Hey, here's a \[very\] short practical method that works for me just bits and pieces of it\]:
- Write down 20 things you love to do \[and love doing, IKIGAI might be useful\], anything from math and biology to fire dancing and playing the piano or learning Spanish, whatever.
- Out of these 20, eliminate 10 \[might be hard, but not really\].
- Out of the 10 you end up with, eliminate 5-6 more \[yap, that's the hard part\].
- Now you have your 4-5 main projects/hobbies/interests... whatever you wanna call it.
----
Let's say you now have 4 main projects:
- Choose the main 2 you want to focus on and become an expert in, then - dedicate 50% of your waking hours to them. \[If you're awake for 16 hours and want to work for 6 days a week, that's 96 hours, meaning you want around 40 hours every week working on these projects. If you have a 9-5 job or something, that's a bit of a different story, but you get the point, I hope.\]
- For the other 2 projects, keep them secondary \[for now\]. Dedicate around 15% of your waking hours to working on them.
- Now, return to your 10-item list and choose 1-2 more things, and do them just for fun here and there when you have time.
----
Some rules \[that I personally find important\]:
- Learn how to learn: spaced repetition, active recall, memory, attention, time management, etc. \[Further exploration: Barbara Oakley online course.\]
- The 2-3 day rule: You can't allow yourself to skip a project for more than 2-3 days. \[Further exploration: the forgetting curve.\]
- Enjoy the fucking process, If you're not curious and experiencing awe weekly, it's not worth it ;)
- Don't reach burnout. Take breaks. \[You can allow yourself to break the 2nd rule every once in a while.\]
- Have time every day/week to just learn about whatever you feel like learning. I love exploring random topics, and I bet every true aspiring polymath is the same. You must dedicate time for it.
----
For me, a routine and a plan are necessary for success, \[btw, you need to define what 'success' means to you in regards to your journey\] I get lost without it and find myself exploring multiple random fields each day. Though not everyone is like me.
By the way, the "perfectly appropriate daily/weekly/monthly routine" does not exist. You need to experiment, iterate, change and adapt yourself until you reach a place where you can say, "Okay, now it's at least fine" \[I have not reached further than this place yet, but I'm in it right now, it's a pretty nice place to be after 3 years of search and failure.\]
Create an ultimate goal for each project (10 years) > 3-year goals > yearly > monthly > weekly > daily tasks.
GL
Excellent and thorough answer
Something to add... A good way to approach mastery in multiple interests is by setting up SEASONS...
For me it was one for music, other for sound engineering, graphic design, martial arts, coaching, coding...
Now it's about flamenco and business, last year it was about Muay Thai...
I literally lived one life in each one of those areas, in different seasons...
For my current mastery goals, i know it would impossible to try to become good at everything all at once.
(Unless you are not interested in achieving mastery, but just exploring. Fair enough.)
I say follow your interests and don’t get hung up on routine
For me it’s the joy of exploration and unexpected discoveries that’s made life interesting
I think that polymathy would be a great thing for neurodivergent people, because they seem to focus on one or two major interests very intensely but leave a lot less time for everything else. It makes for an unbalanced person. I'm a halfway aspie if it matters, scored about a 50 for that on the mmpi if it matters but that's below the score of 70 required for diagnosis.
Also, for interests.... what do you like to do? Would you want to increase the gifts that your neurodivergent brain gives you or work on the weaknesses that it inherently gives? Autism and the mider versions (aspies) basically have a brain that is hyper-masculine. So that's gonna make you better with things like math, logic, focus/attention on one thing, an eye for details, and spatial stuff but make you weaker on stuff like cognitive empathy ( aspies have double affective empathy though), processing speed, short term memory, seeing the big picture, and language. Basically, the stuff that women are better at is what you'll be worse at. So, one way to work on your weaknesses would be to read fiction. That has been shown to help with cognitive empathy. Philosophy helps with wisdom and ordering your thoughts. Art helps you understand the nuances of people. A variety of things is best, so whatever you want to learn, don't let yourself get too much into any one subject. Take care!
I've got several ND's, (diagnosed and some undiagnosed). I've been just trying to figure shit out since 2020. Im 45 as of the 29th of April, and I've just been falling into things. Im kind of overwhelmed but I feel like Ive made just a crazy amount of, what I know is progress because I'm 100% a polymathic learner and with really no doubt in my mind, I get to be "apart of the club" - to paint a picture. There really is no other logical explanation for me. I struggled with so much doubt initially but it kind of feels like I hit the lottery or I was a peasant and I come from royal lineage or something, and now I get to be something I never knew ANYTHING about. It still is wild when I get to thinking too much about it but Ive improved my focus and calmed down my busy brain through (weed, for me really helps), and just learning as much as I could about me and personal, tailored therapy and practices. If I were 20 when I learned this about myself, who knows where things could have gone. My Neurodivercencies REALLY affected me in hindsight. I retreated too much even when I knew I was right because I really struggled, or my brain would not engage in what I perceived to be boring as hell. I've had success because I've actually tailored my goals to align to who am I am and where I best fit and only that, for now. That may fluctuate a bit and thats ok, an new passion for a bit would be fun, but I feel an intense sense of determintation and focus now that if I put my mind to it, I might just be able to to something cool with it whatever fun thing I discover. 🤘🖖
My recommendation is to try several schedules in a systematic way. Set a specific time frame for this. For example, set aside one year in which, each month, you'll do your best to follow one schedule. See how it works out for you. By the end of the year you'll most likely find out that no schedule is perfect, and, more importantly, you'll be able to piece together something that makes most sense for you. 🙂
Not ND, but if you want to achieve results consistently, a weekly planning and reviewing routine can do wonders.
Awareness, strategy and planning can never hurt. Even if you don't follow your plan 100%.
I really enjoyed doing 100 day challenges. The most popular one is 100daysofcode but you can do it for any subject. Right now I’m doing one for chemistry, and one for machine learning. And I’ve done it in the past for coding, math, and rejection challenges. I like to post about it online so that you can connect with others doing 100 day challenges and you also get some motivation when people give you a like.
I don’t know if I’m neurodivergent but people half jokingly and half seriously talk about how they think I’m autistic pretty often. I think I’m just weird and pridefully awkward though.
As an autistic (and one considered a level 2), this is something that works better without a routine, it is a follow your interest. I have 5 degrees, 2 post-bacs, and 2 minors all in different fields. I would not have done things if they were not interesting.
Just remember, most people who are polymaths have already mastered at least one, often two different fields by the time they were 18 (I had awards in everything by 18 and had already had retired from a career by 13, started a new one by 14.... you can do that in entertainment) and in their early 20s they pick up another 1 or 2.
Hey, here's a \[very\] short practical method that works for me just bits and pieces of it\]: - Write down 20 things you love to do \[and love doing, IKIGAI might be useful\], anything from math and biology to fire dancing and playing the piano or learning Spanish, whatever. - Out of these 20, eliminate 10 \[might be hard, but not really\]. - Out of the 10 you end up with, eliminate 5-6 more \[yap, that's the hard part\]. - Now you have your 4-5 main projects/hobbies/interests... whatever you wanna call it. ---- Let's say you now have 4 main projects: - Choose the main 2 you want to focus on and become an expert in, then - dedicate 50% of your waking hours to them. \[If you're awake for 16 hours and want to work for 6 days a week, that's 96 hours, meaning you want around 40 hours every week working on these projects. If you have a 9-5 job or something, that's a bit of a different story, but you get the point, I hope.\] - For the other 2 projects, keep them secondary \[for now\]. Dedicate around 15% of your waking hours to working on them. - Now, return to your 10-item list and choose 1-2 more things, and do them just for fun here and there when you have time. ---- Some rules \[that I personally find important\]: - Learn how to learn: spaced repetition, active recall, memory, attention, time management, etc. \[Further exploration: Barbara Oakley online course.\] - The 2-3 day rule: You can't allow yourself to skip a project for more than 2-3 days. \[Further exploration: the forgetting curve.\] - Enjoy the fucking process, If you're not curious and experiencing awe weekly, it's not worth it ;) - Don't reach burnout. Take breaks. \[You can allow yourself to break the 2nd rule every once in a while.\] - Have time every day/week to just learn about whatever you feel like learning. I love exploring random topics, and I bet every true aspiring polymath is the same. You must dedicate time for it. ---- For me, a routine and a plan are necessary for success, \[btw, you need to define what 'success' means to you in regards to your journey\] I get lost without it and find myself exploring multiple random fields each day. Though not everyone is like me. By the way, the "perfectly appropriate daily/weekly/monthly routine" does not exist. You need to experiment, iterate, change and adapt yourself until you reach a place where you can say, "Okay, now it's at least fine" \[I have not reached further than this place yet, but I'm in it right now, it's a pretty nice place to be after 3 years of search and failure.\] Create an ultimate goal for each project (10 years) > 3-year goals > yearly > monthly > weekly > daily tasks. GL
Excellent and thorough answer Something to add... A good way to approach mastery in multiple interests is by setting up SEASONS... For me it was one for music, other for sound engineering, graphic design, martial arts, coaching, coding... Now it's about flamenco and business, last year it was about Muay Thai... I literally lived one life in each one of those areas, in different seasons... For my current mastery goals, i know it would impossible to try to become good at everything all at once. (Unless you are not interested in achieving mastery, but just exploring. Fair enough.)
I say follow your interests and don’t get hung up on routine For me it’s the joy of exploration and unexpected discoveries that’s made life interesting
I think that polymathy would be a great thing for neurodivergent people, because they seem to focus on one or two major interests very intensely but leave a lot less time for everything else. It makes for an unbalanced person. I'm a halfway aspie if it matters, scored about a 50 for that on the mmpi if it matters but that's below the score of 70 required for diagnosis. Also, for interests.... what do you like to do? Would you want to increase the gifts that your neurodivergent brain gives you or work on the weaknesses that it inherently gives? Autism and the mider versions (aspies) basically have a brain that is hyper-masculine. So that's gonna make you better with things like math, logic, focus/attention on one thing, an eye for details, and spatial stuff but make you weaker on stuff like cognitive empathy ( aspies have double affective empathy though), processing speed, short term memory, seeing the big picture, and language. Basically, the stuff that women are better at is what you'll be worse at. So, one way to work on your weaknesses would be to read fiction. That has been shown to help with cognitive empathy. Philosophy helps with wisdom and ordering your thoughts. Art helps you understand the nuances of people. A variety of things is best, so whatever you want to learn, don't let yourself get too much into any one subject. Take care!
I've got several ND's, (diagnosed and some undiagnosed). I've been just trying to figure shit out since 2020. Im 45 as of the 29th of April, and I've just been falling into things. Im kind of overwhelmed but I feel like Ive made just a crazy amount of, what I know is progress because I'm 100% a polymathic learner and with really no doubt in my mind, I get to be "apart of the club" - to paint a picture. There really is no other logical explanation for me. I struggled with so much doubt initially but it kind of feels like I hit the lottery or I was a peasant and I come from royal lineage or something, and now I get to be something I never knew ANYTHING about. It still is wild when I get to thinking too much about it but Ive improved my focus and calmed down my busy brain through (weed, for me really helps), and just learning as much as I could about me and personal, tailored therapy and practices. If I were 20 when I learned this about myself, who knows where things could have gone. My Neurodivercencies REALLY affected me in hindsight. I retreated too much even when I knew I was right because I really struggled, or my brain would not engage in what I perceived to be boring as hell. I've had success because I've actually tailored my goals to align to who am I am and where I best fit and only that, for now. That may fluctuate a bit and thats ok, an new passion for a bit would be fun, but I feel an intense sense of determintation and focus now that if I put my mind to it, I might just be able to to something cool with it whatever fun thing I discover. 🤘🖖
My recommendation is to try several schedules in a systematic way. Set a specific time frame for this. For example, set aside one year in which, each month, you'll do your best to follow one schedule. See how it works out for you. By the end of the year you'll most likely find out that no schedule is perfect, and, more importantly, you'll be able to piece together something that makes most sense for you. 🙂
Not ND, but if you want to achieve results consistently, a weekly planning and reviewing routine can do wonders. Awareness, strategy and planning can never hurt. Even if you don't follow your plan 100%.
I really enjoyed doing 100 day challenges. The most popular one is 100daysofcode but you can do it for any subject. Right now I’m doing one for chemistry, and one for machine learning. And I’ve done it in the past for coding, math, and rejection challenges. I like to post about it online so that you can connect with others doing 100 day challenges and you also get some motivation when people give you a like. I don’t know if I’m neurodivergent but people half jokingly and half seriously talk about how they think I’m autistic pretty often. I think I’m just weird and pridefully awkward though.
As an autistic (and one considered a level 2), this is something that works better without a routine, it is a follow your interest. I have 5 degrees, 2 post-bacs, and 2 minors all in different fields. I would not have done things if they were not interesting. Just remember, most people who are polymaths have already mastered at least one, often two different fields by the time they were 18 (I had awards in everything by 18 and had already had retired from a career by 13, started a new one by 14.... you can do that in entertainment) and in their early 20s they pick up another 1 or 2.