Every good engineer understands abstraction. It’s how we build complex systems without losing our minds in the details. It's also the most critical skill we fail to apply to our own lives—especially when it comes to learning.
You know the routine. You read a game-changing book, get fired up, and highlight dozens of brilliant passages. A month later, you can't recall a single key idea, let alone apply it.
I did this for years. I read Atomic Habits, filled a notebook with notes, and yet my own routines stayed a mess. The problem wasn't a lack of effort; it was the lack of a system to sort the signal from the noise.
My solution is the Abstraction Engine: a dead-simple, two-step method to turn the books you read into skills you actually use.
The Two-Step Abstraction Engine
This is a pen-and-paper process you run as you finish a chapter. It’s fast, practical, and works for any book.
Step 1: Build Your Core Kit
After reading a chapter, open a notebook to a fresh page. Your goal is to ignore 90% of the content—the stories, the stats, the filler—and capture only two things:
- Big Ideas (The 'What'): What is the core, timeless principle here? Write it down in your own words.
Example: Small, consistent actions compound into massive results. - Your Fit (The 'How'): How will you apply this idea to your life or work? Be specific and create a direct action.
Example: I will write my single most important task for the day before I open my email.
Pro Tip: If a specific story or detail is too good to lose, don't write it out. Just add a tiny pointer you can look up later: Ref: British cycling story, p. 18. This keeps your kit lean but gives you a lifeline.
Step 2: Use and Engage
Knowledge isn't yours until you've wrestled with it. This step is about turning passive reading into active engagement.
For a habits book, this is easy. The action is to "go do the five push-ups." But what if you're reading a dense book about programming, kernel design, or how crypto works?
The principle is the same, but the "action" changes. It becomes an immediate test of your comprehension.
- Act (Engage Immediately): Close the book and, for the next 5-10 minutes, force yourself to process the information. Don't just re-read—re-create.
- Explain it: Articulate the core concept out loud, as if you were teaching a colleague.
- Sketch it: Draw a diagram or flowchart of the system from memory.
- Code a Toy Example: Write a few lines of pseudocode or a tiny script that implements the logic in its simplest form.
- Tweak (Find the Gaps): As you do this, you will inevitably hit a wall. This is the most valuable part of the process. Your "tweak" is to identify your blind spots. Ask yourself:
- Where did my explanation get fuzzy?
- Which part of my diagram felt like a guess?
Make a quick note of that gap on your Core Kit page. This feedback loop—Act, Identify a Gap, Refine—builds deep, durable knowledge far more effectively than passively reading ever could.
That’s it. This engine turns your book pile from a source of guilt into an arsenal of practical skills. It’s fast, action-oriented, and forces you to build real understanding.
Challenge: Build Your First Kit
Grab a book you're reading right now. When you finish the next chapter, take five minutes to build its Core Kit. Then, immediately "act" on it—either by doing the task or by sketching the concept.
See how it feels to truly engage with an idea instead of just highlighting it.
Stay sharp,
Marwin