Notes You Can Share: Session Records Clients Can Use
Insight, decision, experiment. What stays private vs what goes to the client.
The 2-minute note is for you. This is the shareable version: insight / decision / experiment. Same bones, their eyes. Notion or a doc is enough. Automation can draft; you still cut. After a day off, send the recap — don’t “catch up” by dumping a week of private thoughts. A 90-day offer is easier to renew when they can point at a stack of shared notes.
| Goes to the client | Stays private |
|---|---|
| Insight they said | Your hypothesis about their marriage |
| Decision they made | Supervision notes |
| Experiment + date | “I think they’re about to ghost” |
| Score on the goal | Diagnosis language |
Why Private-Only Notes Fail
They cannot remember the hour. You become the memory. Then they don’t own the experiment.
The fix: write the shareable three first. Private line second, if needed. If you cannot share 80% of the note, you wrote a diary, not a record.
The Shareable Three
Insight: their sentence, not your reframe. Decision: what they chose in the hour. Experiment: what / when / how you’ll know.
Send same day. If AI drafts it from a transcript, delete anything they did not say. Especially anything that sounds clinical.
What Stays Private
Your fear. Your dual-relationship radar. Anything you would take to supervision. If it needs to become a conversation, it becomes a question in the next hour — not a secret file they might one day request.
Do not store private lines in the same comment thread they can open. Separate field, or don’t write it.
What Most Coaches Get Wrong
They send a transcript. Transcripts punish everyone. Three lines.
They also hide scores because the number dropped. Dropped numbers are the point.
They paste a client story into a marketing draft from the private note. That’s how you lose the room. Permission is a different post.
A Shareable Note, Filled In
Insight: “Almost-sent is cheaper than a no.” Decision: Send the current draft, no rewrite. Experiment: Two people, Thursday 4pm, sent folder.
Private line (separate field): “I think they’ll stall again if the partner isn’t named.” That line becomes next hour’s question, or it dies. It does not go to them as a theory about their marriage.
How to Cut an AI Draft
If a tool drafts from the recording, your job is a delete pass:
- Anything they didn’t say
- Any clinical or diagnostic word
- Any joke at their expense
- Any paragraph longer than two sentences
If the draft is longer than the three lines, you didn’t cut. Cutting is the note.
When They Ask for the Whole Recording
Recordings are a separate consent. If you don’t have consent, the answer is no. If you do, still send the three lines first. A recording is not a note. Most clients who ask for the recording want the artifact and will settle for the three lines.
Do not transcribe by default. Transcription is how private asides leak. If you must keep a recording, store it where they cannot wander, and delete on a schedule you can defend.
If a client requests “everything you have on me,” that’s a process you decide with counsel — not a blog post. Your default remains: shareable three, private line separate, no novels.
Teach them to expect the note. “If you don’t have three lines by tonight, ping me.” Then send them. A client who learns the recap is coming will start the next hour already on the experiment. That is the whole point of writing it down.
If you skip a night, send it in the morning with no apology paragraph. “Here are the three lines.” The apology makes the note about you. The three lines make it about the work. If they never mention the note, ask once in the next hour: “Did you read Tuesday’s three lines?” Their answer is data about the engagement, not about your prose. A “no” that is honest is better than a smile. Write that honesty into the next contract. Do not punish them with a longer note.
When DIY Isn’t Enough
When shareable notes still take 20 minutes, the hour didn’t produce an artifact — or the tool is fighting you. A portal recap field is the tray. Launch / Grow / Scale can hold the tray. You still decide what is theirs.
Want a recap field both of you open the same day? Let’s talk.