I am going to check out Callings. I found Barbara Sher's books on Scanners helpful - you can get the gist of what a 'scanner' is here: Are You a Scanner? By Barbara Sher

I wonder if looking in the Attention Deficit or OCD forums might be helpful? I do something similar in terms of hobbies, but I can usually control myself at work. Can you block the internet or whatever it is you are using to do this research when you are supposed to be working? If you think about the fact that your employer can monitor everything you do, does that scare you into stopping?

Everything else you wrote, I do the same thing. I get very interested in something, spend a lot of time looking into it, but feel like I've never taken it far enough. In some cases, I am sort of beating myself up in an invalid way-- we *do* acquire skills and knowledge, even if we don't take it as far as we think we should. I would like to just finish something someday, though.

Do you find that you come back to projects a year (or few years) later?