Guide · Ways of learning

How to become a polymath in everyday life

A polymath is someone whose knowledge spans many subjects, often with real achievement in more than one. The word comes from the Greek polymathēs, meaning "having learned much". A related term, Renaissance man, comes from the era of figures like Leonardo da Vinci, when an educated person was expected to know art, science and letters.

Few people will paint a masterpiece and design a flying machine. But the habits behind wide learning are within reach of anyone with a few minutes a day.

Famous polymaths

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 to 1519): painter, engineer and anatomist whose notebooks range from studies of the heart to designs for machines.
Ibn Sina, known in Europe as Avicenna (about 980 to 1037): physician and philosopher whose Canon of Medicine was taught for centuries.
Hildegard of Bingen (1098 to 1179): abbess, composer and writer on medicine and the natural world.
Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790): printer, writer, scientist known for his experiments with electricity, inventor and diplomat.
Mary Somerville (1780 to 1872): mathematician, astronomer and science writer whose books connected the physical sciences for a broad audience.

What polymaths have in common

Historical polymaths had different talents and circumstances, but they share a few traits: steady curiosity, the habit of writing and reviewing what they learned, and a tendency to borrow methods from one field and use them in another. None of those traits requires genius.

7 habits for becoming a polymath

Learn a little every day. Consistency beats intensity. Ten focused minutes daily adds up to more than an occasional long weekend of study.
Go wide on purpose. Rotate through subjects you would not normally choose: if you read history, try a lesson on chemistry or economics.
Use retrieval practice. Quiz yourself on what you learned yesterday and last week. Research on the testing effect shows that recalling information strengthens memory more than rereading it.
Space your reviews. Come back to ideas after increasing gaps of days and weeks rather than cramming them once.
Connect ideas across fields. Keep asking how a new idea relates to something you already know. Those links are where original thinking comes from.
Keep a notebook. Leonardo filled thousands of pages. Writing down questions and summaries in your own words turns passing interest into knowledge.
Build one or two deep skills. Breadth is most valuable when it feeds into something you can do well, whether that is your job, a craft or a long-running project.

Polymath or generalist?

The words overlap. Generalist usually describes broad, working knowledge, especially at work. Polymath usually implies deep achievement in several fields. Most modern polymaths start as generalists: wide reading and learning first, with a few areas growing deeper over time.

Start building wide knowledge

Generalist is a free iPhone app for exactly this kind of learning. Short lessons cover history, science, psychology, technology, the arts and more. Topics connect to each other, and review sessions bring back earlier questions so knowledge lasts beyond the first read.