Our schools structure learning in a certain way. There is a curriculum that is decided by someone other than the one who is doing the learning. There is a clear indication of what the test will look like. As a result, most of us are good at learning something for which someone has defined a curriculum and when the test of our learning is in a pre-defined format.

However, once we are out of a school setting, we are very poor at learning in such a manner as there often doesn't exist a structured curriculum and there are no scheduled tests in a pre-defined format.

We are never taught to define our own curriculum for what we want to learn. And this worked well until recently. But not anymore.

We are three quarters of the way through the year and I'm starting to outline my high level goals for the next year. And I'm approaching it a little differently this time.

I'm doing it from the perspective of setting myself a curriculum.

Schools define their curriculum based on what they expect kids going through that curriculum ought to be able to do by the end of it. If it is expected that someone graduating high school should know basic Calculus so that that can act as a foundation for the courses they choose during their Bachelor's, then the high school curriculum will be designed to ensure kids learn calculus before they graduate.

Similarly, I'll start with the end in mind.

I'll first define the things I want to be able to do by the end of next year and then structure the equivalent of a curriculum throughout the next year to help me get to that end.

I have only sporadically taken this approach before for shorter term goals, and this will be the first time I'll be doing it for as long as a year. But, I'm excited.