The polymathic brilliance of Thomas Jefferson spanned continents and revolutionized society.
The question is, how?
And why was polymathy so key to Jefferson’s success?
Part of the answer is because his thirst for knowledge knew no bounds.
But more importantly, Jefferson had a strategy for retaining what he learned.
From multiple fields.
The way that Jefferson tracked his knowledge helped make him great in multiple fields.
I’m talking about everything from agriculture to technological innovations in writing, language learning and politics.
Everything about his ability to challenge conventions and relentlessly pursue that knowledge that helped him change the fabric of society boils down to four things:
- His personal knowledge management systems
- His polymathic mindset
- His community-focus
- His consistency
Combined, Jefferson’s life of achievement offers us a blueprint for how we can become better polymaths ourselves.
So if you’re interested in constant growth as you explore multiple disciplines, the lessons I’ve extracted for you from Jefferson’s life will ignite your potential.
Let’s dive in.
What is a Polymath? Why Thomas Jefferson Perfectly Fits the Definition
In case you’re new to the term, any individual with deep knowledge and proficiency across multiple disciplines, counts as a polymath.
It matters that this knowledge has already been established, distinguishing the polymath from the multipotentialite.
When it comes to Jefferson as a polymath, here’s a rapid-fire overview of some of his skills and accomplishments in a variety of domains:
- Linguistics: Mastered Latin, Greek, Anglo-Saxon, and Italian. Jefferson created his own Anglo-Saxon dictionary by tracing thousands of words to their Old English roots.
- Science and Invention: Participated in testing early carbon paper and using a pantograph for simultaneous copying, along with a portable copying press. He also designed a “mould board plow of least resistance.”
- Agriculture: Kept a detailed “Garden Book” tracking meteorology and plant imports.
- Education and Mentorship: Founded the University of Virginia, planning its buildings and rules; mentored students with curated book lists and study plans.
- Law and Politics: Drafted the Declaration of Independence, researched and challenged primogeniture, advocated for free schools and a free press.
- Literature and Analysis: Produced the Jefferson Bible through textual analysis. Maintained a commonplace book for reflections, akin to a Zettelkasten system.
- Organizational Skills: Tracked data in pocket-sized memorandum books and erasable “ivory books.”
- Skillfully outsourced tasks, matching people to roles.
- Music: Played violin daily.
- Designed his 1776 lap desk, mirroring other polymaths like David Lynch who crafted his own furniture for films like Lost Highway.
- Persistence and Vision: Contributed to libraries and universities despite personal debt. Jefferson persistently pushed for educational and social reforms.
Where do all these talents come from?
Let’s look at the origins of his polymathic study habits next:
Setting the Foundation: Jefferson’s Early Learning Experiences
A polymath is also not necessarily an autodidact, though usually some form of self-education is involved. That was certainly the case in Jefferson’s life, including from a young age.
For example, in his first known letter at just 17 years of age, Jefferson expressed concern about anything that would take his time away from studying Greek, Latin and mathematics. He was already committed to extracurricular learning.
Thanks to his father’s library, he was able to read some of the greats at a young age, including Shakespeare, Swift, Bacon, Locke, Newton and Cervantes.
One of his polymathic skills involved book curation and storing them.
Despite losing his first library to a fire at his Shadwell home in 1770, he rebuilt his collection. By 1815, he had amassed 6,487 volumes, not counting many folios.
“Folio” can mean different things, but in his time, the term typically referred to large-format volumes reserved for authoritative works. The fact that Jefferson collected such books demonstrates his scholarly ambitions.
His collection with also multilingual and well-organized.
As we’ll discuss later, Jefferson kept a variety of notebooks and special kinds of flashcards to assist in his style of structured learning.
In particular, Jefferson’s habit of keeping a “commonplace book” has helped historians track his many polymath personality traits.
As Jefferson once wrote:
“I was in the habit of abridging and commonplacing what I read, meriting it, and sometimes mixing my own reflections on the subject.”
This comment further underscores his disciplined approach to learning.
Finally, we should note his modesty. He was skeptical of honorary degrees, viewing them as unearned accolades. This choice reflects the true polymath’s preference for authentic mastery over superficial recognition.
Jefferson’s Major Contributions as a Polymath
Spanning politics, agriculture, science, linguistics and more, Jefferson’s contributions are astonishing to behold.
Let’s look at the highlights I’ve found most interesting in my research for how they underscore the key polymathic skills I believe anyone can develop.
One: Politics and Governance
Jefferson’s political legacy is what we hear of most often. And for good reason.
He not only drafted the Declaration of Independence. He served as the third president of the United States.
A huge part of his political success stemmed from his research skills, particularly in law.
He lived during a time when legal books were scarce, yet he tirelessly pursued the resources he needed. His investments demonstrated his commitment.
More impressively, he was devoted to legal education itself. As Silvio Bedini discusses in Thomas Jefferson: Statesman of Science, he created a book list for other would-be legal scholars and offered to visit one learner to help during the learning process.
These efforts at empowering others show that his commitment to positive change was both local and nation with a special devotion to individuals.
At the macro level, you can see this same conviction play out in Jefferson’s efforts to abolish primogeniture.
This law gave the eldest son the right to inherit all of a family’s wealth and land, devastating younger siblings who could be left with nothing. It concentrated wealth and power in fewer hands, limiting opportunity and reinforcing inequality.
Thanks to Jefferson’s reading habits and ability to understand Enlightenment thinkers, he succeeded.
Two: Designer
Jefferson loved adjustable bookshelves. He even designed a revolving bookstand that folded into a cube. It could also serve as a lectern.
He participated in the invention of early carbon paper systems and a pantograph.
Sometimes called a polygraph, this device had two pens, allowing a writer to create two copies of a composition at the same time.
Although he didn’t invent the device himself, Jefferson’s feedback helped shape how it developed over time.
In terms of landscaping, Jefferson prepared detailed plans for the Gardens of Monticello on his plantation in Virginia.
He also designed his own portable writing desk and in a completely different field, what he called the “Moldboard Plow of Least Resistance.”
That invention belongs to the next area in which Jefferson displayed polymathic mastery.
Three: Agriculture
We know a lot about Jefferson’s skills as an agriculturist because he documented his activities thoroughly.
In his Garden book, he meticulously tracked what he planted, where and when.
Harvests were also meticulously arranged into notated tables with dates. Jefferson called them “Kalendars.”
What can we learn from Jefferson’s detailed record-keeping?
The value of precision, for one thing.
He was able to optimize for efficiency and from there helped inform other agriculturalists. Here we see an example of the power of learning from great minds.
Jefferson’s devotion to documenting these activities set a precedent that would be valuable in the future too:
As an importer of plants from Europe, tracking also helped note any issues that might have emerged. This kind of information remains important today and is used at customs checkpoints around the world.
If you want to know how to think like Jefferson, always keep in mind the power of his commitment to documentation.
Four: Linguistics
Jefferson wrote that being able to read Latin and Greek texts in the original was a “supreme luxury.”
He earned his status as a polyglot, however.
In addition to putting plenty of time aside to learn languages, he took up some language learning for legal purposes.
He partly intended his self-compiled Anglo-Saxon dictionary to help him study law better.
But he had other outcomes in mind too. For example, Jefferson wrote about his approach to linguistic analysis in “Essay on the Anglo-Saxon Language,” material contemporary scholars still study.
Likewise, he read Machiavelli’s The Prince in the original language, partly to learn more about languages, partly for political science.
Five: Music
Jefferson apparently played violin every day while he studied the law.
Jefferson continued playing throughout his life, and as Helen Cripe remarks in Thomas Jefferson and Music, “he devoted a surprising amount of time to it, given the scope of his better-known interests and activities.”
He needed to remember music too because anything on paper could be easily damaged. He once lost from precious minuets to both hungry rats and a strong period of rain.
Luckily, much of the music he collected survives to this day. Give this recording a listen to hear the kinds of tunes he enjoyed:
Jefferson reportedly also sung clearly and was often heard at home. As a hummer, musical accompanied him outside the home as he walked around his properties.
He invested in top-notch musical educators for his daughters and grand-daughters and ensured they had quality instruments.
Although he did not expand his skills from the violin to the piano, he often wished that he did. Nonetheless, he learned to tune and maintain pianos, which is a skill unto itself.
One point Cripe makes in her book that I notice as someone who wrote a dissertation on friendship for my PhD at York University is powerful:
Music and his performance skills were essential to Jefferson’s relationships, both familial, with friends and with other polymaths. As his extensive correspondence with the lawyer, jurist, author and composer Francis Hopkinson shows, they delighted in optimizing their musical instruments.
For example, they experimented on perfecting special parts essential to producing the best possible sounds from their harpsichords.
In his letters to Hopkinson, Jefferson sometimes sketched his ideas for a better metronome and foot-bass pedals.
The time spent in friendship like this provides evidence of collaboration, craftsmanship and a passion for what he called “the delightful recreation” music brings.
In other words, music gave Jefferson a lot of fun. We should all invest in learning to play at least one instrument and helping others do the same.
Six: Vision & Planning
Jefferson’s involvement in the founding of the University of Virginian showcases his ability to bring a wide variety of skills together.
He surveyed the grounds, helped develop the architectural plans and communicate his ideas in ways that led to practical designs.
Despite dealing with personal debt, Jefferson balanced his risk tolerance against his commitment to education. He put significant resources toward founding the university based on his vision, valuing social progress over personal gain.
What can we learn from his actions today?
Jefferson’s vision was almost certainly stronger because he wrote so much in a variety of ways, from journaling to meticulously documenting what some might consider minutia.
My belief is that he was able to take on so much additional risk precisely because his vision was only partially based on speculation. He knew that in order for his country to thrive, people would need to cultivate open minds.
As he wrote, “No nation can afford ignorance.”
To that end, he went above and beyond the call of duty by helping the new university craft innovative rules for admission, graduation and university governance.
Seven: Reading & Research
We might take it for granted that Jefferson was a reader. How could he write so much if he weren’t?
But we know from how Jefferson took notes in a variety of ways that he read actively and strategically.
Ivory pages are one of the most astonishing tools he used to take notes.
These small ivory slates held together by a silver clasp allowed Jefferson to take pencil notes during the day.
At night, he would transfer the most important ideas into permanent journals. Then, he could erase the slates and reuse them the next day.
What did he write on them?
Typically, he jotted out observations about the weather, meeting notes or his philosophical ideas.
As a polymath, this learning system reflects a powerful means of capturing information, reviewing it and then committing it to an archive.
The process itself stimulates retention through active recall, reflective thinking and spaced repetition.
Commonplace Books
Like many polymaths and mnemonists, Jefferson kept commonplace books. More than just serving as a journal, this kind of personal writing helps people curate personal reference libraries.
Some of Jefferson’s commonplace books were for legal matters. In them he would focus on case law and legal principles.
In others, he would collect poems, philosophical ideas and notes related to textual analysis.
This activity lead to the creation of his Jefferson Bible. The first version was produced after Jefferson cut and pasted from several versions of the Gospel. He left out the miracles and supernatural events to highlight the life and morals of Jesus.
In addition to highlighting his skills in textual analysis, the Jefferson Bible demonstrates his commitment to efficient learning based on the core principles of the law and science he admired so much.
Strategically, we can learn from Jefferson the importance of:
- Keeping our notes physical, but also portable.
- The memory benefits of transfering our notes.
- Evolving our knowledge over time by keeping multiple kinds of journals and notebooks.
For more on Jefferson’s notebooks, I highly recommend suing the search function on the Monticello website.
Want to Learn Like Thomas Jefferson?
When people hear about the accomplishments of someone like Jefferson, they can feel out of reach.
It all sounds like hard work, a feeling Peter Burke stimulates in his book, The Polymath. As he summarizes:
“A life of Thomas Jefferson describes ‘amazing readiness’ to work long hours, sometimes from five in the morning until midnight, and his advice to a student to work for eleven hours a day.”
There’s no doubt about it.
That kind of advice can be deflating. And it sounds quite a bit like the kind of “grind culture” we hear from tech bros like Elon Musk.
The good news is you don’t have to play games of comparison with Jefferson in order to use his example to supercharge your learning life.
A hidden secret to what Jefferson was doing is called interleaving. He rotated between multiple study projects, something anyone can do in order to boost retention and comprehension.
He took multiple kinds of notes and made sure to practice music across his lifespan, activities well within reach of nearly ever lifelong learner.
If you like tips like these and want to supercharge your mind and memory further, feel free to continue your journey by claiming my free memory improvement kit:
It gives you four video lessons and three worksheets that will help boost your learning speed and unleash your inner polymath.
No, you might not go on to revolutionize society. But you can revolutionize yourself.
Why not start now?
