What Do I Do When I Want to Do Everything?: A Revolutionary Programme for Doing Everything That You Love - Rated 
Excellent! I have lived under a shadow my whole adult life until I read this book. This was reviewed in Psychologies magazine last year, when I read the review it struck a cord - I live in NZ so when my parents visited they bought a copy for me (purchaed from amazon of course!)
The Day Scanner Book really brought home to me that my ideads & ideals are valid & that not having a 'job for life' is ok, in fact it's something I can be proud of. Eight months on I have a 'good enough job' that gives me time & money to do my passions & explore all the new ones inside me. I use my Day Scanner Book every week, & am passing on the word to other souls who are filled with dread that their dreams will only ever be that. Yes it is 'American' in style but take that with a pinch of salt & revel in a new day...!
Finally, a book about me... - Rated
I bought this book after I was given an article taken from a magazine. What I had read made me cry. I've never found anything that so completely expressed who I am and how I behave. For years I've called myself many derogatory names because of my endless interests, career ideas and desires that petered out when I found something else or had learnt all I wanted to. I have always felt like I had to find the one thing that I could focus on, but I never could choose just one! In this book, Barbara Sher gives people like me the permission that we need to be ourselves and not be terrified of not "having a calling" or never knowing what we want to be when we grow up. I've always kept a notebook of my ideas, wishes and plans, and Barbara encourages this - a Scanner's Daybook. If you are the kind of person who always has a new interest, is always thinking of a new plan or has wonderful ideas that rarely happen because you've moved on to the next thing, or you're too scared to choose, then you may be a Scanner too. If you are, you need this book. Trust me, it will change the way you think about yourself and the way you live.
Help at last for "Scanners" - Rated
Are you a Scanner or a Diver? This new book by US coach Barbara Sher aims to help you find out. A Diver, according to Sher, is someone who likes to go deeply into a topic and stick with it, and will usually have a career that specialises in one area. A Scanner, in contrast, is interested in many different things and finds it difficult to choose between them. They often enjoy learning about something new just for the sake of learning. If, like me, you have so many interests or generate so many ideas that they are difficult to manage, you are a Scanner.
Unfortunately we Scanners have had a bad press, labelled "Dilettante", "Jack of all trades" and worse. "What do I do when I want to do everything?" sets out to right this wrong and convince us that we are lucky to be Scanners. The book will help you identify what kind of Scanner you are, learn practical techniques for becoming more productive, and find a career you won't get bored of. Our breadth of interests and natural love of new ideas means that we are a natural fit for a career as a writer, broadcaster, researcher, information entrepreneur or portfolio worker (someone with several career strands).
One of my favourite suggestions from the book is the "Scanner Daybook". Sher suggests you invest in a large blank bound book to capture your new ideas and interests. Now, every time a new interest or idea grabs you, start a new page and write notes or make sketches about it. It's OK to write about an idea for something without ever following through. In fact, Sher says that you owe it to yourself to do everything that interests you - even if "doing it" just means playing around with it in your Scanner Daybook. She gives the surprising advice "Start small, start now, start everything and don't bother to finish any of it".
By writing about our ideas, we indulge in one our greatest pleasures as a Scanner and we practice our creative talent for idea generation. I would add a further suggestion though - by writing about an interest or idea, we can explore how we could get a taste of it right now. Got an idea for a business but don't want to run it? Explore it in your Daybook, then think how you could sell the idea, assist someone already doing it, or implement it in some much smaller way (on the web for instance).
Surely there are times when we must be able to focus? Yes - and when this is the case Sher recommends we set up a "Real deadline". This is a drop-dead date with a commitment to other people (not just yourself) that you will be finished. Use the impending deadline to focus your efforts for a while. Once complete, present or publish your results, celebrate them and then go back to "full scanner mode" where you can once again pursue any interest without having to follow through.
I recommend this book to all my coaching clients with multi-faceted lives. If you recognise yourself as a Scanner, I am sure you will get benefit from reading it too.
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