Aar Process: 10 Evidence-Based Coaching Practices
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Aar Process, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
About 2 minutes
Try it here: debrief one event in four questions
Take one recent project or day and review it. Write what was expected, what happened, why, and what changes.
Review one recent project or day in four short answers.
Practices that may help
- Clear the capture inbox regularly
Process and file captured notes on a weekly basis so the inbox stays a temporary landing zone, not a storage bin.
Building a Second Brain (BASB), Made Practical - Process notes just in time, not just in case
Refine a note only when you are about to use it for something real — not on a maintenance schedule.
Progressive Summarization, Made Practical - The Action Method, Made Practical
Scott Belsky’s Action Method, developed at Behance, argues that most productivity systems fail by treating all captured content equally. Its core move is to classify every piece of information into one of three buckets: Action Steps (things you do), References (things you might use), and Backburner Items (things you might act on later). Only Action Steps advance projects. The system is practitioner-designed and well-used in creative industries; formal evidence is limited. - Cognitive and Somatic Interweaves
When processing stalls, a brief therapist-supplied statement or question can restart the chain.
EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing - Capture ideas and commitments in an RPM format
When a new commitment lands, immediately ask: result, purpose, first MAP action — before adding it to any list.
Tony Robbins’ Rapid Planning Method (RPM), Made Practical - The Two-Process Model of Sleep
Alexander Borbély’s two-process model describes sleep as the interaction of two independent systems: Process S (homeostatic sleep pressure, which builds throughout waking hours like a battery draining) and Process C (the circadian clock, which gates sleep propensity in a 24-hour rhythm). Good sleep requires both processes to align — sleep pressure high and the clock in its nighttime phase simultaneously. The model is well established in sleep science. - Classify every captured item as an Action Step, Reference, or Backburner
When anything lands in your capture system, immediately sort it into one of three buckets — every item must belong to exactly one.
The Action Method, Made Practical - Build a Massive Action Plan (MAP)
Brainstorm every possible action that could move you toward the result, then ruthlessly prune to the ones that actually will.
Tony Robbins’ Rapid Planning Method (RPM), Made Practical - Use a process goal as an in-performance attention anchor
Convert your most important process goal into a single attention cue that runs during the performance.
Process vs. Outcome Goals in Sport and Performance - Separate judgment from analysis in the debrief
The AAR only produces learning when the analysis phase is free of performance judgments.
After-Action Review: The US Army’s Tool for Continuous Learning
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- My capture inbox has months of unprocessed stuff piled up, and now opening it just makes me anxious instead of helping
- I keep trying to "tidy up" and polish notes the moment I save them, just in case, and it’s exhausting and most of them I never open again
- I keep circling the same image and the same feeling without anything shifting
- Every request that comes my way I just dump onto a list to deal with later, and now that list is a wall of vague half-things I dread opening
- My notes app is a giant dumping ground
Related concerns
- Actionable Suggestions
An Action Step that begins with a verb is completable; one that doesn’t is usually a wish or a category, not a task.
Write every Action Step starting with a verb
- Capture Vs Process
Process and file captured notes on a weekly basis so the inbox stays a temporary landing zone, not a storage bin.
Clear the capture inbox regularly
- David Allen Getting Things Done Official Capture Clarify Organize Reflect Engage
David Allen’s GTD runs every commitment through five steps — capture, clarify, organize, reflect, and engage — so nothing lives in your head and you always know the next physical action. The core insight, that unfinished tasks held in memory create persistent mental load, is supported by cognitive research; GTD itself is a coherent practitioner system rather than a single tested protocol.
- Getting Things Done Official Capture Clarify Organize Reflect Engage
David Allen’s GTD runs every commitment through five steps — capture, clarify, organize, reflect, and engage — so nothing lives in your head and you always know the next physical action. The core insight, that unfinished tasks held in memory create persistent mental load, is supported by cognitive research; GTD itself is a coherent practitioner system rather than a single tested protocol.
- Getting Things Done Official Methodology Capture Clarify Organize Reflect Engage
David Allen’s GTD runs every commitment through five steps — capture, clarify, organize, reflect, and engage — so nothing lives in your head and you always know the next physical action. The core insight, that unfinished tasks held in memory create persistent mental load, is supported by cognitive research; GTD itself is a coherent practitioner system rather than a single tested protocol.
- How To Deal With An Overwhelming Backlog Of Unprocessed Notes
Refine a note only when you are about to use it for something real — not on a maintenance schedule.
Process notes just in time, not just in case
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.