Ready or Not: The Truth About Formlessness

When I was in my first year of university, I used to hand-copy my notes. I told myself that I learned best by writing, which, in practice, meant rewriting lecture slides in the name of studying. This continued until my second year, first semester, when I hand-copied a particular slide three times. It was about 90 pages long, and I had “studied” it by writing it out three times.

Then the exam came. I was sure I would do well because, come on now.

I barely escaped failure. Across the ten semesters I spent in school, that course was the one I scored the lowest in.

Why? Because I wasn’t actually learning. I was just transcribing. The real test of studying is recalling information without the source material, breaking it down into your own language, and restructuring it in a way that makes sense. If you doubt this, try copying and pasting a long textbook excerpt into ChatGPT. It won’t regurgitate it verbatim. It will summarize, extract key points, and structure the information logically.

That is how real studying works.

While I was stuck in my cycle of copying notes, my roommate, who would later go on to become the Best Graduating Student, was reading the same slides seven or eight times without ever writing a word. He could read anywhere. In the toilet, on a bus, in the middle of a noisy room. It was fascinating. Yes, he was naturally intelligent, but it was more than that. He was faster. I assumed he was learning through familiarity, immersing himself in the material until he could reconstruct it mentally. Or maybe his brain was just that sharp. But if it were purely intelligence, wouldn’t one read-through have been enough? The real difference was in the repetition without the drag of writing.

We likely spent the same number of total hours studying. The difference was that I spent mine hand-copying notes while he spent his reading and rereading. He knew the material inside out. If intelligence was a factor, then maybe increasing my frequency could improve my retention.

The Experiment

So, in my second year, second semester, I changed my approach. I didn’t abandon writing entirely, but I redefined it. Instead of copying slides word for word, I used a notebook for sketches, graphs, and doodles. Visual cues that summarized key points. I split my screen. One side held the lecture slides, and the other a textbook. I highlighted key details instead of rewriting them.

At first, the time I spent studying felt the same as before because I had to adjust. I kept wanting to hand-copy things. I kept feeling like I wasn’t really studying unless I was writing something down. But slowly, it clicked.

The more I revised, the better I understood. My first read-through of any material rarely gave me more than a general idea, but I learned that was enough. Once I grasped the structure and the overarching concepts, I could fill in the details later. Knowing the outline helped me focus on the right textbook sections, the right videos, and the right additional resources. It prevented me from blindly transcribing things I didn’t yet understand.

Of course, at first, I still believed that studying required a specific environment. A quiet library. A controlled space where I could manage all the variables. I thought I needed the right conditions to focus.

But then something shifted.

The Shift

That semester, I started recovering academically. From then on, I maintained a fairly stable performance.

More importantly, I realized studying wasn’t tied to a location. I could do it anywhere. The whole point of not writing was flexibility. The ability to study without the constraints of space or routine. James Clear talks about this in Atomic Habits. To build a habit, you have to make it easy to do. My roommate made studying effortless because he could do it anywhere. I learned that from him, though I had to modify it to fit my own approach.

Eventually, I drifted back to structured study sessions and multiple routines. I had gained the flexibility of studying without writing about 70% of the time, which meant I could read anywhere and anytime. While I had broken free from the need to write everything down, I still wasn’t completely untethered. I still required certain conditions.

For instance, I preferred reading on my laptop rather than my phone. A larger screen felt necessary, as if reducing friction between me and the material. I also found that a slight degree of discomfort, like an upright chair or a space that wasn’t too cozy, helped me focus. Total freedom in study location was still out of reach. I had loosened my constraints, but I hadn’t eliminated them.

The Bigger Pattern

These days, I feel like I need specific conditions to get started. If there’s no electricity, I struggle to focus. If there’s no music playing, I feel off. If my environment is too noisy, I can’t write. These dependencies remind me of when I thought I needed to write before I could study. When I believed I needed a specific place to concentrate.

It is the same pattern.

I tell myself that I need ideal conditions before I can begin. That I need structure, silence, and control. But that is just another illusion of progress. The same way I once mistook writing for learning. The reality is, conditions will never be perfect. And even if they were, would I take advantage of them? Or would I sit there, paralyzed by the weight of an opportunity that now feels too precious to waste?

There is a kind of trap in believing that form must always precede function. That the right setup, the right mindset, and the right atmosphere must be in place before the real work begins. But what if the reverse is true? What if action creates clarity, not the other way around? What if the best conditions are the ones we train ourselves to work within, however imperfect they may be?

Because here is the thing. There will never be perfect conditions. There will always be noise, distractions, and gaps in resources. But maybe making progress isn’t about eliminating variables. It is about learning to move with them. Learning to push forward even when the setup isn’t ideal.

Maybe form isn’t something we find first. It is something we create by doing. Maybe the best kind of form is the one that emerges from formlessness.