Building a Personal User Guide
- Jun 29
- 6 min read
What is a Personal User Guide (PUG)?
It’s a guide that shows what it’s like to work with you for colleagues, your network, or a new job.
This is a practice, I picked up working in tech startups. So, whether you call it a User Guide, About Me, How I Operate, My Work Style, think of it as a cheat sheet into you—your communication, preferences, quirks, and more.
It’s a shortcut for others to speak your language and understand where you may be coming from.
And at a deeper level it’s a mechanism to contemplate who you are at work, who/what you like, and what oddities are worth being upfront with. Just the act of articulating your habits, motivators, and gaps—gives a self-knowledge crucial to any meaningful relationship.
If for whatever reason you don’t like what you unearth in this process, that’s useful info as well. It’s even stuff you could file away into the Where I’m Growing section.
Building Your PUG
We’ve gathered several areas you may want to cover in your PUG along with curated reflection questions. To craft answers—chat with an EverMore coach, discuss with colleagues, or journal.
Reflect on questions that speak to you and skip the ones that don’t. You’re making this guide your own, so choose any or all of the sections to include. You can even add things not included here.
About Me
Purpose: Share parts of your life to foster the kind of surface connections that can be the catalyst for deeper relationships.
What are fun facts or personal interests you’d like to share with other people?
Do you have any current obsessions—music, shows, movies, or books?
What hobby or interest has taught you the most about yourself?
What career did you want to have as a child?
Do you have any shorthand you’d like to share such as your Big 5, Human Design, CliftonStrengths, Astrological Signs, Personality Type, Enneagram, etc.?
What I Value
Purpose: Let folks in on what’s important for you to build understanding and stave off conflict. When writing values, be as specific as possible about what a particular word means to you.
What values are important for you to embody?
What does being good at your job mean to you?
What traits or behaviors do you value in other people? Consider people that you trust or feel drawn to as well as those who complement your gaps. (If it's easier, you can also reflect on people you don't trust or typically dislike.)
How I Can Help
Purpose: This is an invitation for others to seek you out, so share how you can/want to help people.
What do you love to do and are good at? How can you help other people?
What should someone reading this know about your specific role?
Why I Do This Work
Purpose: The experiences, beliefs, and motivations that shaped your path and relationship to work.
Why are you passionate about or motivated by the work you do?
What experiences shaped how you approach your work?
What do you wish others understood about your role or profession?
Ways I’m Quirky
Purpose: Lighthearted way to share the things people often misunderstand, along with any unique preferences, pet peeves, stressors, etc. These are part of who you are, so they may be difficult for you to change.
What do people misunderstand about you?
What stresses you out and what do you need when stressed?
What actually annoys you? Think pet peeves, habits, mannerisms.
Now, how might you unintentionally annoy someone else?
How I Communicate
Purpose: Let folks know how to best communicate with you and how to interpret your style. As an example, if you’re known for being direct, no fluff—let someone know that upfront.
What’s your default style of communication? How have other people described your communication?
Is there anything you struggle to communicate?
Do you have a preference on when and how to reach out to you? (e.g., email, chat, in-person)
How I Work Best
Purpose: Give insight into your day-to-day rhythm and preferences for the minutiae of work.
What conditions do you like to work in? Consider: socializing preferences, async v. meeting, group v. individual work, talkative v. quiet team, etc.
When do you do your best work? Are there certain times you like to reserve for focus work?
Do you like meeting agendas, brainstorming on the fly, or something else?
How I Handle Feedback
Purpose: Chronicle your relationship with feedback, praise, and criticism.
How do you like to give feedback? What's your approach when you need to share something constructive with someone?
How do you give praise, gratitude, or recognition to others? As an example: If you happen to be bad at giving praise, this is the place to call that out.
How do you like to receive feedback? (e.g., written, in-person, in the moment)
What makes it hard for you to receive feedback? Are there any areas that may be sensitive?
How do you like to receive praise, gratitude, or recognition from others? (e.g., 1:1, public)
Where I’m Growing
Purpose: Call out any weaknesses or opportunities for growth that you’re already aware of and working to improve. This builds trust and empathy, as it shows awareness and positive intent.
In what areas are you growing? What can others help you with?
What have you learned about yourself that you're trying to apply going forward?
What Good Looks Like
Purpose: Catalog your expectations, decision-making, and definition of success. These are often the hidden assumptions that shape how we work with others.
This section is for anyone, but is especially helpful if you're managing folks.
How would you describe your leadership or collaboration style? What have you heard from others?
When something goes wrong, what response earns your respect?
How do you typically make decisions and what factors matter? (e.g., gut feeling, consensus, data)
What does strong performance look like to you? How do you evaluate it? How will someone know they're doing well, and what separates exceptional work from merely adequate work?
PUG Pro Tips
The difference between a boring PUG and memorable one is specificity.
After you reflect, go back to your responses and push yourself to define each value, preference, or habit in practice.
There’s often the illusion of understanding between people, because they’re using the same words. However, there’s no shared meaning, so expectations don’t align.
There are a lot of corporate words—transparency, integrity, accountability, collaboration—that carry ambiguity from overuse.
Be precise.
“I value transparency” could mean “I share information early rather than wait for the perfect answer” or it could mean “I overshare personal information with others.”
Similarly, instead of “I’m collaborative” express—”Brainstorming is my love language.”
Instead of “I value communication” try “I’d rather get difficult feedback than hear it secondhand.”
State the obvious.
The norms and niceties that feel obvious or expected to you often need the most clarity.
Include examples.
Stories and examples help people understand what you mean.
Share intentionally.
Some of the most useful things in a PUG are personal. But, the goal isn't to reveal everything—it's to share what helps others better understand, support, and connect with you.
Don't aim for perfection.
This is a living document and will evolve over time.
Example PUG
There is no right way to craft your PUG. Take these suggestions and make them your own. In the meantime, here is my example with a few snippets below.
Name It, Share It, Evolve It
Give your PUG a little intro to explain why you created the guide and what you hope to get from sharing it. It’s also nice to invite others to create one as well for you to read.
Example:
Here’s my user manual—a guide on working with me. My hope is that reading this helps you understand how I show up, how I think, and how to collaborate with me. I’d love for you to create your own version and share it with me, so that I can learn more about you as well!
Now it’s time to share the PUG!
Share it when you’re new or have a new team member, during an interview, before your first 1:1 with someone, as a refresher for your manager, or as a jumping off point in a relationship that needs rebuilding.
Along the way get feedback from others, and revisit it from time to time so that it unfolds as you do.
Final Thoughts
The act of creating your PUG is a vulnerable one; you’re sharing personal things with folks often before they’ve really met you and asking them to accept, not judge you for it.
As part of that social contract, a PUG will backfire if you aren’t honest with yourself and/or others.
When you’re clear, it fosters empathy, bridges the gaps between what was said, felt, and meant, supports onboarding, clarifies work styles, and gives ongoing insight into how to win you over.
My first PUG allowed me to share things like how I give autonomy because I like autonomy, but that I’m always willing to be more hands-on. It opened the door for someone to say they wanted more from me. Because I said it proactively, no hard feelings or misunderstandings built up on either side.
That’s the whole point of the PUG.
I hope this process nurtures reflection and leaves you with a guide that captures you in motion.
xoxo,
Courtney @ EverMore
p.s. Don’t forget—You can share these prompts with an EverMore coach to get help in digging deep and crafting your responses for the PUG.
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