Fellow scatter brain here. I don't know if more anecdotal stories will help in any sense but at least we're not alone it seems :) I also have tons of articles

Fellow scatter brain here. I don't know if more anecdotal stories will help in any sense but at least we're not alone it seems :) I also have tons of articles and books I have not read. But - they are all limited to few specific areas. I have this scatter brain mode and focus mode. As I focus on specific things I realize that the trove of stuff I've gathered from the scattery moments are actually really valuable since they usually cover material part of my current brief obsession. I really did not see this going anywhere five years ago but now I realize I've actually built up a quite a good reference library and accidentally have an improved mental picture where all the bits and pieces fit. So - my anecdotal advice - I've found it really reassuring to have a few specific goals in form of plausible future stories of self improvement and as I scour the interenets in search of trivia in my scattery moment I've succeeded in building this firewall to suppress my collector instincts. I ask myself - does this plausibly fit anywhere in my current "self improvement stories" - and if they do, I just go wild. But I file them with librarian pedantry and when the whim of focus comes I know where to look. I've managed to collect plausible study paths in several unrelated fields and actually managed to follow a few of them - at a really slow pace, though.