Create your own personal user manual
It's a cheat code to help people work with you.
Ever thought,
“I wish my coworkers just got me?”
By understanding each other's unique strengths, quirks, and preferences, you can work together without getting on each other's nerves.
- Easy to follow template.
- Fill in the blanks or go freestyle. We've got a structure, but you've got the style.
- Insightful prompts.
- We're not just scratching the surface here. Dive deep into your professional persona with thought-provoking questions.
- Save & update any time.
- Just had an epiphany during your lunch break? Update your manual in a jiffy!
- Hosted personal user manual page.
- Send your manual to your team, your boss, cofounder, or that new intern who keeps interrupting you when you're in flow.
- Speed up employee onboarding.
- It's never easy being the "new guy" (or gal). Break the ice by circulating your user manual at your new gig.
- Turn the page on misunderstandings.
- Documenting expectations, quirks, and communication styles reduces relational friction.
Check out examples
See how others approach their manuals to get inspiration for your own.
Why write a user manual?
In the remote era, the personal user manual is more important than ever.
Instead of guessing across a fiber line, we can be clear and proactive about how we work best. A user manual allows you to set blindingly clear expectations on how to collaborate without extra second guessing. It shortcuts the get-to-know-me phase for new teammates from months to days.
“Ironically, I find that the fundamental disconnect between managers and employees comes from people being well-intentioned people-pleasers. Now, introduce a new hire who's eager to fit in. Suddenly you have two people trying to make each other happy instead of being real with each other. You can see how this situation is primed for misunderstanding and miscues, despite best intentions.”
People always harp on the importance of building trust and communicating — but what does that actually look like? Write your user guide and ask your team to reciprocate. A user guide levels up the quality of questions, answers, and discussion within a team. Exchanges become richer and more efficient. Communication is more free.
“When you buy a new product, it usually comes with a user manual. It's a document designed to help you make the best use of that particular product, with detailed instructions. It's a guide to using a specific system. But when we meet a new person, we need to figure things out through trial and error. We usually start with safe ice breakers, and work our way up to understanding the person better. Why does it have to be this way? Why don't we all have a personal user manual?”
By getting to know the people you work with, you build trust. By building trust, you foster psychological safety. And by fostering psychological safety, you increase your own performance as well as the team's overall performance.
“There's upside even with the small first step of agreeing to create a user guide for your team. It's an act of empathy, an acknowledgement of implicit power dynamics between managers and employees, and recognition that the group is made up of different people with distinct styles.”
“When building BestSelf I shared my personal user manual with team members (and they created their own) so that we could learn how to work effectively with each other.”
Ready to author your own user manual?
Put pen to paper (well, fingers to keyboard) and let the world know how to get the best out of you. And hey, don't worry, no manual labor required. 😉