It’s the task that everyone dreads, myself included, but alas, one that can’t be ignored: writing our own biographies. We often find ourselves in positions where we have to create a wondrous and spellbinding description of something so close to our hearts that we often cannot see what makes it so glorious. Of course, I’m talking about ourselves. So what’s a person to do when tasked with such a demand? If getting someone else to write it for you is out of the question, these helpful little tips will allow you to move out of your own head ever so slightly so you can write a killer bio that makes people want to buy from you… or perhaps even buy you. Rawr.

1. Treat yourself as an interview subject.

The least productive way to start on this task is to just start writing. You’ll hit so many road blocks, struggle with prioritizing, and most likely, get very repetitive if you try to wing it. So don’t. Take a moment to gather your thoughts and consider what questions you’d ask someone if you were writing their biography, only ask them of yourself. If you’re writing a bio for your company’s website, for instance, start with the basics: What got you where are you are today? Where have you worked in the past? What keeps you motivated to come into work every day? What do you hope to achieve in this position? What do you do in your free time that keeps you grounded?, etc. Then, answer them.

2. Prioritize.

Chances are, if you asked yourself some stellar interview questions, you’ll have a lot of content to work with. Check your available length and then start to move your answers around based on what’s the most important for the medium. (Be sure to use other bios as a reference so yours meshes well with where it’s being placed when it comes time to prioritize so you’re not talking about your pet goldfish for paragraphs on end.)

3. Remove yourself.

Now that you have responses to questions and they’re organized by importance, it’s time to start reworking your replies to fit your medium. Double check it’s placement before determining if you’re going to be writing in first or third persons before doing so, but this is where you have to remove “you” from the equation and just imagine you’re writing about a wonderful product with a set of features. For example, if you replied to the question, “What keeps you motivated to come into work every day?” with, “I have a strong passion for my career and love to see the difference I can make in people’s lives” can be turned into: Jane’s passion for her career and ability to make a difference for her clients is what keeps her coming into work every day with a smile. Once you’ve done this step, you should have a list of several usable sentences that will become your bio.

4. Edit, tweak, revise.

After creating your list of sentences, take a moment to read through them in the order you originally planned. Do they make sense? Does it flow well? Probably not, but this is your chance to combine similar thoughts (say, you had two sentences about passion and motivation, they might be able to be combined here), move things around, and get a solid biography completed. Your bio doesn’t have to be a magical document seemingly written by the Gods, so don’t be too hard on yourself. Generally, biographies tend to be fact-based, to-the-point, and injected with a bit of a human touch… after all, this is a person, with human qualities you’re talking about here. As long as yours meets those areas, it’s probably just splendid.

Now, you might be asking yourself, how do I add this “human touch” you speak of? A lot of the time, a default way of achieving this is by ending a biography with something about how you spend your free time. While this accomplishes that goal, there’re ways to be more creative here. Think of ways to interject a little personality throughout your bio to keep things lighthearted so you won’t have to rely on one little sentence at the end of your bio to get across how human you are. For example, say you mentioned one of your top skills as being able to multi-task. This would be a great opportunity for exaggeration or quotes from coworkers if this is something you’re known for. Try infusing it with something like this, “John’s known around the office as “the octopus” for being able to do so many things at once, he’s often assumed to have 8 hands.” There. Fun, right? I sure think so!

With these tips in place, writing your biography should not only be a cinch, but you may just enjoy doing it. Ha. Wishful thinking, I know.