Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to write your own operating manual. Letting people
Speaker 1: know about how you work can make you more productive
Speaker 1: and hopefully limit the chances for misunderstandings. Today's tip, like
Speaker 1: some others this week, comes from Amantha Imber's new book
Speaker 1: time Wise. In this book, Amantha shares tips from lots
Speaker 1: of successful people on how they work and make time
Speaker 1: feel more fun. One of the tips is called why
Speaker 1: you need a one page operating Manual. Amantha interviewed Darren
Speaker 1: Murph of git Lab. Murph noted that he had created
Speaker 1: his own one page document, which is, as Murph puts, that,
Speaker 1: an operating manual of how you can quickly get up
Speaker 1: to speed about working with me. It explains how I
Speaker 1: like to be communicated with, what I hope to learn
Speaker 1: in working with you, and what you need to know
Speaker 1: about me, things like personality type, my working style, and
Speaker 1: when I generally prefer to work. Amantha notes that reading
Speaker 1: this manual only takes a couple of minutes, but you'll
Speaker 1: learn more in those few minutes than it would normally
Speaker 1: take in the two weeks or longer that it takes
Speaker 1: to understand a coworker that you are meeting for the
Speaker 1: first time. I think this is a wise idea. It's
Speaker 1: just efficient. Now. I know that it might seem a
Speaker 1: little presumptuous to create such a manual. I mean, perhaps
Speaker 1: the idea comes across like those artist contracts where they
Speaker 1: specify the kinds of candy in the green room. I mean, really,
Speaker 1: I know I am a generally agreeable person, and I
Speaker 1: am happy to work with agreeable people, and I hope
Speaker 1: that as fellow human beings, we can figure each other out. However,
Speaker 1: if you start to think this through, you can realize
Speaker 1: that there is a ton of knowledge that you learn
Speaker 1: in time, but that it would be better to know
Speaker 1: at the beginning. For instance, maybe you like to work
Speaker 1: at ten pm. You certainly don't expect anyone else to
Speaker 1: work at ten pm, so people shouldn't think anything about
Speaker 1: your late hours, or they shouldn't wait up for your emails.
Speaker 1: That's good to know. Or maybe you don't eat meat.
Speaker 1: Most agreeable coworkers would like to know that before they
Speaker 1: propose a team kickoff dinner at a steak restaurant. Since
Speaker 1: I work for myself. I have all sorts of other
Speaker 1: quirks that I am sure drive people crazy for the
Speaker 1: first week or two until they figure them out. For instance,
Speaker 1: I don't use an electronic calendar. I love my paper calendar,
Speaker 1: and I'm probably not changing now. You can send me
Speaker 1: an electronic calendar in but if you are waiting for
Speaker 1: an acceptance to actually put it on your calendar, you
Speaker 1: might need to wait for a while, since it's not
Speaker 1: a standard part of my workflow. In any case, you
Speaker 1: might think this through and write something down. If you
Speaker 1: are the sort of person that lots of people seek
Speaker 1: out to work with, it might be helpful to post
Speaker 1: this somewhere publicly, like your website or your LinkedIn profile.
Speaker 1: If you have a more standard job where you just
Speaker 1: work with new coworkers from time to time, propose that
Speaker 1: everyone creates such a document before your first team meeting
Speaker 1: so you can all read up on each other. Who knows,
Speaker 1: you might find out that you and one of your
Speaker 1: colleagues are equally in love with the Oxford Comma. Now
Speaker 1: you can bond over that, and if nothing else, creating
Speaker 1: this document will boost your own self knowledge. Sometimes we
Speaker 1: just work in certain ways because we always have. We
Speaker 1: don't think about it committing these approaches to paper. Lets
Speaker 1: us think about them and think about why we do them.
Speaker 1: Knowing yourself is just always a good thing. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod. That's b E the
Speaker 1: number four then Breakfast pod. You can also shoot me
Speaker 1: an email at Before Breakfast Podcasts at iHeartMedia dot com.
Speaker 1: That before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Should I look forward to staying in touch.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
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