How I Manage What I Learn: A Personal Knowledge Management System
Learning does not happen by collecting information. It happens by turning experience into understanding. This essay outlines the personal knowledge system I use to do exactly that.
Editor’s note: This essay sits at the heart of Cultivated’s work. It explores how learning becomes something lived, not stored — and how personal systems quietly shape the quality of our thinking.
How I Manage What I Learn
At the heart of everything we write about — work, leadership, creativity, communication — sits learning.
Not formal education alone, but the deeper craft of becoming wiser over time.
And if learning matters, then the way we organise what we learn matters too.
Because growth does not happen by accident.
It happens through systems.
Over the years, one of the quiet advantages in my career has been building a personal way of managing what I learn — not to hoard information, but to change how I think and act.
This is not a perfect system.
It is a lived one.
And it continues to evolve.
This essay can also be explored in audio form. You’re welcome to listen — or continue reading below.
Why a personal system matters
Learning does not happen by collecting resources.
It happens when ideas are tested against reality.
Books, articles, courses, conversations — these are inputs.
Learning only occurs when something changes in how we see, decide, and behave.
Which is why I stopped thinking in terms of information management and started thinking in terms of knowledge cultivation.
A personal knowledge system is not a digital filing cabinet.
It is a way of thinking.
The four movements of learning
Over time, my system settled into four simple movements:
Capture
Curate
Crunch
Contribute
Not as steps to complete once — but as a continuous loop.
They mirror how understanding actually grows.
Capture: feeding the mind
Learning begins by paying attention.
Books, conversations, observations, talks, ideas on a train platform — everything worth thinking about must first be caught.
I capture widely, but not carelessly.
Information is not knowledge yet.
It is raw material.
Where you gather from shapes what you become.
I prefer fewer, deeper sources to endless noise.
Curate: choosing what deserves thought
Every week I review what I have captured.
Not everything deserves my attention.
Curation is the first act of thinking.
I ask:
Is this still interesting?
Is this still useful?
Is this worth carrying forward?
Many ideas are discarded here.
This is not loss.
It is clarity.
This is also the time for organising, tagging and labelling.
Crunch: where learning actually happens
This is the heart of the system.
Crunching is my term for turning information into understanding. In other words putting information into action, to create knowledge.
It means:
Re-reading slowly
Comparing with what I already know
Testing ideas in real situations
Letting experience confirm or contradict theory
This is where information becomes personal.
Where knowledge stops being borrowed and becomes embodied.
Without this step, a knowledge system becomes a collection of other people’s thinking.
Why action completes learning
I do not consider something learned until it changes how I work and my behaviours.
An idea about meetings must improve a meeting.
A model about leadership must shape how I lead.
A new way to communicate must becomes part of my approach.
Otherwise it remains intellectual furniture - elegant but not practical.
This protects me from becoming articulate but ineffective.
Learning that does not reach behaviour is entertainment.
Contribute: returning what is learned
Once something has been tested, adapted, and absorbed, it can be shared.
Sometimes publicly, through writing or teaching.
Often quietly, through better conversations, decisions, and actions at work.
Contribution completes the learning loop.
It ensures knowledge remains alive, not private.
A system that stays human
My tools change.
My principles do not.
The system must stay simple enough to serve life — not replace it.
Too many tools create friction.
Clarity always beats complexity.
The system exists to support thinking, not distract from it.
What this system really protects
This approach guards against three common traps:
Collecting information instead of learning
Mistaking memory for understanding
Confusing cleverness with wisdom
Knowledge is information in action.
Anything else is storage.
Learning as a lifelong craft
The more I learn, the more I realise how little I know.
This is not discouraging.
It is liberating.
It keeps the mind open.
It keeps arrogance in check.
It reminds me that growth is never finished.
We are always in draft form.
A personal knowledge system is not about control.
It is about care.
Care for how we think.
Care for how we grow.
Care for who we become.
Care for helping others.
That is why I keep refining mine.
Because learning is not preparation for life.
It is life itself, unfolding.
And a good system helps us notice what that life is teaching us.
Video
Editor’s note: This essay grows from an earlier exploration in another medium. The thinking remains central, even as the format has changed.
