PERSONAL CURRICULUM 101
WHAT IS A PERSONAL CURRICULUM?
Coined by Elizabeth Jean @xparmesanprincessx, the personal curriculum trend is about creating a self-directed learning plan focused on areas of personal interest, loosely based on a school curriculum structure, including things like assigned reading, goals, assignments, and final projects.
At its core, the personal curriculum movement is about celebrating lifelong learning and intellectual curiosity. It's about being more intentional about how we spend our time when we're not sleeping, or at work, or doing the basic maintenance or admin or chores to keep our lives going. It's about using our free time to enrich our lives in a way that is purposeful and intentional and joyful, indulging our curiosity as adults, even once we're outside of structured school environments, getting excited about learning and allowing ourselves the freedom to go down those rabbit holes in our special interests, to challenge our brains in ways that we maybe don't get the chance to in our day-to-day lives.
I have been so excited about this concept since first stumbling across it a few months ago, and I’ve finally built my inaugural curriculum to kick off 2026! I wanted to share my process and share some tips & tricks for any of you who might want to try this trend along with me. Watch the video below and scroll down to download the PDF I put together to help you get started on your self-directed learning journey!
Follow along with this blog post, or tap the button below to download the PDF!
REASONS TO MAKE A PERSONAL CURRICULUM…
It gives structure to your curiosity so your learning has direction.
It helps you actually follow through on interests rather than letting them fade.
It turns vague goals into concrete weekly actions.
It supports slow, deep learning instead of surface-level skimming.
It creates a fun sense of play by reinventing school for your grown-up self.
It encourages self-improvement, self-awareness, and personal growth.
It gives you the opportunity to explore a topic or a skill without the pressure to be perfect.
It gives you the chance to develop skills that matter for your creative or career goals.
It keeps you from doom-scrolling or passive consuming because you have a plan.
It lets you design learning that fits your neurotype, schedule, and energy levels.
It makes it easier to choose what to read or watch next because you have a curated list.
It gives you a reason to explore libraries, archives, or media you would not normally discover.
It lets you explore being a beginner again in a low-pressure way.
It reminds you that learning is not just for children or formal students.
It builds self-trust as you keep a promise to yourself and complete your courses.
It encourages a focus on consistency and longevity that can improve your life in so many different areas.
BRAINSTORMING PROMPTS
Which topics have I been interested in or curious about for months or years, but never given myself the time to truly study?
What skills do I wish I had but haven't taken the time to learn or master? Alternatively, which skills have I learned, but then allowed to fester and fall into disuse?
What problems or questions keep coming up in my life or work that I may want to dig into a little bit deeper?
Which niche interests or topics do I constantly seek out in the media I consume?
What are those thumbnails, those topics, those ideas that I will always click on when they show up on my feed?
If I had all the money and time in the world, what would be my dream degree?
What would I want to study all day, every day if I had nothing else to worry about?
What would be my dream career if I didn't have to worry about going back to school or making enough money to sustain my life?
How would I want to spend my days if I had full freedom?
What topics or ideas make me excited, passionate, riled up?
What do I want to be able to debate or discuss with my friends or family?
What's a snippet of an idea or a concept that you just happened to come across that has wedged itself in your brain and won't let go?
Narrow it down
Once you have a long list, take some time to read over it and really notice which ones get you excited and which ones feel a little bit more like an obligation (or something that maybe you'd be interested in if you watched a 10-minute YouTube video on it but not really something you would want to dive deep into and spend a lot of your free time learning about!)
Look for patterns. See if there are connections between different ideas - could any concepts on your list be combined in an interesting way in a course?
Are there certain ideas, themes, or flavours that keep popping up again and again and again?
Are any of these skills or activities that you already have the equipment for at home?
Or are any of these things skills, ideas, or topics that could enhance your day-to-day life or could help you get a promotion at work?
Which ideas light you up? Make you want to drop everything and dive into them right now?
Focus on what makes you excited, what lights you up, what makes you feel joyful and creative and curious, and focus less on the things that feel like they *should* be your interests or they'll benefit you in some way.
Consider Your timeline
You're going to want to take your timeline into account. Do you want to switch up your curricula monthly? Every six weeks? Quarterly? I've seen many monthly personal curricula, but I'm personally doing courses that will last three months (twelve weeks/a quarter of the year). I like having a little more time to dive deep into a subject, and also like the idea of them loosely coinciding with the seasons of the year - feeling like I'm moving through the different seasons of my life as I move through the various curricula that I've built for myself. So when I was looking at my own brainstormed list, I was trying to find topics, ideas, skills, areas of study that I could see myself being interested in and really diving deep into for a full twelve weeks.
Keep in mind, even if you're only doing monthly courses, spending four weeks on one topic is still not an insignificant amount of time and probably a lot more time than what you've previously been dedicating to various topics of interest if you've been less intentional about your self-study in the past. Try to separate out the ideas that are maybe a little too narrow for your selected timeframe, maybe better suited to an afternoon or two of research rather than a longer course, or maybe ideas that interest you on a surface level that you would watch an hour long documentary about, but not the kind of idea that you're so passionate about that it will sustain you again for a whole month or eight weeks or twelve weeks depending on your timeline.
Conversely, if you go too broad with it, you're going to have trouble. You want to make sure that your idea is specific enough that you're not getting stuck in the weeds, that you're not lost in the mire of too many ideas, too many possible directions to take your study!
Tip: Focus on 3-4 courses per ‘term’ at most (especially when you’re just getting started) so you don’t burn out! You can always create another curriculum once you finish this one.
Find resources
Now that you've narrowed down your ideas to three or four core topics, skills, or areas of study that you're really interested in, you're going to want to start actually building your courses. And what I found most helpful at this stage was to focus on finding resources to build my courses around (rather than coming up with a highly specific niche topic and struggling to find resources that explore it!) In my case, that was mostly books - you can find really well-researched, really informative, transformative works of literature and nonfiction in just about any topic you're interested in. Of course, if you're not much of a reader or you just have less time, you could focus on short-form writing like articles, or you could go completely away from reading and focus on visual media with documentaries, for example, or maybe focus on podcasts and interviews. The options truly are endless! But if you're like me and want a reading list for each of your courses, I have some tips and tricks for finding the books that perfectly suit your personal curriculum:
Many university courses have their syllabi/reading lists/required reading on their websites. So you can peruse those and get lots of amazing ideas curated by experts in the field you want to study!
If you already own books on a particular topic, you may want to build a course out of them! Focus on the things those books focus on so you can use what you already have, or have fun combining various books on your shelves in unique ways.
If you already own a book or have read a book on this topic, check out the bibliography - see what that author read to write their book, maybe those books will lead you down a good path!
See if there are any universities with online courses that you can audit or take for free/at very low cost that can either supplement the course you want to do or can just be a course you want to take in its entirety.
Go to your local library and ask your librarian for help. I promise they have so much knowledge to share with you, and they will love this idea too!
Try forums (especially Reddit) for resource recommendations from people interested in your field of study.
Course template
Use the button to download the PDF with the Course Syllabus Template to build your own!
Course Syllabus Template
PDF also includes a printable version with a plain white background and black text.
I love this trend and its focus on intellectual curiosity and self-directed learning. I’d love to know what your personal curriculum looks like and which courses you’re excited to dive into!
