50 word personal READMEs

The trend of writing personal (or manager) READMEs has gotten a lot of heat lately.

I think the idea is sound. Everyone has quirks to working with them, so you can either learn about them the easy way or the hard way.

The execution is where it falls apart. People like writing about themselves too much. They don’t know where to stop. So they write long, wandering essays full of crap that is anything but need-to-know. Nobody wants to read that junk. (Here’s mine as an example, and that’s after chopping off a lot).

I have a solution: you get 50 words, that’s it. It’s a forcing function to kill the fluff and decide what people must know about you.

Here’s my attempt:

• I have four boys so I don’t travel often
• I’m obsessed with team jelling
• I have a crippling Slack addiction
• I care too much about being liked
• I respect blunt honesty
• I prefer experimentation over discussion
• I blog daily and will annoy you with shameless links
• I like running

What’s yours?