Prep time is work time

Often you will need to spend time preparing for your meetings with students. You may need to read through material you will be sharing with a student, research answers to their questions, or seek advice in terms of how to help them progress on their journey. This time is considered a part of your work as a Souled Coach, and should be included in the hours that you report. It is very difficult to define the exact amount of prep time that you should be using. It can vary from student to student, from meeting to meeting, and from situation to situation. Below are general guidelines to help you determine the appropriate amount of time you are expected to spend on preparing for meetings. If you are in a situation where you are still unsure, please reach out to your manager to discuss and clarify the right course of action.

15 minutes 

As a general rule, you should not need more than 15 minutes of preparation per meeting that you have with students, on average. This doesn't mean that you will never need more than 15 minutes. Sometimes you will need more, and sometimes less. Especially as time goes by and you have had many meetings with many students, you should find that this amount of time is more than sufficient. If you find that this is challenging for you, reach out to your manager to discuss, and to come up with ways to get by with less prep time. 

Reuse resources

While each of your students might be interested in different topics and have different needs, over time it is normal for the subjects that you are teaching to repeat themselves. The first time you go through a book about middos with a student might take you longer to prepare. When using the same book in the future, a few minutes before the session to refresh your memory should suffice. Using a resource that you are familiar with, if it is appropriate for the student and situation, is always a good idea.

Prepare for the next meeting

When starting a new topic with a student, prepare enough for the first meeting. It's not necessary to become a master of the subject in advance. If it's a book, read the first chapter. If it's Souled Curriculum, go through the first part. It's possible that the student will become uninterested and not want to continue after the first or second time with that material.

Report the prep time needed for meeting with your student 

Sometimes you might really enjoy your preparation and want to keep learning the subject , diving into more resources, listening to shiurim or watching videos on the topic. It is important to differentiate between what is necessary for meeting with your student and the learning that you do for your own knowledge and enjoyment. You should only consider what you need for your upcoming meeting as work time. One way to asses how much time this is might be to ask yourself, “How much time would I spend preparing for this meeting if I wasn't getting paid and I didn't enjoy the preparation?”

How to Report Preparation Time

1. Preparing right before a meeting

When you spend time preparing right before a meeting, there is no need to specify in your work time how long you spent preparing and how long you were meeting with the student. Similarly, you don't need to specify the amount of time that you spent documenting the meeting when you document immediately after the meeting (or series of meetings).

2. Preparing outside of meeting time

If you spend time doing preparation outside of your meeting time, when you record that time, you should use the special code for preparation time to note that this time was spent preparing, and not meeting with students. The same is true for documentation. If you spend time on documenting separately from when you meet with students, you should specify in your time report that this work time was spent on documentation.