Are you a Scanner or a Diver? The 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.

If you recognise yourself as a Scanner, I thoroughly recommend the book. You can buy it from Amazon UK with this link. Or get in touch with me about one-to-one help on careers and creative living for Scanners.

Is there anyone outside an HR department who actually likes normal CVs? Most people don’t like writing them and I can’t believe many like reading them. In my former corporate life, I found reading a standard CV something of a chore.

However, once you step outside the formal world of job applications and into the more individualistic freelance environment, you realise that a CV can be an opportunity for self-expression (and some measured boasting).

When you realise you can break the rules of the conventional CV, you can start to get creative. Here are my favourite ways to break the rules.

1. Don’t have a CV. There may be much better ways to promote yourself – a website (and some business cards showing the address) or a collage of your creative projects. Sometimes your work is your best CV.
2. Shrink your CV. In my consultancy work, I make most of my introductions at exhibitions and conferences. However, a CV is a very unwelcome thing in an informal networking conversation. I have therefore condensed my CV to a single side of A5. When people ask for my card, I give them the A5 CV and say “This says a bit about who I am as well as my contact details”. Almost every time, the recipient says “What a great idea, I wish others did this”. You can shrink even further and create a folded double-size business card with bullet points on each of the 4 surfaces.
3. Convention says that you should never put your photo on your CV. However, when meeting people at networking events it can really help put a face to the name after the event. It also reinforces the personal nature of freelance work. But if you're going to use a photo, make sure it's a professionally taken one.
4. Make it colourful or graphical. Try placing the logos of companies you have worked for alongside the text. My brother once got a job interview solely because his CV was printed on pink paper. One version of my CV is in the form of a mindmap.
5. Grab ‘em at the start. Most people open with address and contact details but it’s far better to place this dull stuff at the bottom. Instead, open with one or two summary sentences about yourself that will impress.

I am passionate about creating attention-grabbing and effective CVs in all their forms. If you would like help with your CV or exploring the alternatives, drop me a line. If you have an interesting or unusual CV yourself, I would love to see it. Mail it to me here.

The annual Rhythm Sticks festival kicks off this weekend on London's South Bank. It's an international drum, percussion and world music festival with some great collaborations between the modern and the traditional from many countries around the world.

You can also have a go yourself. How often do you get a chance to take part in a free drumcircle, learn the Turkish Darbouka, or pound huge Japanese Taiko drums? Click here to read more.

I am offering a free introductory coaching session to readers of this newsletter if you get in touch before the end of July. This is a great way of finding out what coaching is like and you can also use it to work on solutions to a current issue. Drop me a line if you are interested (contact details are below).

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