Coaching Homework Clients Actually Do

Most coaching homework fails at the handover, not at home. It is set in the last two minutes, phrased by the coach, sized for a good week and attached to nothing in the client's actual diary. Then the next session opens with an apology, and both of you pretend it does not matter.

It does matter, because the work between sessions is where much of the change happens. Here is how to set homework that gets done, and how to review it when it does not.

Six rules for homework that gets done

1. The client writes it. In their words, on their page, before they leave. Homework phrased by the coach belongs to the coach.
2. Attach it to a moment. Not "reflect on boundaries this week" but "when I close the laptop on Thursday, I will write down the one request I agreed to and wish I had not." If-then plans like this are among the better evidenced tools in behaviour change: in Gollwitzer and Sheeran's meta-analysis, people who formed them reached their goals more reliably than people who simply intended to.
3. Size it for a bad week. If the task only works in a good week it will not happen, because people rarely come to coaching during a good one. Ten minutes is plenty.
4. Start it in the room. Do the first line together. A page with one line already on it is a task in progress by Thursday; a blank page is a fresh decision, and fresh decisions lose to email.
5. One task. Three tasks means the client picks the easiest and feels guilty about the other two.
6. Agree what done looks like. And agree now that not done is useful information rather than failure. That one sentence takes most of the apology out of the next session.

Formats that work

Not all homework is a worksheet, and the format should match what the client needs to do next.

• Observation logs. Notice and record, without trying to change anything. The best first homework for most clients, because it cannot be failed.
• Small experiments. Try one specific behaviour once and note what happened. This is the step from insight to evidence.
• Short reflections. Five minutes of structured writing once the working day is done. The 5-Minute Success Journal is built for this, with intention questions for the morning and a debrief for the evening.
• Structured worksheets, for anything with steps. The Action Steps Staircase Worksheet Set turns a goal the client has been circling into steps small enough to start on Monday.

When the homework comes back undone

Open the next session with the homework, every time, before anything else. Skip it once and the client learns it was optional.

When it is not done, get curious rather than encouraging. What got in the way, exactly? Where in the week did it slip? The obstacle is data. It tells you about the client's week, their energy and sometimes their ambivalence about the goal itself. For a pattern that keeps repeating, walk it through the Behaviour Chain Analysis Worksheet: the moment the task was due, what happened instead, and the point where a different choice was available. Then resize the task. Undone homework is almost always too big, too vague or attached to nothing.

Where homework backfires

Two clients need a lighter touch. The first is the client who is already overloaded. A person already carrying too much does not need another task, and homework for them should take something out of the week rather than add to it. The second is the client who completes everything perfectly, every time. Sometimes that is commitment. Quite often it is a client doing the homework for you, which can be the same pattern that brought them to coaching, now playing out in your sessions. If the work is immaculate and nothing is changing, say so.

A standing practice between sessions

For clients who want something to return to rather than a weekly task, the Self-Reflection Journal gives them prompts they can work through at their own pace. It sits in the Coaches Starter Library too, next to the Behaviour Chain Analysis Worksheet.

Frequently asked questions

Small, specific, written by the client and reviewed every time. That is most of it.