Most study advice today assumes the problem is a lack of information. Schopenhauer, the XIX century German philosopher, would disagree. His recurring warning—across essays on reading, thinking, and intellectual independence—is that the real risk is substituting other people’s thoughts for your own.
That critique feels even more relevant now: endless summaries, tutorial playlists, and “quick explainers” can keep you busy while quietly reducing your capacity to form durable, independent understanding. The goal of studying is not to accumulate pages read or videos watched. The goal is to build judgment.d call this building judgment.
Below is a practical way to incorporate Schpenhauer’s core study principles:
| Step | What to do | How to do it |
| 1 | Separate learning from doing | After 30 mins. of reading, stop all input for 15 mins. |
| 2 | Depth over coverage | Don’t leave a topic until you can reproduce the logic and apply it under exam pressure |
| 3 | Write a personal page | After each unit/block, write one page in your own words |
| 4 | Schedule deep problem-solving blocks | Schedule 3 weekly blocks of one hour each, focusing on one skill |
| 5 | Prioritize mechanics over shortcuts | Start from the canonical approach (text, standard notation) before using summaries or formula sheets |
| 6 | Replace highlighting with exam interrogations | Convert each section into questions actuaries are actually tested on: “identify”, “derive”, “approximate”, “compare” |
Schopenhauer’s study advice is not about reading fewer books or materials for the sake of austerity. It’s about safeguarding your ability to think—an asset that gets diluted when study becomes consumption.
If you adopt just one change, make it this: after every learning session, produce a small artifact of independent thought (a memo, a solved problem with reasoning, a set of questions you generated). Over weeks, that practice compounds into something most students never achieve: durable understanding and intellectual confidence.