the day. Then, as clients become more consistent in using the habit and strategies their coach has taught them, the client can become gradually more independent with Skoach built into their daily life continuing to provide structure and support to maintain their daily life management and time management habits and routines.

 

I’m also excited that we will build a coaching community through this blog and the Skoach Coach forum that will allow all of us to support and teach each other as we learn the most effective ways to use Skoach as a coaching tool.

 

So, welcome to the Skoach Coach blog!

 

Kathleen Nadeau, Ph.D.

Skoach Chairman

How to Get Support?

There are several ways to get support and suggestions for using Skoach as a coaching tool:

• Live help links from the Skoach application page
• Use the blog to ask questions, comment on features, make suggestions, or talk with other coaches
• Skoach email support at pioneers@skoach.com
• The Coaches’ Corner also includes links to the Skoach manual, Skoach FAQ’s, and The Skoach Approach, a blog to help beginning users get started with Skoach.

Thank you for your interest in Skoach. You are invited to subscribe to this blog to be notified of developments in Skoach, new information posted, or coaches’ discussions.