Becoming a polymath requires 3 ingredients. If you are like me, you won't start out liking them: time, consistency, dedication.
I have learned to love them.
I don't think you have a problem focusing. With a little understanding about how learning works and how you learn most effectively, you will be better equipped to convince yourself on the importance of focusing.
There is a lot of nuance to learning, which is at the heart of becoming a polymath. I will try to be brief on actions that you can take now to be on your way.
How to become a polymath:
Learning requires exposure over time and practice
Limit yourself to one skill that you enjoy developing (at first)
Practice over time to develop mastery
Do it consistently (every day is ideal, the more time each day the better)
Be compassionate, understanding and realistic towards yourself when the results of your work don't meet your expectations while at the same time being critical and setting your standard high to improve your work; you are only human, and the vast majority of people are not naturals when they learn something new
Focus on reiterating and developing the process, not the end result; this is how you get better
Remind yourself why you wanted to learn this particular skill in the first place
Do this over many years, picking up a new skill every year at the earliest
In 10 or 20 years, perhaps longer, you may feel comfortable calling yourself a philomath
Tips:
when choosing your first skill, look at the things that you've tried and why you were attracted to them in the first place, this may give you clues what you can focus on in the long term
form a habit of consistent practice and learning; motivation will rarely show up when you need to do work
start now; 10 years will pass by whether you take action or not
Things to avoid:
spreading yourself to thin; learning and mastery requires not only time and consistency, but also immersion - you will not be able to immerse yourself into learning if you shift gears too often
being too hard on yourself; this will only demotivate you
waiting to begin/waiting for motivation to take action
Firstly: Make a list of all the things you're interested in. Determine your priority for learning each skill based upon usefulness. The way you determine usefulness is up to you, but I look at things in terms of career and spiritual well being.
Cut the last 25%-40% of things from the list. You can come back to them when you've gained proficiency in the first things, and at that time you may have reassessed what you think important/necessary.
Secondly: Make everything as relevant as you can. By this I mean both integration and awareness. Put up posters, checklists, etc so that everything is a constant reminder of what is important vs what is a distraction. Integrate as many of these things together in whatever creative ways you think of. This may mean 50% more effort on the banal shit you don't wanna do, but it's almost definitely worth it
If you have a more specific interest, then people may be able to better offer you good sources. If you find good stuff, give back to the sub. We wanna hear. If you have a penchant for teaching, lessons would be cool to see too
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I used to have a similar goal. What I've realized eventually is that it's possible to get an undergrad/graduate level of understanding in multiple fields, but that it's not really possible to be cutting edge in more than one or two. Don't let that deter you! (It would be a pretty big achievement to be able to communicate with grad students across multiple disciplines anyway.)
What I found worked for me was to get better at 'reading'. Gradually, it became easier to read textbooks, wikipedia articles, and eventually philosophy books and research papers. Just keep doing it, and keep trying to read and understand anything that comes your way.
Try to understand something and then condense your knowledge into a few points or a "cheat sheet". Rinse and repeat.
Check out the coursera course on Learning How to Learn if you haven't already. You could also try to check out some related blogs, research papers, books, etc. Try and come up with ideas of your own and apply them when it comes to learning. It makes sense to do certain tasks in 20 minute blocks, others might necessitate 90 minute blocks, and so on and so forth. Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist who also has some nice podcasts on Youtube which go into learning methodology.
See what the "best" or "naturally talented" people are doing, and try and deconstruct the techniques they use. You might find some very useful pieces of information there. Try and apply those. At the same time, be aware of the fact that everyone thinks differently, and you might not literally be able to apply what other people are doing.
Learn some mathematics. I've found that mathematics, especially of the more advanced variety, really sharpens your problem solving and analytical skills, and that generalizes to an extent to other fields as well. For example, you might find physics or other STEM fields much easier to understand.
Check out logical fallacies and how to avoid them. This ties in with the previous point somewhat. Overall, you want to reach a point where you can look at a logical chain of thought, and be able to objectively analyze and critique it. This will allow you to quickly come up with effective ideas across various fields.
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!
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It's one thing to be well rounded and good at a lot of things but it's quite another to be really good at a lot of things. Those guys you mentioned were really, really good at all the things they did. To me, that's a sign of high intelligence and not just "reading a lot".
Also, reading a lot will get you "book knowledge" but you actually have to DO stuff in order to get really good at it and become a "renaissance man."
So my advice is to start DOING as much stuff as you can. If you are a true polymath you will find you have a knack for "doing stuff" (i.e. learning quickly) and find that you do stuff well. To be clear, you will still have to put in a lot of hard work even if you take to it all quickly.
Here is a list to get you started:
Learn a musical instrument well
Learn how to cook well
Learn a second and third language and be fluent
Learn a LOT about subjects that interest you (become an expert)
Be good at several sports
Learn as much about other countries as you can (i.e. travel)
Doing all these things makes you well rounded. Doing them all at an expert level makes you a polymath.
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