Ten Things About You

How to actually write a "10 Things About You" list that doesn't read like a LinkedIn bio

Most people write these lists wrong. They treat it like a resume disguised as personality. You see it everywhere now — Instagram prompts, Slack intros, team onboarding docs. The standard approach is to dump ten generic statements that could apply to anyone who's ever held a job. "I love problem solving" says nothing. "I'm passionate about coffee" worse. I've had to read hundreds of these over the years, and the few that are actually worth remembering all share one trait: they include at least one specific, verifiable detail that reveals how someone thinks, not just what they've done. The formula usually goes: name, job title, five work-related achievements, three hobbies, one random fact that sounds random but is actually carefully chosen to look interesting. This is why most "10 Things" lists feel identical. Here's the thing nobody tells you — the format works best when you lead with something unexpected rather than your title. Put the weird detail first. The fact that makes someone pause and ask a question. I wrote a team intro once where I opened with "I once debugged a production issue for 14 hours straight because I misread a single configuration file path" instead of listing my credentials. Got more responses than any professional bio I've ever written. People remember the struggle, not the job title. The ten things about you list should feel like a conversation starter, not a credential scan. Each item needs to pass the specificity test: could this fact only apply to you? If a coworker could swap their name and send the same list, rewrite it.

A real example of what happens when you skip this

Last year I was part of a cross-team project and someone sent out their 10 Things About You doc with entries like "I enjoy collaborative problem solving" and "I'm a lifelong learner." We ended up scheduling a meeting with them anyway because we had no idea what they actually brought to the table. The project ran into friction on day three because nobody knew their working style, communication preferences, or what kind of problems energized them versus drained them. That whole situation could have been avoided if four of those ten items had been concrete — like "I always write out my assumptions before coding" or "I respond to Slack within two hours but prefer email for long-form discussion." Specificity isn't just stylistic preference. It's functional. It saves everyone time. Write ten lines. Don't edit yet. Just get them out. Then go back and for each line ask: is this true, is this specific, does it reveal something? One of them will fail at least two of those tests. Cut it. Sometimes you'll find you wrote three items that say basically the same thing — merge them and use the freed slot for something genuinely different. I use a simple filter: if I wouldn't say this fact out loud in a casual conversation, it doesn't belong in the list. Professional polish has its place, but "10 Things" isn't the place for it. The whole point is that it's supposed to sound like a person, not a corporate press release. The items that tend to resonate most are the ones about how you work, how you handle frustration, or what you do when you're not being productive. These are the things that actually matter in a team or community context. The rest are decoration. That's fine, but don't mistake decoration for substance.

The thing nobody mentions about audience

Who is this for changes everything. A "10 Things" list for potential clients should be almost entirely different from one for your immediate team. Clients want to know you can solve their problem and you're not difficult to work with. Your team needs to know how to collaborate with you. I learned this the hard way when I copied a client-facing list into an internal team document verbatim. The tone was off, the details were wrong for the audience, and people had follow-up questions I couldn't answer because the context didn't match. Rewrite for the reader, not for yourself. It takes another ten minutes and it compounds across every interaction that follows. Number one: making every item positive. Nobody relates to a highlight reel. Mention a failure you learned from, a habit you're working on, or something you find genuinely difficult. It's not vulnerability for its own sake — it's calibration. The reader now knows where your boundaries are and what kind of support you might need. Number two: including items that are impossible to verify or respond to. "I love traveling" is fine if you're introducing yourself to friends, but in a professional context it gives nobody anything to work with. "I've been to twelve countries and my favorite place I've ever worked remotely was Lisbon because the café Wi-Fi actually worked" is a different thing entirely. One is a fact. The other is a story waiting to happen. Number three: padding the list to reach exactly ten. If you only have eight good items, write eight. There's no prize for hitting the number. Filling space with weak entries drags down the entire list. Quality over quantity is a cliché because it's true here.

When this format completely fails

Don't force it. Some contexts don't benefit from a personal list at all. Legal disclaimers, compliance training, formal proposals — these spaces have their own conventions and breaking them to include personal details comes across as unprofessional, not friendly. The "10 Things" format works best in onboarding, team introductions, conference speaker bios, or community spaces where people are trying to figure out who they'll be working with. If you're not in one of those situations, consider whether a traditional summary serves the purpose better. Sometimes it does. There's also a cultural consideration worth noting. In some organizations and regions, personal disclosure is viewed differently. What reads as approachable in one context reads as oversharing in another. When in doubt, ask someone in that environment what they'd expect. It takes one minute and prevents embarrassment.

Where to put it

If this is for a website or blog, a dedicated page with a clean layout works better than burying it in your About section. People looking for it can find it. The ones who stumble on it aren't annoyed by it. For internal documents, pin it somewhere accessible but don't make it the only reference people have for you. A 10 Things list is a doorway, not the whole house. Pair it with something more detailed — a skills matrix, a project history, availability calendar — so people who want to dig deeper have somewhere to go. I've seen people treat the list as a substitute for actual relationship building. That doesn't work. The list gets you noticed. What happens after someone reads it depends on whether you're willing to show up consistently in the ways the list suggested. If your list says you value direct communication and then you ghost people for three days, the list is doing more harm than good. It set an expectation you didn't intend to meet.