Working definition
The Manual Of Me is the living personal cookbook you author for your own operating system — both the recipes that work and the saboteur mechanics underneath the recipes that fail.
How it works
A Manual Of Me is not a journal. A journal records the day; a Manual records the mechanics. Each entry is atomic and answers one of two questions:
- What works for me, and why? A recipe that installed a new behaviour, a ritual that produced energy, a sequence that compounded.
- How do I sabotage myself, and why? Saboteur mechanics: the recipe that consistently produces the unwanted result. Naming the failure recipe is the only durable defence against re-cooking it.
The Manual lives in atomic, Zettelkasten-style notes — each entry one mechanic, linked to the concepts and the sessions from which it emerged. Over a quarter, the Manual becomes your personal operating system: queryable, evolvable, and the source material for the quarterly synthesis.
Adjacent concepts: Be You, The Real You (the truth the Manual encodes), Daily Performance Journal (the daily input feed), Identity Gap (the gap the Manual makes visible), Battle Of the Week (the battles the Manual archives).
Signature
The image is the professional kitchen cookbook — tested recipes kept, failed recipes kept too, so you cook from evidence not mood. Yann recurring; on 2026-04-13 Johan’s XMind pass made failure strategy visible in the same Manual. The WOW: on 2026-02-09 Pascal names shame in real time — the Manual in raw form before it is solved.
More room passes mention this doctrine in replay narrative — search the Codex for Manual Of Me or start from the latest entry on Weekly Sessions.
Spatial split — journal (records the day) versus Manual (WORKS + DO NOT RE-COOK shelves — evidence not mood). Saboteur shelf: Saboteur mechanics. Your move: Your move this week.
Your move this week
This week’s micro-action (24–72 hours):
- Open your personal notes. Date the entry.
- Choose one:
- a “what works” recipe — name it, write 3–5 lines on the mechanics underneath the result.
- a “how I sabotage myself” card — name the failure pattern, write 3–5 lines on the mechanics underneath the failure.
- Note which concept and which session it connects to.
- From now on: one entry per week. Quality, not quantity.