Second Cup: Write your own operating manual

Help people figure out how to work with you

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to write your own operating manual. Letting people
know about how you work can make you more productive

(00:26):
and hopefully limit the chances for misunderstandings. Today's tip, like
some others this week, comes from Amantha Imber's new book
time Wise. In this book, Amantha shares tips from lots
of successful people on how they work and make time
feel more fun. One of the tips is called why

(00:48):
you need a one page operating Manual. Amantha interviewed Darren
Murph of git Lab. Murph noted that he had created
his own one page document, which is, as Murph puts, that,
an operating manual of how you can quickly get up
to speed about working with me. It explains how I
like to be communicated with, what I hope to learn

(01:09):
in working with you, and what you need to know
about me, things like personality type, my working style, and
when I generally prefer to work. Amantha notes that reading
this manual only takes a couple of minutes, but you'll
learn more in those few minutes than it would normally
take in the two weeks or longer that it takes

(01:32):
to understand a coworker that you are meeting for the
first time. I think this is a wise idea. It's
just efficient. Now. I know that it might seem a
little presumptuous to create such a manual. I mean, perhaps
the idea comes across like those artist contracts where they
specify the kinds of candy in the green room. I mean, really,

(01:55):
I know I am a generally agreeable person, and I
am happy to work with agreeable people, and I hope
that as fellow human beings, we can figure each other out. However,
if you start to think this through, you can realize
that there is a ton of knowledge that you learn
in time, but that it would be better to know

(02:16):
at the beginning. For instance, maybe you like to work
at ten pm. You certainly don't expect anyone else to
work at ten pm, so people shouldn't think anything about
your late hours, or they shouldn't wait up for your emails.
That's good to know. Or maybe you don't eat meat.
Most agreeable coworkers would like to know that before they

(02:37):
propose a team kickoff dinner at a steak restaurant. Since
I work for myself. I have all sorts of other
quirks that I am sure drive people crazy for the
first week or two until they figure them out. For instance,
I don't use an electronic calendar. I love my paper calendar,
and I'm probably not changing now. You can send me

(02:58):
an electronic calendar in but if you are waiting for
an acceptance to actually put it on your calendar, you
might need to wait for a while, since it's not
a standard part of my workflow. In any case, you
might think this through and write something down. If you
are the sort of person that lots of people seek
out to work with, it might be helpful to post

(03:20):
this somewhere publicly, like your website or your LinkedIn profile.
If you have a more standard job where you just
work with new coworkers from time to time, propose that
everyone creates such a document before your first team meeting
so you can all read up on each other. Who knows,
you might find out that you and one of your

(03:40):
colleagues are equally in love with the Oxford Comma. Now
you can bond over that, and if nothing else, creating
this document will boost your own self knowledge. Sometimes we
just work in certain ways because we always have. We
don't think about it committing these approaches to paper. Lets

(04:02):
us think about them and think about why we do them.
Knowing yourself is just always a good thing. In the meantime,
this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to

(04:27):
hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod. That's b E the
number four then Breakfast pod. You can also shoot me
an email at Before Breakfast Podcasts at iHeartMedia dot com.

(04:48):
That before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Thanks so much. Should I look forward to staying in touch.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
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(05:08):
you listen to your favorite shows.