I’m a life long learner. Love. To. Learn. So it’s no surprise that I’ve spent time learning about learning.

I’m a heutagogue

I began a teacher training course in a past life. I didn’t complete it but did hear a lot ‘pedagogy’, which is the art or theory of teaching children. Later on I learned the word ‘andragogy’ which is the theory of teaching adults. And finally, I learned the word heautagogy, which is the theory of self-determined learning. This is the style of learning that ‘clicks’ with me. It comes from an old Greek word, ‘heurisko’ – one definition of which is: to find by enquiry, thought, examination, scrutiny, observation; to find out by practice and experience. My preferred style of learning means I can be accurately described as a heautagogue.

A plain language alternative to the label of ‘heautagogue’ could be that I like to notice things, reflect on them, and grow my understanding.

Learning cycles & curatated knowledge networks

I guess I have two mental models that help my conceptulise my preferred way of learning.

The first is David Kolb’s learning cycle, which was a key part of my teacher training. It provides four stages to an effective learning experience:

  • having an experience
  • reflecting on the experience
  • learning from the experience (abstract conceptualisation)
  • experimenting with what I’ve learned, incorporating it into a new experience.

The second was best described by Sari Azout as part of a blog post that I can no longer find online. It talked about community curated knowledge networks and I’ve used and adapted some of the core concepts:

  • knowledge: organises what I’ve learned
  • curation: organises knowledge around practical use
  • networks: groups of people that I can learn from and share with.

My learning system

This all happened naturally and imperfectly for the longest time, with me just trusting my instincts. Today though I can give it a name and articulate the system behind it. So here it is.

Knowledge: field notes

I build knowledge by noticing things and reflecting on them:

  • The bulk of this is my own professional thoughts and experiences. I often have them when I’m having a walk or taking a break – things that just pop into my mind
  • Conversations with peers are a big source of learning too, they’re a great way to reflect on something or spark a new idea. For a while I was looking at shared work spaces as a way of breaking up working from home but what I realised is it’s this deep chats that I want. So instead of that, I’ve put time and effort into regular cathups with good, interesting people.
  • Things shared by others in blog posts (and the occassional podcast) are useful too. I used to get a lot of this from the artist formerly known as Twitter but in 2025 it’s mainly from LinkedIn and a small amount of Substack.

I think of all this noticing, reflecting and learning as ‘field notes’, with Google Keep being the place that I store these. I have a constant swirl of field notes in Google Keep, adding, curating, and collating on my phone when inspiration strikes. This blog is a space for slightly more structure field notes, ones that I’d benefit from ‘properly’ thinking about, and/or that a small number of people might find interesting.

Curation: field guides

Sometimes the knowledge can be curated into practical guides that can directly help myself or others to do something better. I think of this as ‘field guides’. This happens when I’ve tried out my learning in real life several times, honed it and refined it, and can now confidently suggest it to others. My Substack newsletter is where I mainly do this. This newsletter started out as another space for general notes and relfection, and it got a decent amount of reads. But since I switched it into concise, practical field guides the number of readers per newsletter is 2-3 times larger and the amount of comments and likes is significantly more. I’ve also written a book on product management within complex services, which is my ultimate format of knowledge curated into practical guidance. What’s been interesting is that, having thought about and worked on the book for a year, my mental models for dicussing the job with others have come on significantly. I can quickly assess situations and suggest strategies to improve things in a way that I’ve never been able to do before. It also means that my newsletter flows much easier now, because it sits on mental models that are extremely clear ot me in my mind.

Networks

My networks bring lots of learning into me. I have my day-to-day professional experiences themselves, plus the regular 1:1s I have with peers. I run a network for product leaders in complex services, and hearing the discussions here is a great learning experience. And then there’s commercial, social networks like LinkedIn, Substack, etc where great insights are sometimes shared. All of this helps me learn . . .

. . . and they’re all places for me to share my own learning, particularly when I’ve curated knowledge into actionable field guides. There a few hundred subscribers to my newsletter, the product leaders network, and LinkedIn where I can publish and share stuff.

. . . and all of this ultimately helps in more private, practical moments when something needs to get done. It might be something I’m helping to delivey, or a chat I’m having with someone who wants to improve their approach to what they’re doing. In any case, these are the situations where this entire learning system helps me to recognise what’s going on in a situation and pull out a good first step to improve things.

That’s pretty much what my learning system looks like in 2025. It’ll change and improve over time but it feels like it’s in a pretty good place – hence I figured I’d write it up and share it. I might write-up the publishing system for my Substack at some point too.

Over to you

Do you prefer learning in a structured way, led by others? Self-led learning? A mixture of both? Have you got your own learning system?