The Da Vinci Approach to Personal Development

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Feb 25, 2023

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I love Saturday morning coffee and working on side projects, our little labors of passion and love. Many have written about the importance of having a side project from both a personal and professional perspective. I call them little experiments, a little of this, and a little of that in a never-ending pursuit of personal growth and development.

As humans, we are naturally curious and creative beings. However, our busy schedules and daily routines often leave us feeling unfulfilled and uninspired. This is where side projects/experiments come in.

Side projects are personal passion projects allowing us to explore and express our creativity outside our regular work or duties. Whether painting, coding, writing, or photography, side projects allow us to pursue our interests, learn new skills, and challenge ourselves in ways we may not be able to in our daily lives.

My experiments are often fleeting, sometimes time-consuming, but always worth the effort. The hardest part for me is forcing myself to document what I learned. This step is important because we will forget little things, or at least I do, so having reference material is essential. These little nuggets of information are the diamonds in the rough, the lessons or insights that can become part of other ideas and projects later.

We can blog, journal, or write on post-it notes, it doesn't matter; we have something that will document our work. The information is a valuable reference and a reminder of what we have accomplished and learned.

It may also be valuable to others one day, your family or even the world.

Bill Gates paid $30 million dollars for a collection of Leonardo da Vinci's journals. Da Vinci produced thousands of journals on many topics, which are now part of his legacy.

"Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you." - Oprah Winfrey

Bill Gates paid $30 million dollars for a collection of Leonardo da Vinci's journals. Da Vinci produced thousands of journals over his lifetime on many topics, and these journals are part of his legacy.

Observing the journals of Leonardo da Vinci

Despite being most well-known for his paintings, as time passes, his true legacy has become his journals (aka notebooks) – so much so that Bill Gates bought a collection of them for $30 million dollars. Unlike Bill Gates, I don’t have millions of dollars to buy da Vinci’s original journals but I did still spend the currency of my time reading his biography and observing his journals so I can improve my habit of keeping journals. Now, wanting to understand how da Vinci kept his journal may, at first, seem as pointless as trying to clap with one hand. I mean, how do you try to emulate the journals of someone who is synonymous with genius? However, I do think the observation can still bear fruits, even if you and I don’t have the intellectual gifts (or interest) to paint like him. The way he used and kept his journals, he certainly did something right, so there’s merit in trying to figure out what that was. Contents Lifetime of Da Vinci’s Journals It is estimated that da Vinci produced between 20,000 to 28,000 pages of notes and sketches spanning across 50 different notebooks about work related to whatever topics that […]

https://www.journalinghabit.com/observing-journals-leonardo-da-vinci/

Here's another example of various artists' journals.

5 Artists Whose Diaries are as Inspiring as their Art - Artland Magazine

Explore how artists have documented their working process, their relationships, and their everyday affairs in these 5 unique artist diaries.

https://magazine.artland.com/5-artists-whose-diaries-are-as-inspiring-as-their-art/

5 Artists Whose Diaries are as Inspiring as their Art - Artland Magazine

I'm no Da Vinci, but I can model his journaling behavior. So, with that in mind, I'm trying to write more and use my blog and Twitter account @tasmilie to document my experiments. Some posts will be short and simple; for others, I'll go on more than needed, but the point is to document and share.

I could add an AI chatbot to query the content of what I document; alas, another experiment for another day.

Thanks for reading!