Prioritizing work tasks, lifestyle choices, and activities is something we all do each day. Sometimes we do it intentionally, and sometimes we just do and the result is we get derailed from priorities. Coaches use several techniques to support clients prioritizing intentionally. These range from exploring values to ranking competing priorities. Sometimes this is done in conversations and other times with visuals. Because coaches co-create the process with clients, coaches both know different techniques and tools, and they also create techniques or tools in the moment with their client.
Consider this scenario: The coaching client, Alice, owns a business. She currently has 75 people working for her company. She is struggling with prioritizing clients, level of involvement in different aspects of her business, and personal time. Alice’s coach, Liz, cuts out circles from a piece of paper sets them in front of Alice. She asks Alice to label each on one side with a category of activities such as clients, accounting, employee management, exercise, relaxation, etc. Next Liz asks Alice to list the activities for the category on the other side of the circle. Then she has Alice list what percentage of her time she spends on each circle. Liz then asked Alice to list the percentage of time she wants to spend on each category. Liz cuts the circles to different sizes representing how much time Alice is spending on each category. On a large piece of paper, Liz draws circles of different sizes relative to the percentage of time Alice wants to spend on each category. She then has Alice place the cut-out circles onto the circles on the large paper. The visual differences in sizes created awareness for Alice.
After co-creating the visualization, Alice was motivated to take action and ensure she prioritized her time intentionally.
