Thursday, October 1, 2009

Having lots of interests and ideas is good for you

If you're a Scanner you have 'too many ideas,' and 'too many interests,' right? (Does anyone hear echoes of someone saying to Mozart, that his work had 'too many notes.')

Even worse, you rarely follow them through. You're fascinated for an hour or a day or a week, and then fascinated by something else. That can't be right. As a result, too many Scanners try to ignore their new ideas, even wish they didn't have them.

But Scanners shouldn¹t throw ideas out like trash, no matter how many they may have, no matter how 'half-baked' the ideas may be. Respect for ideas is the same as respect for the idea maker: you.

That's why I want you to learn to use the most important piece of equipment in your survival kit: I call it the SCANNER DAYBOOK.

This is simply a blank book devoted to what you do all day -- as a Scanner, of course. Just anything related to being a Scanner -- a place to capture your best ideas and write through the tangents that pull you off those ideas. This is your personal version of the notebooks of another famous Scanner, Leonardo da Vinci. It's like a gathering of notes or the paper tablecloths we draw diagrams and take notes on. It's an idea book.

If you allow yourself to use these pages as Leonardo did, you'll find yourself welcoming new thoughts more and more, because you realize you are not required to do anything but write about them. No follow-up is required unless it takes your fancy to do so.

What's the purpose of this writing? There are many, but for now you can justify it the same way we justify jogging, or dancing: it's good for you.

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