With the right mindset and approach, it is possible to follow several passions and do them successfully.
Leonardo Da Vinci was more than just a famous artist - he was also a mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. Da Vinci was a polymath - a person with multiple interests or passions. Other well-known polymaths were Newton, Aristotle, Galileo, Faraday, Leibniz, and more. Most successful entrepreneurs of current times, such as Elon Mush, Warren Buffet, and Jeff Bezos, are polymaths too.

Multipotentiality is a strength

Time Management

Spread out your interests/passions over seven days instead of 24-hours. Assuming you are awake for 16 hours a day, you now have around 112 hours to tend to everything.
We box our decision making into a 24-hour window. We feel like we have to accomplish all our tasks within the 24 hour day - such as our jobs, interests, and leisure time. But if you had over 100 hours to do all of these tasks, how much would you be able to accomplish?

Change your definition of time

Creating a system allows you to allocate a set time to each pursuit as well as other important tasks.
A system helps to batch tasks, consider what needs to be done on priority and what can be done at leisure.

A system for each of your pursuits

Batch tasks into 45 - 90 minutes depending on the complexity and how much you want to get done.
After your work window is over, take a short 15-minute break to drink water, check your phone, get a snack, or just move around. Then get back to a completely different task that uses another skill set for the next work window.

Redefine leisure and breaks

Your phone should provide as little distraction as possible. A few systems to help you stop a phone addiction:
<ul>
<li>Don't look at your screen immediately after waking up. Use an analog alarm and keep your phone on the other side of the room.</li>
<li>Turn off notifications for all social media apps</li>
<li>Delete unnecessary apps that you are not using.</li>
<li>Stop keeping your phone next to you while sleeping, eating, showering, or working.</li>
<li>Use a habit tracker on your desktop to stay on track with all these steps.</li>
</ul>

Your phone should provide as little distraction as possible

When you have multiple interests, reading becomes essential. Focus on reading more about polymaths by polymaths.
There are times you will feel stuck or may need a motivational push. That's when this practice will be useful.

Read when you feel stuck

There will be times where your schedule will not work for you. That's when a morning routine will pull you through. A morning routine works because it gives you a small period of solitude and focus. 
How you wake up affects your levels of success in every single area of your life. Focused, productive, and successful mornings create a focused, productive, and successful days.

Morning routines: moments of solitude and focus

It can be challenging to have multiple interests - you may be critisised for following too many pursuits. Another issue is feeling guilty for giving up an interest half way. Quitting is not giving up. It is choosing to focus your attention on something more important.
Points to help you manage the guilt:
<ul>
<li>Consume social media content with caution.</li>
<li>Limit your time with people who speak negatively about your passions.</li>
<li>Journal. To give clarity, write down your thoughts and the reasons for them.</li>
<li>Forgive yourself when you choose something not true to yourself because of external pressure. You'll get there. Forgive others too, as they don't know better.</li>
</ul>

Manage the guilt

When you're doing many things, there will be times when you feel burnt out or overwhelmed. 
Simply switch off when this happens. You don't have to keep on going if your body and mind won't allow it. Ways of rejuvenating include travelling and binge-watching films. Consider slotting in a day where you're doing nothing.

Addressing burnout

"In the history of ideas, it’s repeatedly happened that an idea, developed in one area for one purpose, finds an unexpected application elsewhere. Concepts developed purely for philosophy of mathematics turned out to be just what you needed to build a computer. Statistical formulae for understanding genetic change in biology are now applied in both economics and in programming."

Quote

Growing up, one person I was completely fascinated with was Leonardo Da Vinci. I was 13 when I found out that being one of the world’s most famous artists was just one of his many attributes. He was…

G rowing up, one person I was completely fascinated with was Leonardo Da Vinci . I was 13 when I found out that being one of the world’s most famous artists was just one of his many attributes. He was also a mathematician, a scientist, a philosopher, and he made discoveries on everything from anatomy to engineering!

That came as quite a surprise! How could he be following all these different interests? How was he so successful as an artist when that wasn’t the only thing he was doing? Weren’t we always told to stick to one path and one path only?

“Jack of all trades, master of none ,” my father would tell me repeatedly. It wasn’t until very recently that I found out this wasn’t the complete saying. The actual saying goes like this:

Jack of all trades is a master of none but is oftentimes better than a master of one.

My brain did a double dive! By this point I had already gone against the conventional wisdom of sticking to doing just one thing. Reading this quote, however, cemented my belief further and brought a smile to my face.

Da Vinci was a polymath . If you’re reading this article, you probably already know this. Today, we have various terms to describe a person with multiple interests or passions. Multipotentialite is a personal favourite.

The more I research on this topic, the more I realise that multipotentiality has always been a thing. In his book Human Accomplishments, Charles Murray finds that 15 of the 20 most significant scientists in history were multipotentialites! This includes figures such as Newton, Aristotle, Descartes, Galileo, Faraday, Leibniz, Darwin and more. If you look at some of the biggest, most successful entrepreneurs of current times — Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos — they’re all multipotentialites or polymaths too!

Once I started understanding the scope of multipotentiality, I became more at ease with my own interests in various fields. To give you a brief idea, I am currently pursuing writing, social media marketing, painting, blogging, video creation and online coaching. I do these in addition to running a product-based business (vegan milks, if you’re interested) in my home town.

If you want to understand how multipotentiality is indeed a strength in today’s day and age, this <a href="https://medium.com/accelerated-intelligence/modern-polymath-81f882ce52db">Medium article </a>by Michael Simmons is an excellent resource.

Over the years, I’ve realised that you do not need to stick to one interest or pursuit to be successful. With the right mindset and approach, it is possible to follow several passions, do them successfully, and not go insane while doing so.

I’ve now been practicing the following steps for about 3 years. I’ve had jobs and freelancing gigs during this time and I was able to manage my passion projects alongside each. These tips have really helped me hone my skills and stay focused. And I hope they’ll help you pursue everything you want to.

Don’t worry, it’s simpler than it sounds.

Our bodies and minds are attuned to the circadian rhythm. So, when we look at decision making, we box it into a 24 hour window. We feel like we have to accomplish all our tasks within a day — everything from our jobs, interests, leisure time and everything in between.

I did this for the longest time and I can tell you the burnouts were frequent and long-lasting.=.

Let’s take an example. Here’s a list of everything that you supposedly want to do:

<ul><li>Job (paying work) </li><li>Write </li><li>Paint </li><li>Cook </li><li>Workout </li><li>Watch a movie </li><li>Read a book </li><li>Take time out for self care </li><li>Travel </li><li>Go for a run </li><li>Do some gardening </li><li>Listen to a podcast </li> </ul>

If you’re awake for an average of 16 hours, can you realistically attempt to achieve all of these in that time frame? Sounds overwhelming, doesn’t it? It is. In order to accomplish all of these in one day, you’d have less than 2 hours for each. And some of them just cannot happen in that time.

Yet, the chances are that you try and cram as much as you can during the time you’re awake. Why do we do this? Because humans grossly underestimate the amount of time it will take for them to do things. It’s called the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065260110430014">Planning Fallacy </a>.

I did this for the longest time. I would plan to come back home from a 9 hour shift to work on a passion project and also learn a language. And I would do it. But for just about 3 days. After that I wanted to throw away everything and retire to the mountains.

What if you had over a 100 hours to do all of these tasks? How much would you be able to accomplish? And would your mind be at peace?

If you spread out your interests/passions over a 7-day period instead of restricting it to the 24-hour clock, you now have around 112 hours to tend to everything (assuming you’re awake for 16 hours). Even if you spend an average of 5 hours on each activity (that is, excluding your job), you’ll still have about 50 hours to spare each week.

That is what I mean by changing your definition of time.

You could use an even longer time-window. The weekly schedule is what works for me.

2. Create a system for each of your pursuits

When you want to do a lot of things, it’s very easy to lose track of time and forget important things. <a href="https://hbr.org/2010/12/you-cant-multi-task-so-stop-tr">The human brain is not wired for multitasking </a>, as several scientists and studies will tell you. Yet we think we can keep it all in our head and do everything all the time.

For me, creating a system helps me combat this issue. It allows me to allocate a set time to each of my pursuits as well as other important tasks.

I have created a weekly schedule for myself which looks a little something like this:

<ul><li>I spend about 8 hours a week to tend to the most important business tasks. These include coaching sessions, workshops, executing the marketing plan for the business (like running ads, networking, PR etc.). This time is spread out throughout the week with about two hours on average per day. </li><li>I choose three days of the week to create my static content for all my platforms. This includes writing a blog post and clicking pictures for Instagram, writing my newsletter and a few other tidbits. Usually these days are Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. </li><li>I paint on two days of the week, depending on when I have the most time. There is really no timetable here. If all of my work on Monday gets done on time, I’ll sit with my paintbrush then. But usually for me those days are Friday and Saturday. </li><li>I spend two to three days of the week working on video content. This is the place where I lag the most. But for the most part, Friday-Sunday is when I work on my video content. </li> </ul>

Please keep in mind that I don’t spend the entire day doing these activities. On average it takes me about 5–6 hours per day to accomplish what I’ve set out to do.

That still leaves me with about 5–6 hours of leisure time that I spend reading, learning something new, playing an instrument or just catching up with friends and family.

The things that I do every single day, regardless of all my other work include yoga, reading, and journalling.

Creating this system helps me batch tasks, figure out what needs to be done on priority and what can be done at leisure. And it ultimately ensures that I am getting to do what I want to do.

This is once again a part of my system. And it’s one of the biggest reasons why I am able to smoothly flow from one thing to the next.

I batch my tasks into 45–90 minute windows depending on the complexity and how much I want/need to get done. This usually allows me to get a lot done within a small period of time.

After my work window is over, I’ll take a short 10–15 minute break to drink water, check my phone, grab a bite or just move a little. And then I get down to doing a completely different task for the next work window.

To give you an example, I sit and write for about 90 minutes every morning. After my 15 minute break, I get down to doing yoga. I take a long break after that for breakfast and daily chores. Once I get back to work again, I’ll start with something such as clicking pictures or shooting a video. And so on.

These tasks take different skill sets and occupy different areas of the brain, giving me a chance to feel relaxed without having taken a conventional break such as watching a movie or scrolling down social media (which, if you’ve been doing your reading, is not really a break at all).

You don’t need to go exactly like this, obviously! If you love watching films, slot it in somewhere. You’ll be much better at staying on track instead of just falling down the endless media consumption rabbit hole.

<ul><li>Batch tasks into timely work windows (45–90 minute works for me) </li><li>Take a short break after each work window </li><li>Switch to a task/interest that requires a different skill set from what you were doing previously </li><li>Repeat </li> </ul>

4. Set your phone to provide as little distraction as possible

Our cell phones might be one of the biggest killers of time and productivity. This <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kaytiezimmerman/2017/03/26/is-your-cell-phone-killing-your-productivity-at-work/#2fcd7353605c">Forbes article </a>makes a good case for it.

I’ve experienced this first hand. Up until a few months ago, I was in a state of complete addiction. I would wake up with my phone in hand. I’d take it with me to the bathroom and have it with me while I was working, showering, eating, and even while sleeping.

What I thought was a humble few minutes of scrolling through Instagram, turned out to be hours of wasted time. I realised this after looking at my screen time report one day.

It also caused a lot of procrastination. I was looking at social media, hoping to do a lot of the things that people were doing, I was losing precious time I could actually spend doing all of those things. And of course it isn’t the best for health. Some studies even suggest it <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/cell-phones-fact-sheet">increases the risk of cancer </a>.

What jolted me back to the reality of cellphone use was listening to Chris Bailey talk about it in his book Hyperfocus. That’s when I decided to put my foot (read phone) down. The addiction had to stop.

So, I figured out a few systems to help me get there.

<ul><li>First, I got in the habit of not looking at my screen immediately after waking up. Setting an analog alarm helped a lot with this, as did keeping my phone on the other side of the room as I went to sleep. </li><li>Second, I turned off notifications for all social media apps except Whatsapp (to keep in touch with family and friends). </li><li>Third, I deleted all unnecessary apps that didn’t have any use being on my phone. These included shopping apps, games or any other apps I found distracting. </li><li>Fourth, I stopped keeping my phone next to me while sleeping, eating, showering, and eventually working. </li><li>And finally, I made a habit tracker on my Notion app (desktop) to stay on track with all of these steps. </li> </ul>

This resulted in me getting out of the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=phone+dopamine+dependence&oq=phone+dopamine+dependence&aqs=chrome..69i57j33l3.5456j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">dopamine dependence </a>that happens when you’re addicted to your smartphone. Eventually, I found myself using the device less and less.

This freed up an unbelievable amount of time. Almost 4–5 hours per day! And that is all that I needed to pursue the passions I really wanted to.

One of the biggest benefits of living in the internet age is that we have access to some of the greatest minds in history. While reading in itself is important, as someone with multiple interests, I progressed a lot more when I started to focus on reading more about polymaths and by polymaths.

Despite having the most productive set-up going for you, there will be times when you feel stuck and need an extra motivational push. That’s when this practice comes in handy. One of the most wonderful resources I’ve come across on the web is <a href="https://puttylike.com/">Puttylike </a>. It’s a community for multipotentialites and by multipotentialites. You can get everything from inspiration to clarification on there.

A lot of the tips I share in this article have been picked up from reading about multipotentialites.

“I spent most of my life trying to specialize myself. I went to theater school, film school, music school, mime school … Finally, I was able to gather enough knowledge to build the confidence to create my own work, that goes utterly against the sense of specializations.” ― Nuno Roque

As someone with multiple interests, there are invariably times when I get overwhelmed. This mostly happens when I’m not able to do what I want to do, when I want to do it. But such is life.

There will be times when you’re not able to stick to your schedule or not able to work on a certain task or interest. That’s when you’ll realise the importance of having a morning routine.

Because it gives you a small period of solitude and focus. It allows you to centre yourself and be with your own thoughts before the humdrum of the world, and in this case your passions, takes over.

Doing work, even if it is on your passions, is taxing on the body and the mind. And having a simple but effective morning routine can help counter that substantially.

As Hal Elrod writes in his book, The Miracle Morning:

How you wake up each day and your morning routine (or lack thereof) dramatically affects your levels of success in every single area of your life. Focused, productive, successful mornings generate focused, productive, successful days — which inevitably create a successful life — in the same way that unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre mornings generate unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre days, and ultimately a mediocre quality of life. By simply changing the way you wake up in the morning, you can transform any area of your life, faster than you ever thought possible.

I’ve personally experienced the effects of having a morning routine and also of not having one. And I can say without a doubt that I will not want to go back to not having one.

Over the years, I’ve simplified it and it changes depending on what is most important in my life right now. Nowadays, I wake up around 5 and go through a routine of writing, practicing yoga, and meditation. Sometimes, when I have to focus on a project, my days start with that.

Having those few hours in the morning makes a huge difference on my productivity and mood for the entire day.

In a society that still focuses heavily on specialisation, it can get challenging to follow a path of your choosing. With counterintuitive communication from every side, and sometimes even from your own family, you can end up feeling guilty for having multiple interests in the first place.

Another issue you might face is feeling guilty for giving up an interest half way, leading to feelings of flakiness. Once again, this happens because we’ve grown up in a world that favours specialists.

I’ve had this. It still resurfaces from time to time. It tremendously affected my self image in the past. But I have more control over it now thanks to the internet, resources and my group of friends.

Quitting is not giving up, it’s choosing to focus your attention on something more important. Quitting is not losing confidence, it’s realising that there are more valuable ways you can spend your time. Quitting is not making excuses, it’s learning to be more productive, efficient and effective instead. Quitting is letting go of things (or people) that are sucking the life out of you so you can do more things that will bring you strength.” ― Osayi Osar-Emokpae, Impossible Is Stupid

Here are a few things that helped and can help you manage the guilt:

<ul><li>Consume social media content consciously. A lot of the auto suggestion comes from the media we consume. And that can affect your mental space. </li><li>Limit interaction with people who speak negatively about your passions and interests. It doesn’t have to be forever, just till you’re able to get into a mental space where their words don’t affect you. </li><li>Journal! Write down your thoughts and the reasons for them. It will give you more clarity than anything else. This is one of the most profound practice I’ve come across. I don’t do it everyday, just on the days I’m feeling overwhelmed and it helps a lot. </li><li>Forgive yourself and others. Forgive yourself when you choose something not true to yourself because of the pressure. You’ll get there. Forgive others when they pressure you to do so something you don’t want. They don’t know better. </li> </ul>

Do not underestimate the power of going off your schedule and taking a break.

When you’re doing many things, there will be times when you feel burnt out and overwhelmed. Once you learn to read your behaviour, spotting these phases will become easier.

Simply switch off when this happens. Just like you don’t have to stick to doing one thing because the world says so, you don’t have to keep on grinding if your body and mind doesn’t allow it.

My favourite ways of rejuvenating include travelling and binge-watching films. Sometimes my breaks are just a day long, sometimes they last for a week. They haven’t lasted longer than that and have allowed me to get back to my groove with the same gusto.

And regardless, keep a day of the week when you’re not doing anything. When I’m planning out my week, I’ll slot in a day of just chilling. It’s not fixed. But it is hugely beneficial.

Bottom line: Mutlipotentiality is a strength. Use it to your advantage

Philosopher Patrick Grim makes a good point for it:

In the history of ideas, it’s repeatedly happened that an idea, developed in one area for one purpose, finds an unexpected application elsewhere. Concepts developed purely for philosophy of mathematics turned out to be just what you needed to build a computer. Statistical formulae for understanding genetic change in biology are now applied in both economics and in programming

While you might not know which of your ideas could potentially change the world, being a polymath can definitely change yours. With several specialisations becoming obsolete and artificial intelligence becoming stronger than ever, being a multipotentialite might turn out to be the biggest strength. Especially since we don’t know what will be relevant five to 10 years down the line.

Trust in your ability and your interests. Pursue them with grit and don’t let outside forces tell you otherwise.

Bite‑sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

How I Learned to Manage Multiple Interests without Going Insane

Multipotentiality is a strength

Change your definition of time

A system for each of your pursuits

Redefine leisure and breaks

Your phone should provide as little distraction as possible

Read when you feel stuck

Morning routines: moments of solitude and focus

Manage the guilt

Addressing burnout

PATRICK GRIM

6 Lessons on Happiness I Learned By Going Through My Darkest Times

Why the Future Belongs to Polymaths

Out of the mouth of a master, so what did Leonardo da Vinci have to say.

Bite‑sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

How I Learned to Manage Multiple Interests without Going Insane

Multipotentiality is a strength

Change your definition of time

A system for each of your pursuits

Redefine leisure and breaks

Your phone should provide as little distraction as possible

Read when you feel stuck

Morning routines: moments of solitude and focus

Manage the guilt

Addressing burnout

PATRICK GRIM

6 Lessons on Happiness I Learned By Going Through My Darkest Times

Why the Future Belongs to Polymaths

Out of the mouth of a master, so what did Leonardo da Vinci have to say.

Bite‑sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career