Send a standing access rider before you start working together
Instead of asking for accommodations case-by-case as problems arise, write one standing document — an access rider or 'manual of me' — that lists your communication needs and preferences, and send it the first time a collaborator wants to work with you. State needs once, up front, and make it collaborative by inviting theirs too.
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Requesting accommodations one at a time, after a problem has already surfaced, is a recurring burden and often comes too late — by the day of the event the missing information has already caused stress. A standing access rider removes that loop. The idea is a single document that lays out how to work with you: your communication preferences and concrete needs — where to reach you and where you’ll miss things (email yes, a LinkedIn ping no), meeting length limits, an agenda sent ahead of time, directness over hinting, key information in bullets or bold rather than buried in a block of prose, an explicit flag when something is urgent, and logistics like time, address and who to ask for supplied in advance. You send it the first time a brand, client or collaborator wants to work with you, so the accommodations are set before anything can go wrong. Two design choices make it land well. Keep it specific and behavioural — ‘don’t bury key info in prose, use bullets’ rather than a vague ‘communicate clearly’ — so people can actually act on it. And make it two-way: invite the other person to share their own manual of me. That reframes it from ‘my way or the highway’ into a mutual, collaborative conversation about how each of you works best.
