This came up in our ND&MW meetup the other day and I was so happy to hear it I was bouncy like Tigger. The personal user guide is a document that has a few origins out in the world[1]. I found out about it from an autistic friend that works in the UK. She’s a complete powerhouse, and works in WebDev with a solid commitment to mentorship of Women in Tech. She described that in one of the teams she was working in they each created a User Guide for themselves. Just like a manual for using a new piece of tech a Personal User Guide gives clarity to things that motivate you as well as the things that just drive you into a bad place.
Coming into a job at director level I decided to share mine with the people that I work with most closely as well as my direct reports. It’s tricky as a neurodivergent worker, there are so many things that you toss up as to whether to explain or not, how out you want to be, and what the risks/rewards are of opening up. The great thing about a Personal User Guide is that you can be open about neurodivergent needs without having to have a red carpet and parade moment about being ND.
Project Management author Julie Zhuo has a great article unpacking it and it’s worth a read on how she came up with and uses her own one[2].
And here is my User guide in case you are interestedhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1swGuvcEXTVvz167WFyhVDjZfxaTCsVYYkuqT_ZzNuMQ/edit?usp=sharing
Best,H
***
Further Reading: [1] https://friday.app/p/personal-user-manual-for-work[2] https://lg.substack.com/p/the-looking-glass-a-user-guide-to
Heath, this was really interesting; thank you for sharing! I think this is definitely an exercise I will undertake at some point soon, especially as I like definition and labels and things in neat little boxes.