How to Become a Lifelong Learner: Create a Personal Learning System That Lasts

by The Productive Pixie - September 26, 2026

The largest barriers to lifelong learning are a lack of time due to other commitments and costs, according to research. Building a habit of lifelong learning can improve your happiness, brain health, social connections, and confidence. With a personal learning system, you can gather free resources and learn in spare moments. In this post, I'll share how you can build a personal learning system!

How to Become a Lifelong Learner: Create a Personal Learning System That Lasts

Side Note - This post may contain affiliate links, which means if you buy something from one of these links, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. For more information, you can read my privacy policy. Thank you for supporting my blog. :)

I find that when I stop learning and pursuing new things, my life becomes stale.

Making time for continuous learning helps make life exciting. It gives me that feeling of wanting to jump out of bed in the morning to go read a book or listen to a podcast and create something new!

While I'm in college, making time to learn is easy because I'm always surrounded by new ideas to stretch my thinking, but when I graduate, I know it's going to be harder to make time for learning.

That is exactly why I'm working on building my personal learning system now. When life gets busy, I'll already have a system in place and a habit of continuous learning, which keeps life interesting.

With the internet and libraries, you can practice lifelong learning for free. I rarely spend money on personal learning because there are so many great free resources available.

While many people learn randomly whenever they come across an interesting resource, building a personal learning system will help you learn more consistently and gain in-depth knowledge about subjects of interest.

A personal learning system is a repeatable process that helps with deciding what to study, finding materials, and applying what you learn.

Let's get right into how you can start building a personal learning system for lifelong learning!

How to Become a Lifelong Learner: Create a Personal Learning System That Lasts

1. Decide on Your Goals

The first step in building a personal learning system is deciding what you want to get out of your learning.

In college, course syllabi often list "learning outcomes." I usually just glance at that section to be frank and don't read it all the way.

For self-directed learning, you don't need to set specific goals unless you want to. Sometimes, I don't know what I'm going to learn from a book until after I read it.

Your learning goals can be concrete like "learn a tap dance" or very broad such as reading a few books about a subject to expand your knowledge.

If no goals come to mind, don't worry because you can just work on expanding your skills in any area of interest.

I like my system to be as simple and broad as possible to facilitate as much learning as possible. Right now, I don't have concrete goals for my learning outside of my yearly goals.

2. Choose Subjects

The next step is deciding what skills you want to learn or what area you want to gain knowledge in.

Currently, I'm trying to figure out what I want to write about for my career, so my list includes topics like investigative journalism, marketing ethics, consumer behavior, and behavioral economics.

Additionally, I have topics like tap history because it's something I want to study for fun.

In my bullet journal, I keep a running list of topics that I'm interested in learning about. If I become bored of one subject, I can look at my list and pick a new topic to learn more about.

3. Choose Formats

Based on your learning style, you should look for formats that make learning fun and interesting.

There are many formats to pick from for your learning materials including:

Books
Courses
Audiobooks
Podcasts
Blogs
Scientific journals
Documentaries
YouTube videos
Webinars
Memberships

You should be able to find many resources for free.

I'd recommend keeping a list of different formats so you can search for those formats when looking for information about subjects you want to learn more about. An example would be "Documentaries about business ethics" or "memberships to join for nonfiction writers."

You'll probably have to experiment with different formats to see what you enjoy the most.

I'm a visual learner, so I like reading the best, but I still enjoy listening to podcasts while running. I've taken a few online courses, but I've found that usually I prefer watching in-depth YouTube videos on a single subject.

4. Find Materials

This is the most enjoyable part of building a personal learning system. Besides the actual learning, of course!

Depending on how quickly the subject changes (new findings, technological advancements), I'll take different approaches. But I always like having a long TBR list, so I have plenty of options for new books to read.

When reading books, I'll make note of other recommended books and the additional resources mentioned in the book. One of the books I read recently mentioned a documentary, so I wrote it down on "My Research Plan" bullet journal layout.

I'd recommend picking your favorite format and then building a list of materials from there. You should be able to find at least a few resources on almost any subject with a simple search.

If you have no idea where to start, you can ask AI to build you a learning plan on a specific subject with specific formats that you choose!

But you don't need to build a rigid outline of what you are going to study because you can let your learning materials guide you to other materials and things to try out!

In-Person Events

While learning from resources is great, don't forget about in-person events as well!

In the past year, I've attended quite a few events, and it's been such an enjoyable learning experience. I have the opportunity to meet other people my age who are interested in the same subjects as me, as well as learning from industry professionals.

I have access to a lot of events for free or for discounted prices through my college, but with a few searches, you can still find events to attend in your local community.

When it comes to career development, there are many events, but for other subjects you may have to be a little more creative. For tap dancing, I did a couple of searches online and found a free tap dance curriculum with seven levels (Shoutout to United Tap Dance).

Try to build a long list of resources in a variety of formats to aid your learning, but don't get caught up in information overload or research paralysis. Start with whatever resources you have, and your list will expand as you learn!

5. Create a Personal Knowledge System

I've tried building a system for taking notes on what I've learned many times, and my number one piece of advice is to keep your system as simple as possible.

You might have heard of the concept of building a second brain popularized by Tiago Forte. I'm currently reading the book Building a Second Brain and working on building a more comprehensive system for storing all of my notes. I want a system that I'll actually refer back to regularly!

A personal knowledge system is basically a collection of information (notes, pictures, graphs, frameworks) that you build yourself.

Popular Notetaking Methods

Second brain
Zettelkasten slip-box
Bullet point outlining
Split-page (two-column) notetaking

All of these methods can be adapted for either digital or analog notetaking.

In the past, I've tried taking reading notes in a notebook, but I've found that I don't look back at them often. Taking notes also takes too long, and it's harder to just read on the spot. I'm currently experimenting with a digital system. I'll let you know how it goes!

On the other hand, I have a little maroon notebook that I take to events with me, and I love taking notes in it! I took notes in it all last semester and flipped through my old notes during breaks in sessions if I wasn't talking to anyone.

I think it's easier to take notes at events because speakers usually make their main points very clear. It's easy for me to condense the main message and takeaways into a succinct format.

I'd also recommend being selective with your notetaking. The point of a personal knowledge system is so you can find the most important pieces of information you've collected.

As you take notes, you should periodically review what you have and try to connect ideas.

If you never review your notes or apply what you've learned, it's probably not an effective system. Do some experimenting and see what works for you!

6. Experiment

School has homework assignments for a good reason. One of the best ways to remember what you learned from the materials is by putting it into practice.

If you don't want to do this, by all means, definitely don't!

But if you want to, read books and think about what you can test out in your life. When I read a book and it mentions things to try, I like to think of them as science experiments.

Writing on this blog is one of the ways I put into practice what I'm learning through experimenting and through practicing writing.

As you work through your learning materials, don't feel pressured to test out new things right away. On "My Research Plan" bullet journal layout, I have designated space to list things that I want to try.

Also, don't feel like you need to take notes or do an experiment for every resource you consume. You should take notes on the most interesting learning materials, not on everything.

I've been learning about behavioral addiction and the downsides of social media recently, so an experiment I'm currently doing is going notification-free for 30 days. As I'm writing this, I'm on day 2 and it is going well!

Your experiments don't even have to be changing something about your life. It's more about creating something or taking action based on what you've learned.

7. Find Time to Learn Regularly

I've talked quite a bit about building habits and routines on the blog, so I'm not going to dive fully into that here. You might want to wait for the perfect time to gather all of your materials, and pull out a binder to take pretty notes in.

But I recommend that you don't!

Instead, just use little bits of free time here and there throughout your day to watch a short video or read a few pages in a book.

Here are a couple of ways you can fit more learning into your day.

Listen to a podcast while you get ready in the morning
Listen to a podcast or audiobook while driving
Listen to or watch educational content while exercising
Instead of checking your emails again, read a quick article
Replace social media usage with educational content

Consistent learning is much more effective over the long run than sitting down once a month and speeding through as many resources as you can. At the same time, start slow and don't try to cram as much learning into your day as possible. It's about balance!

Final Notes on How to Become a Lifelong Learner: Create a Personal Learning System That Lasts

I'm still refining my personal learning system, and I know it will evolve over time as my interests, priorities, and schedule change.

The most important aspect of a personal learning system is that you are constantly diving into materials and learning new things. Even if you don't have time to create a full personal learning system, just find ways to regularly learn something new!

I'm going to graduate college in a couple of years, but I plan on making learning a lifelong process through my personal learning system.

To recap, this is how you can start building your personal learning system.

Decide on your goals
Choose subjects
Choose formats
Find materials
Create a personal knowledge system
Experiment
Find time to learn regularly

If you enjoyed this post about creating a personal learning system, you might enjoy these posts as well!

I hope this post helped you start building your own personal learning system!

If you enjoyed this post about personal learning systems, don't forget to share it with a friend! Thank you! :)

Tags : life systems, personal growth

How to Become a Lifelong Learner: Create a Personal Learning System That Lasts