What a planner and the annual review cover
Your tasks and deadlines, in a to-do app or a spreadsheet.
Your meetings, in Outlook or Google Calendar.
Once a year, a review that tells you how the year went, after it is over.
What they leave out
- Where you stand, between reviews
Up or out has a date, but the criteria are rarely written down, and the review comes once a year.
- Which work moves you forward
A task list knows your deadlines, not your next career step, so it can't tell you which part of this week's work moves you toward it.
- Whether your load is sustainable
Logged hours don't tell you how close you are to burning out on the billable target.
When a human career coach is worth it
For a big, one-off decision, a human coach is hard to beat: a lateral move, a partnership case, leaving for an in-house role. Career coaching in Germany costs around €200 an hour on average (Fixando), so most people book a few sessions, not one every week.
What a few sessions can't do is be there on an ordinary Tuesday, when the work that builds your next promotion is actually happening.
What Heedly does every week instead
- A career plan toward your next level
The milestones and skills between you and it, in the order that gets you there, with a review every three months.
- One concrete step a week
Adrian, your coach, picks it inside your real work and follows up. If there was no time, Adrian makes the step smaller.
- A burnout score
Built from a 30-second check-in in the morning and a check-out in the evening. An overloaded week is flagged before you commit to it.
- Your wins, collected as you go
Ready for your appraisal, your partnership case or your CV.
What your current planner can't do
Keep your planner if you like it: Heedly works beside it. Or move your week in, in two minutes. See how
What about client confidentiality?
Heedly coaches you, not your client work. At onboarding you're asked to use matter codes or project code names instead of client names, and every feature works without them.
As a second safeguard, client names on your list are swapped for code names before anything reaches the AI. Names on neither list are sent as you write them, and voice notes are sent as audio, which can't be masked. Data is stored in the EU, encrypted with TLS in transit and AES-256 at rest, never sold and never used to train AI. The details are on the Trust & security page.
The short answer
If your firm gives you clear criteria, a mentor who checks in, and feedback more than once a year, you may not need a coach. If the annual review is the only time anyone tells you where you stand, a weekly coach closes that gap, and a month of Heedly costs less than one session with a human one.
See pricing, or read what Heedly does for lawyers.