At the height of their productivity as Beatles, neither Paul McCartney nor John Lennon could read or write music notation. Clearly it didn’t keep them from making a cultural impact, and as with so much else in life, they regarded it humorously. As McCartney has said, they used to liken themselves to ancient Egyptian pharaohs, who relied on scribes rather than being literate themselves. It’s worth considering whether, all things considered, this inability was really a deficiency: not being rigorously schooled in the traditions and conventions of music could have given them just the freedom they needed to create fresh songs. And if you’ve struggled with procrastination, have you considered likening yourself to Leonardo da Vinci?
“Leonardo’s difficulties with sticking to tasks were pervasive from childhood,” says a ScienceDaily summary of a 2019 paper by clinical neuroscientist Marco Catani. “Accounts from biographers and contemporaries show Leonardo was constantly on the go, often jumping from task to task.” Regarding his life at a distance of half a millennium, we may consider Leonardo not just a genius but a highly productive one, with a body of work including numerous inventions built and unbuilt as well as paintings like Lady with an Ermine, The Last Supper, and the Mona Lisa — which nearly joined the man’s pile of abandoned projects. As Nicolas Cole writes at Inc., scholarship suggests that Leonardo “painted the Mona Lisa on and off for a few years starting in 1503, left it unfinished, and didn’t complete it until close to his death in 1519.”
“While painting The Last Supper, Leonardo would sometimes stare at the work for an hour, finally make one small stroke, and then leave,” writes Walter Isaacson in his biography Leonardo da Vinci. His explanation: “Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.” When the non-Renaissance men of the world say things like that, it comes off as self-aggrandizing excuse-making. Many, perhaps most of us have spent so much time telling ourselves we’re preparing for a task that it just became another means of procrastination. But “procrastinating like Leonardo requires work: it involves gathering all the possible facts and ideas, and only after that allowing the collection to simmer,” notes Isaacson.
Not that the patrons frustrated by Leonardo’s failures to deliver could always keep that in mind. After he worked at the Vatican for three years, Pope Leo X dismissed him with the judgment that he would never accomplish anything, “for he begins by thinking of the end of the work, before the beginning.” Even Leonardo himself made a deathbed apology “to God and Man for leaving so much undone.” Having examined the nature of both Leonardo’s challenges and his brilliance, Catani comes to the conclusion that he exhibited traits consistent with a condition only given a name well within living memory, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). When we find ourselves compulsively fleeing from the incomplete work at hand, we’d do well to bear in mind not just Leonardo’s example, but also the words of aphorist Aaron Haspel: “We all suffer from a cluster of psychological disorders; it used to be known as personality.”
Related content:
The Neuroscience & Psychology of Procrastination, and How to Overcome It
The Art of Structured Procrastination
Miranda July Teaches You How to Avoid Procrastination
Leonardo da Vinci’s To-Do List from 1490: The Plan of a Renaissance Man
Medieval Monks Complained About Constant Distractions: Learn How They Worked to Overcome Them
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. He’s the author of the newsletter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Summarizing Korea) and Korean Newtro. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
Leave a Reply
Facts Only
* Paul McCartney and John Lennon could not read or write music notation.
* Leonardo da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa in 1503 and completed it near his death in 1519.
* Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper.
* Leonardo da Vinci painted Lady with an Ermine.
* Pope Leo X dismissed Leonardo da Vinci from the Vatican after three years of work.
* Clinical neuroscientist Marco Catani published a paper in 2019 regarding Leonardo da Vinci.
* ScienceDaily published a summary of Catani's 2019 paper.
* Walter Isaacson authored a biography of Leonardo da Vinci.
* Nicolas Cole wrote about Leonardo da Vinci at Inc.
* Aaron Haspel is an aphorist.
* Colin Marshall is the author of No Summarizing Korea and Korean Newtro.
Executive Summary
The intersection of unconventional habits and high productivity is evident in the lives of figures like Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and Leonardo da Vinci. While McCartney and Lennon operated without formal music notation skills, da Vinci struggled with chronic procrastination and task switching. Da Vinci’s work patterns involved long periods of observation followed by minimal physical execution, leading to numerous unfinished projects and a strained relationship with patrons, including Pope Leo X.
Modern neurological analysis suggests these behaviors are consistent with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This perspective frames da Vinci’s perceived failures not as a lack of discipline, but as a cognitive process involving the extensive gathering and simmering of ideas before final execution. There remains a tension between the internal creative process of "lofty genius" and the external expectations of delivery and completion.
Full Take
The strongest version of this narrative suggests that traditional definitions of "deficiency"—such as illiteracy in music or chronic procrastination—can actually be catalysts for innovation by removing the constraints of convention. It posits that cognitive divergence, specifically ADHD, can coexist with and even fuel extreme productivity.
The narrative employs a subtle form of borrowed credibility, using the prestige of the Beatles and da Vinci to reframe a common struggle (procrastination) as a potential mark of genius. By linking a clinical diagnosis (ADHD) to a historical titan, the text shifts the conversation from a behavioral problem to a personality trait or a cognitive style. This is not an overt manipulation, but a framing choice that optimizes for relatability.
Patterns detected: none
The driving paradigm is the "romanticization of the divergent mind," echoing the historical shift from viewing madness or eccentricity as a vice to viewing it as a prerequisite for creativity. The unstated assumption is that the results (the Mona Lisa, Beatles songs) retroactively justify the process, regardless of the cost to the individual or their patrons.
This framing enhances human dignity by destigmatizing neurodivergence, yet it risks creating a "genius trap" where individuals excuse dysfunction by hoping for an extraordinary output that may never materialize.
Bridge Questions:
1. Does the retrospective application of modern clinical labels to historical figures provide genuine insight or merely project current cultural values onto the past?
2. At what point does a "creative process" cease to be a catalyst for innovation and become a genuine barrier to agency?
Counterstrike Scan: A coordinated campaign would use this logic to encourage people to abandon discipline in favor of "intuitive" work to sell a specific productivity tool or "neuro-hacking" supplement. This content is a reflective essay, not a sales funnel; it is structurally clean.
Sentinel — Human
The text constructs an argument linking historical patterns of creative blockage (Beatles, Da Vinci) to modern psychological understanding (ADHD and procrastination), using expert references to build a bridge between observation and implication.