What is your Personal Development System?

“What Course Should I Follow?”

I often get asked the question above by starting growth hackers or marketers.

I fully understand the question: you are getting started and you just want to figure out how to take that next step. However, my answer to that question is constantly changing; what was the most relevant course a year ago could be long outdated by now. I fear that by just naming a course and sending that eager student on their way I would be doing them a huge injustice.

Thus, I can’t help but wonder, shouldn’t the question instead be:

What is your system for personal development?

What I mean by this is:

How do you stay up to date with the ever-changing industry?

With the answer to that question, I can help them get much further. You see, for many industries, the pace and the knowledge we need is ever increasing. Learning no longer ends when you leave school or university, it has only just started. Thus to keep up, you are better off trying to figure out how you will stay on track with learning, rather than which course to randomly follow this weekend.

For everyone, there is much to still be learned, so if you can make learning a key part of your week you will put yourself ahead of others. We have very limited energy and willpower, remembering or trying to find time to learn randomly eats into this energy and willpower. Just make it easy for yourself by building a clear system of how and what to learn. This not only costs far less energy and makes learning a part of who you are. Make learning your competitive advantage.

What does a Personal Development System look like?

Now I can’t say what your system should be or what it should look like, but I can show you what mine is. Hopefully, this will inspire you and will get you started on developing your own. Learning should not be an “If I have time” kind of thing. It should be the result of a powerful system that you use and constantly optimize.

Before we go full speed ahead, a few crucial elements to keep in mind:

Start with the foundations. It is tempting to learn new shiny tools and methods every week, but truth be told: it will bring you little to no value if you don’t have the foundations in place. Start with learning the foundations of your area. So for growth hackers: the mindset, how growth teams are formed, the growth hacking process, the AARRR funnel, etc. Learn that first and then feel free to learn things like a web scraping tool or about AI, if that is your kind of thing.
Build a system that works for you. My system is developed to suit me and me only. I love to read so there is lots of reading involved. I get up at 5:30 am because I am absolutely useless in the evening. You don’t have to copy and paste my system. Learn from it, take what you like and build your very own awesome system.
“Don’t compare your beginning with someone else’s middle or end.” Rachel Hollis, a successful entrepreneur, speaker, and author, says this often and for a reason. When you compare yourself to someone who is further in their journey it can demotivate you. It is like focusing on how great a marathon runner is at running while trying to run your first 2km. Your system will not look like the one below if you are just starting out. That is ok. This is a system built, optimized and changed over the course of five years. That means, though it is far from perfect, my system has a five-year of a head start if you are just starting out with this. You may start out with 1 or 2 articles per week on a Sunday morning. Good on you! Don’t go from 2km to a marathon in one week or you might quit after one week.

Now, with that being said let’s take a look at what a Personal Development System looks like in practice.

My System for Personal Development

Spend a few hours per week following courses on CXL Institute. CXL Institute has a ton of data, optimization and marketing courses. Now I warned you about courses, and then I start by mentioning a course hub in my own system. There is a reason: CXL Institute regularly brings out new courses and updates the older ones (I am not sponsored in any way by them, just a raving fan). This means I constantly have the latest and most relevant courses at my fingertips. I mainly do the courses in the morning before work and do another session of around 1 – 2 hours during the weekend. To build in accountability, I define per month which courses I want to finish based on the time I have available.
Use Feedly to get a curated article feed. I use Feedly to follow my favorite blogs. I also use Pocket to save blog posts I come across randomly to read later so that I don’t forget. Pocket is a super simple online service with a Chrome Extension that allows you to save and categorize articles to read later.
Read 1–2 books per week. I know this sounds like a lot but I am an absolute and utter book nerd. I even read 100 books last year (and though I don’t track it so avidly anymore, I’m pretty sure I still read about that amount). I also always keep a list of must-reads in Evernote so that I never have to wonder what to read next. I know other people use Good Reads for this but Evernote works for me. Next to that, I carry my Kindle everywhere with me like a celebrity and their Louis Vuitton Handbag. You can find my favorite books to reread each year here.
Listen to Podcasts whilst traveling & during the Sunday afternoon house tidy up. (Favourites: CRO Cafe by Guido X Jansen & Digital Analytics Power Hour). Podcasts are the relaxed part of my system. I don’t have to listen to them every week, I just have a top ten that I check out regularly, and listen to whilst traveling or tidying if I don’t have an audiobook I’m listening to at that moment.
Implement whilst learning. Whilst following courses or reading articles I implement it for clients or for our own website (my playground at times). This helps me turn theory into practice.
Attend a conference or meetup at least once a year. I love talking to like-minded individuals and gathering new ideas. It scares me sometimes how much energy conferences give me. I end up super excited, writing pages full of unreadable notes, and only need to sleep 3 hours a night. It is a bit weird, but overall, other than the lack of sleep, it does me good.
Writing. I love writing, it helps me structure my thoughts on subjects more, it teaches me new things. I write at least 2–3 times a week whether working on a book, on a new article or sharing a random thought on Linkedin, which is how this article started :).
Wake up at 5:30 am. Yes, I see this as part of my system. For a few weeks now, I wake up at 5:30 am instead of 6:30 am. When I started doing this I thought why?! I already have time to learn before work by getting up at 6:30 am. Why am I dragging myself out of bed to get up another hour earlier? Within a week, through a combination of a strong coffee and results, I swore by it. I love my “me time” in the morning. No distractions, just me and whatever project I want to tackle that day.

Always be Optimizing

This is a snapshot of my current system. Just like which course I would recommend, it may be different in a year. That being said the foundation will be the same: a setup that constantly allows me to develop and learn more. Not just about growth hacking but also about managing my team better and any other subject that interests me. Knowing what my system is, allows me to see how and what can be optimized from the time of day that I learn, to what type of medium works best for me. Write out your system and then just start experimenting with it.

Your Turn

Now reading the above you may think, hey I kind of already have a system but I never thought of it as a system, or I don’t have a system yet. Either one is more than ok. It just means there is room for optimization! Figure out what works for you, start small and build it up step by step. A learning system is a powerful way to put your personal development on turbo mode.