Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives

by Tim Harford

MESSY – Sáng Tạo Từ Sự Lộn Xộn
Theo bản năng, chúng ta thường hướng đến sự gọn gàng, từ trong tư duy đến lối sống. Vị diễn giả trung thành với kịch bản thuyết trình, ngài sĩ quan chỉ huy lên kế hoạch tác chiến một cách cẩn trọng, các ông chủ luôn yêu cầu bàn làm việc của nhân viên phải gọn gàng còn nhân viên luôn cố gắng lưu trữ tài liệu và sắp xếp e-mail sao cho thật khoa họ Nhưng rất tiếc, trật tự chính là yếu tố giết chết sự sáng tạo.
Qua các nghiên cứu tâm tý học và thực tế, Tim Harford đã chỉ ra sự kết nối bất ngờ giữa sự lộn xộn và sáng tạo. Mỗi chương sách sẽ khai thác một khía cạnh khác nhau của sự lộn xộn, cho thấy cách nó khuyến khích sự sáng tạo, châm ngòi ý tưởng và khai phá những cơ hội mới trong mọi lĩnh vực của cuộc sống.
Hy vọng cuốn sách sẽ giống như một cú hích thôi thúc bạn chọn sự xáo trộn khi thói quen gọn gàng vẫn đang chiếm ưu thế. Hãy tin chắc rằng mọi thứ sẽ tốt hơn nếu chúng ta chấp nhận lộn xộn ở mức độ nào đó.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Self Help, Business, Economics, Personal Development, Productivity

Audiobook

First published October 4, 2016

About the author

Tim Harford is a member of the Financial Times editorial board. His column, “The Undercover Economist”, which reveals the economic ideas behind everyday experiences, is published in the Financial Times and syndicated around the world. He is also the only economist in the world to run a problem page, “Dear Economist”, in which FT readers’ personal problems are answered tongue-in-cheek with the latest economic theory.

--from the author's website

Reviews

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

But often we are so seduced by the blandishments of tidiness that we fail to appreciate the virtues of the messy - the untidy, unquantified, uncoordinated, improvised, imperfect, incoherent, crude, cluttered, random, ambiguous, vague, difficult,m diverse or even dirty. The scripted speech misreads the energy of the room; the careful commander is disorientated by a more impetuous opponent; the writer is serendipitously inspired by a random distraction; the quantified targets create perverse incentives; the workers in the tidy office feel helpless and demotivated; a disruptive outsider aggravates the team but brings a fresh new insight. The worker with the messy inbox ultimately gets more done; we find a soulmate when we ignore the website questionanaires; the kids running loose in the wasteland not only have fun and learn more skills, but also - counter-intuitively - have fewer accidents.

Tim Harford, the FT's Undercover Economist, has written this book to, in his own words, "explain that the human qualities we value – creativity, responsiveness, resilience – are integral to the disorder, confusion, and disarray that produce them."

It is certainly an interesting and thought provoking read.

Business books of this type usually rely on

a) anecdotes
b) references to scientific research done elsewhere
c) handily summarised learning points

a) and b) are certainly every bit as omnipresent as one would expect, but, perhaps reflecting the ethos of the book itself, there is no tidy summary c). The key learning points are often buried away in the anecdotes and hence context specific, and, for better and for worse, this isn't one of those business books where reading an executive summary or a well-written review largely removes the need to read the book itself.

The anecdotal information also dominates over the scientific evidence, and I found my level of interest was more than usually dependent on whether the subjects were ones that grabbed my attention and which I even regarded as examples to which to aspire.

Being told that if only authors embraced the Messy mantra they could all write novels as well as Michael Crichton hardly leaves me inspired, and Harford seems bizarrely obsessed with the music of Brian Eno.

But I could identify more when Hartford points out that while British cyclings success nowadays may be built on "marginal gains", in the 1990s Graham Obree was able to achieve such significant one-off gains with radical changes that many of his innovations (e.g. the Superman riding position) were actually banned. Or when the book focus on the famous mathematician Paul Erdos and his role as a creative, but disruptive, catalyst for collaborative research (see The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdős and the Search for Mathematical Truth).

But given I read this book in November 2016, by far the most pertinent references were to the new President elect, Donald Trump.

Hartford praises his tactics in his insurgent campaign for the nomination, comparing his use of disorientation tactics to the business strategy of Jeff Bezos and the military tactics of Rommel, and contrasting this with the predictable approach of Jeb Bush and, particularly, Mario "Rubiobot" Rubio.

But, and likely more relevant for the next 4 years, Messy correctly extols the virtues of immigration, pointing, as well as anecdotal information to scientific papers such as http://www.nber.org/papers/w10904. (Quote "Even at the same level of education, problem solving, creativity and adaptability may differ between native and foreign-born workers so that reciprocal learning may take place.") And the "filter bubbles" caused by the echo chamber of social media are the very antithesis of Harford's preferred messy world, and explain both why events like Brexit occured and also why they were such a shock to those on the other side.

And one big disappointment: as another reviewer observed, the role models presented are overwhelmingly male.

Overall, a good and thought-provoking read, but not one I came away from with any specific life-changing ideas.

[Christine Zibas · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We've seen again and again that real creativity, excitement, and humanity lie in the messy parts of life, not the tidy ones."


If you've ever wondered where people with empty desks keep all their work, you're not alone. Having worked for years and years in the publishing business, with attendant reams of manuscript paper everywhere, I was always stupified by people with not a paper in sight on their clean desks. Did they do any work? Did they spend all their time filing?

Maybe the fault lay with my inability (or unwillingness) to adopt a system that allowed me to have such a neat workspace. After all, I had things to do. Despite having read more than one book on how to organize your life, every year I seem to add "being tidier" to my New Year's resolutions.

After reading Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives, I felt relief. There seemed to be a method behind this madness, after all. In fact, the opposite -- automation -- can be downright deadly (see the case of Air France flight 447 or even more recent examples of GPS systems leading drivers down dangerous snow-filled mountain roads in winter).

What the book really points up is that humans can function under chaos, much more so than one would expect. Our inherent judgment capabilities mean that we can deal with mess, and sometimes even thrive. Indeed, chaos often leads to cutting-edge (creative) solutions.

Examples cited in the book range from jazz musicians to children's playgrounds to thriving businesses like Amazon. While operating in a state of messiness can often be uncomfortable, it can also be extremely productive, as Author Tim Harford illustrates. This book is the un-road map to doing things the same old, "efficient" way. For anyone interested in the creative process or entrepreneurship, there's a lot of food for thought here. I loved this book, and hope you will too.

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Messy

I read this book in traditional - paper - format and had to take numerous iPhone pictures of its pages to store in my Evernote notebook for references. Chapters on automation and especially on antibiotics/bacteria were very informative/interesting to me. Treating brain cancer with poop? Certainly a messy concept... I am sure the project for this book was fun for the author. The book offered me numerous opportunities for surprise and reflection. It was liberating. I liked it.

A Quote. "If you try to control a complex system, suppressing or tiding away the parts that seem unimportant, you are likely to discover that what seemed unimportant turns out to be very important indeed."

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title gives a false impression that messiness by itself can spark creativity, original thinking, and innovative solutions. Many of the examples in the book are of people who are already intelligent, hardworking, and successful. But by disregarding tidy, rigid systems or exploring other areas (than the problem at hand), these people are able to achieve incredible breakthroughs. Each chapter focuses on a lesson (constraints of a tidy system or benefits from unstructured thinking) and provides several examples. It is interesting from beginning to end. There are stories that make you think "Am I stuck in a rut like this?"

[Trung Nguyen Dang · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a "messy" book or idea! The author conveniently lumps everything under the sun to his "messy" idea including freedom, autonomy. The author keeps telling stories (not proper research) to illustrate/prove his idea. His ideas are also big exaggerations. Basically the author has a "messy" lense, and starts looking everywhere to see how the lense apply. It's the big "the man with a hammer syndrome" everything starts looking like a nail.
It's written by a FT journalist/writer with no original research. I did not realise that he was the author for "The Undercover Economist" which I did not like much either.
It may be a fun read for some but there is not much to learn in this book.

[Brad · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very dumb. The author uses the word 'messy' to describe pretty much anything he wants (diversity, improvising speeches, new wall decor, etc.). It is a grab bag of somewhat interesting anecdotal stories which we can learn a little bit from but ultimately doesn't move me to act or behave one way or the other.

I could imagine a sequel called 'Laziness: The Hidden Dangers of Exercising' where the author would include stories of someone with asthma who almost died training for a marathon with phrases like "In this case, exercise actually almost KILLED someone, yet we all believe exercise is good. In some cases it is BAD!" There were so many 'no duh' statements. Definitely felt like an attempt to write the next freakonomics or Malcom Gladwell. Not even close.

[Liesl Shurtliff]

This is basically the antithesis of Marie Kondo's The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and made me feel much better about my messy ways!

[simona.citeste · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este o selecție de povești ale unor oameni care au avut câștig de cauză atunci când au gândit diferit, deci nu-i chiar dezordinea la care te aștepți din titlu.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read for the simple but mind-boggling counter-intuitive stories.

Fav part was paradox of automation.

[Jacob S · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is such a mess!

Get your ducks in a row!

Why are you insisting on doing everything backwards?!

And yet, things gets done, sometimes even with extraordinary success and unexpected results from us, the messy ones.

The book speaks to my inner anarchist, knowing when I work in an excel sheet and analyse data I get what I want, provided data is clean.

But, when the data is not-so-clean I may come to a quite different conclusion that challenges all I thought I knew and provoke me to reassess to get a fuller understanding.

This is where "Messy" comes in, challenging your daily routines, your run on autopilot or total reliance on AI.
Setting your mind free from, at least some of, the very strict rules you adhere to in daily life may be scary to some and as much a routine as ever to others who embrace the mess.

"Messy" delivers a lot of anecdotes supporting this, from notable artists to war veterans and public speakers and everything in between.
There is food for thought both in the examples when they fail and when they succeed, either by creating order out of chaos or embrace the new opportunities a sudden chaos gives.

[Jaclyn Day · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate and even agree with the message of this book but it suffers from the over-bloated blog post syndrome so typical of similar books. Unlike similar books, though, I found the examples and anecdotes clever. They added to the text rather than distracted.

[David Sasaki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Upon first read, Messy seems to be the counter-argument to Atul Gawande's *Checklist Manifesto* . Whereas Gawande argues that we can’t trust our judgement during times of stress and would benefit from checklists to help us remember, Harford argues that we are our own worst enemies when we simply follow neatly planned checklists and would benefit from inserting ourselves into situations of stress and unpredictability. I think both writers are correct and the books are ultimately complementary.

Both Gawande and Harford turn to air travel for anecdotes to buffer their arguments. Gawande recounts the the so-called " Miracle on the Hudson “ that safely brought down US Airways Flight 1549 after it was struck by two flocks of migrating Canadian Geese. He argues that the safety of that particular flight and the impressive improvements in aviation safety more generally stem from the use of checklists to ensure that pilots don’t overlook anything — especially during times of stress. For Harford, however, automation is the enemy. He turns to the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447 to show how autopilot can create incompetent pilots — and it’s not hard to extrapolate from commercial aviation to, say, navigating our own neighborhoods without the assistance of Google Maps. It may seem that Gawande’s and Harford’s arguments are oppositional — one in favor of step-by-step automation, the other against it — but really they’re both asking for greater attentiveness from us. For Gawande, a checklist is a way to remind us to pay attention to what we may otherwise forget. For Harford, we must develop our own intuition and skills over time in order to react to life’s challenges and opportunities with competence. Gawande celebrates thoroughness; Harford praises improvisation.

I read this book for one of our quarterly “learning weeks” at my work, when a bunch of busy travelers all commit to staying in town one week to learn from a guest speaker and each other. For this past learning week, our “guest speaker” was Harford’s TED Talk based on this book. It begins with a fascinating story behind the creation of my favorite album of a live concert: Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert. The book is a quilt work of such anecdotes of individuals like Jarrett — creative geniuses that are thrown into messy, unpredictable situations and thrive as a result. Martin Luther King becomes a powerful orator once he lets go of his carefully prepared notes and embraces improvisation. Jeff Bezos, Erwin Rommel, and Donald Trump all outmaneuvered their competitors by improvising so quickly and unpredictability that their opponents couldn’t react in time. Paul Erdős, the most prolific mathematician of the 20th century, was constantly pushing the frontline of theory while throwing himself into constant messiness and unpredictability. Brian Eno produced many of the most celebrated albums of the last 50 years by forcing bands to break away from all the musical habits they had developed together. And Benjamin Franklin was too busy drafting the Declaration of Independence and inventing bi-focals to ever master his aspiration to become neat and organized.

Maybe you’ve noticed something about the subjects of all of Harford’s anecdotes? They’re all men. And, in fact, with the exceptions of MLK and Franklin, they’re all notoriously ill-tempered and narcissistic men. During our 21st century moment of constant collaboration in minimalistic co-working spaces designed to look like Apple Stores, Harford reclaims the reputation and mystique of the individualistic, unpredictable genius surrounded of piles of paper while ordering armies of underlings around. It’s partly why the world can’t stop paying attention to Donald Trump — the combination of his power and unpredictability is captivating. But these types bring no shortage of challenges. They tend to be terrible managers, constantly shifting from one goal to the next without a coherent vision and clearly laid path that a team can get behind. And they don’t spend much time thinking about the needs and ambitions of others. Colleagues and teammates are mere means to achieve their goals, which are constantly changing. Good management, inclusive participation, and democracy itself all depend on planning and preparation.

Still, I concede Harford’s argument that the dominant work culture has probably tipped too far on the side of neat planning and tidiness, and I appreciate his suggestions for how to invite a little chaos into our perfectly planned lives and workplaces. Most tasks, he argues, require a combination of “flashes of inspiration to identify the right approach, and long effort characterized by selfless teamwork to put it into practice.” They require a “willingness to allow a degree of messiness into a tidy team.” We can minimize groupthink by inviting detractors to challenge and collaborate with us.

Ultimately, Messy is a call to stay awake and attentive in a time of increasing automation and passivity. Following a checklist is one way to pay more attention to what we often gloss over. So too is throwing ourselves into an unfamiliar situation to liven our senses and force improvisation. As far as the future of flying goes, however, it seems inevitable that pilotless planes aren’t far behind driverless cars.

[Sandra Deaconu · Rating 3 out of 5]

,,Oamenii gândesc mai mult atunci când se tem că opiniile lor pot fi contestate de cei din exterior."

[Chel · Rating 5 out of 5]

My five star rating is based on how much enjoyment I got from reading this book and how thought provoking it was. The author's point is an ambitiously broad one: sometimes messiness is more helpful than tidiness in promoting productivity, creativity, and human satisfaction; in some situations messiness is more stable than tidiness and even more efficient; sometimes tidiness is counterproductive. OK, how do you make such a case in the abstract? With many, many examples from a wide selection of human experiences ranging from health care to airplane controls to city planning to filing systems to forestry. An anecdotally supported argument (and all the cases here are anecdotal, even when they are based on the findings of good research) can't ever prove a point, but the author offers so many examples, and such a wide range of them, that it is enough to win my sympathy to his opinion that we live in a world that overvalues tidiness, that fails to distinguish between the times when tidiness is a good thing and the times when it is the reverse. [This title overlaps a similar, earlier book--A Perfect Mess by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman--even using many of the same examples.]

[Ximena Sosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me ha gustado, tiene muchos relatos diferentes pero que se relacionan entre sí, además de la información muy útil que te brinda, acompañada calor de otros muchos consejos! LO RECOMIENDO!!!

[Yaaresse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny how the style of this book is not much different from one I just finished (The Runaway Species), and yet I not only enjoyed reading this one more, but also I though more about what I was reading. Yes, still lots of pop-culture and current event anecdotes, as is the trend now for non-fiction -- gotta make readers feel smart and savvy to sell books -- but the anecdotes in this book were more directly tied to the main points of the book.

We in the age of "there's an app for that" have made a fetish of quantifying and a religion of data for data's sake, not just in industry, government, and education, but also in our personal lives. We have entire stores devoted to containers so we can make our lives Instagramable. We jump on a bandwagon of minimalism and make a celebrity of someone because she tells us not folding our socks "just so" hurts their feelings and that we should get rid of everything that doesn't "spark joy."

All of this neat-freak, OCD tidiness done for external reasons (Instagram, showing off) basically neuters innovation and creativity. Harford suggests that not only should we strive to think outside the box, but we might want to scatter the contents of the box around a bit and maybe play around with new uses for the box. He points out that many times obsessive neatness or goal making makes for less productivity and less profitable (in every sense of the word) outcomes. Citing examples from the arts, industry, NASA, urban planning, schools, and much more, he makes an argument that the ability to come up with creative solutions and innovative outcomes is a skill, one that most people never develop and seldom hone because we don't give ourselves fertile environments in which to practice NOT being obsessively regimented. Sometimes things benefit from being a little...well...messy.

To someone who has repeatedly been called "process-oriented" as both a compliment and a criticism -- sometimes by the same people -- this was not exactly a preaching-to-the-choir book. Much to my surprise, I felt it made some valid observations and offered some rational suggestions about how cities, schools, businesses and individuals can find that sweet spot between rigidity and resourcefulness.

[Delia Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

"we are always reaching for tidy answers, only to find that they're of little use when the questions get messy." (258)

It's funny; I've read so many of these books that I have become familiar with the stories it uses: Jane Jacobs, Flight 447, Amazon, Rommel, and so on. Unlike some of the others (The Checklist Manifesto, for instance), the argument is not for making things more orderly, but for accepting messiness and its virtues. The book is highly readable and entertaining, and it makes some good points, though I cannot stand having piles of papers around even though I know perfectly well that my filing system is where papers go to die. The human urge for order is not something you can just deny out-of-hand, no matter how counterproductive it may be.

I recommend it. It's not intensely deep, but it has many interesting ideas.

[عبدالرحمن عقاب · Rating 3 out of 5]

في عالمٍ شديد التنظيم، يقدّس النظام والترتيب والإعداد المسبق، يأتي صوت الكاتب (تيم هافورد) في مديح الفوضى. وضرورتها الكبيرة في ثنايا النظام الصارم.
يعرض الكتاب للفوضى كظاهرة طبيعية ومهمة، ويرى في غيابها التام هشاشة تهدّد النظام كله.
فالفوضى حاضنة الإبداع، على مستوى الفكر والمكان والفريق. وهي علامة المرونة، وسرّ التعاون الفعّال والتحفيز الجيّد والارتجال الناجح، كما تعرض فصول الكتاب.
تفاوتت فصول الكتاب في جودة مادتها، من حيث الدراسات والأبحاث التي يعتمد عليها. كما تفاوتت في أطوال القصص التي اعتمدها لدعم رأيه وأعدادها.
والإسهاب والاستطراد سيئة الكتاب ومثلبته الكبرى.

[Nick Davies · Rating 1 out of 5]

Frankly, this really irritated me in the end.

I quite enjoyed 'The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World' by the same author, which had a number of quirky examples that illustrated the application of economic theory to everyday life. This book, however, took a much weaker and less well-defined premise and attempted to do similar. In truth I think the author had the idea for the book well in advance of writing it, and may have been forced to churning out this pile of biased tripe as a consequence.

It was not wholly terrible - I do appreciate the crux of what Harford is trying to say, in that the obsession with various modern attempts to standardise and streamline and iron out outliers is not necessarily a good thing in all circumstances - and the author does pick a number of interesting and illustrative examples to back this up. There were lots of intriguing parts to the book, and (like the previous book by the same writer that I read) I did take some new and interesting knowledge from the book.

But as a non-fiction read it was terrible. There is no convincing central argument made - the author is either saying "What I am calling 'messy' is sometimes a good thing" (which is both self-evident and true, but doesn't really need saying unless you more carefully define what you are calling 'messy' and state exactly when it is a good thing - so is pretty pointless to write about at such length with such lack of definition) or is saying "What I am calling 'messy' is uniformly a good thing" (which is patently untrue). What you have here is a series of interesting examples of times in which 'messy' thought/action proved to be beneficial in a sense, but no real attempt to balance this with discussion of the frequent times when the converse is true. Much weight is placed on creativity as opposed to efficiency, and rare outliers that suggest conformity is always bad.

I don't disagree that a measure of 'mess' is a good thing, I don't disagree that diversity can be beneficial, I don't disagree that forcing people in to boxes can stifle them. But I felt that way beforehand. Likewise I realised before that all the technological advances, data interpretation, automation, health and safety, procedures, etc. all surely have a net benefit which is not outweighed by the rare examples Harford discusses at length - and that these rare examples demonstrate only a flaw in the application and content of a specific 'neat' thing, as opposed to an all-encompassing flaw in people's desires to eliminate 'messy' in their lives and livelihoods.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

My desk is a mess. I have a laptop, a second screen, keyboard, a task light and a lava lamp, a stationary rack and pencil holder, scrap paper and a pad to write on, as well as 18 books and various other items of detritus. To be honest, it could do with a bit of a tidy up. One day I will…

Most people want a tidy place to work in. Some businesses are really strict on this, enforcing numerous draconian rules as to what you can or can’t have on your desk, the number of personal photos allowed and so on. These businesses make look slick and have the impression of performing well, but they are soulless places and they are missing that extra spark that disorganization, improvisation and confusion can bring to the creative process.

In this highly entertaining book, Tim Harford argues that clean pristine working areas, rather we need a little mess and disorder in our work and home lives to get that creativity back that is ultimately enriching. He uses lots of examples of how people have not had the exact equipment that they wanted or had the usual preparation time for a particular thing, and it turned out to be one of the best performance or speeches of their life.

Being organised does get things done, but that spark of creativity that happens when things are not quite so is where the magic lies. I really liked this book, partly because I am not so tidy, and tend to have lots of things on the go at any one time, but also because I think on a fundamental level he is right. I particularly liked the story of a lab in America that managed to create all manner of things and the reason was because of the layout of the building and people with a variety of different interests and skills would pass each other, get talking and spark new ideas off. If you are a person who likes all their pencils lined up, then this might not be the book for you, but perhaps you should read it, you never know what might happen…

[Alex Wilkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harford lucidly puts down his arguments for living in a messier world, contrary to the age-old desires for 'order'. Plucking examples both from the creative and corporate worlds, from Brian Eno and Miles Davis' obscure and chaotic compositional methods to Jeff Bezos' hectic rise to e-hegemony, he stridently lays forth the case for letting a little disorder into your life.

While an entertaining read, full of fascinating tidbits from history, the book at points does feel like its straining to draw a link to its 'Messy' title. Can you really bring a disordered improvisational perfomance and diverse gut flora/city diaspora under the same umbrella? The links seem a bit tenuous. Messy is an inherently disparate and tricky concept, which makes it perfect for writing a book about! To tie it all together into an overarching thesis, however, seems a bit of a stretch.

Having said that, there are many, many useful lessons to be learned here, and the book isn't a waste of time. Taking it at its loosest conception; if you're feelign creatively stifled, boxed-in or lost, then try being a bit messier, and a bit less prepared, and see what happens.

[Casceil · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a "messy" person to whom tidiness does not come naturally, I was pleased to find a book that explained why messiness can lead to productivity and creative thinking. The book was consistently interesting, and discussed a wide range of topics, from the importance of control of your own work-space to how messiness can inspire creativity.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping this book would help explain my daughter--creative and messy! Instead, it explains how messy environments can help creativity to flourish. (I guess I will have to learn how to tolerate her messes.) While Harford's many anecdotes are interesting, I often felt like there was a lack of cohesiveness among them...I wasn't quite sure how they all related to the topic.

[Peter Geyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes culture intervenes in a book's title or description. One of C.G. Jung's books in the 1850s, was called The Undiscovered Self, a title he disagreed with and which he said had been made up by his American publisher.

My copy of Tim Harford's "Messy" has the subtext: "How to be creative and resilient in a tidy-minded world" in contrast to another edition, which has: "The power of disorder to transform our lives." Now, if you read the book, both statements are exaggerations and don't really represent the contents, although the latter statement is apposite for the most part. But the book is not a "how to" book, nor is it in the self-help genre as implied by the former blurb.

Harford is a writer on economic and financial issues; some earlier titles are familiar, but not sufficient to get me to open my wallet in what can be dry subject matter. Here, although no individual stylist like a Nicolas Rothwell or Terry Eagleton, he writes clearly and entertainingly on various aspects of tidiness and preparedness, spontaneity and creativity, oreganisational neatness and its problems and so on.

Many of his examples are the usual, many are quite different. He starts off, for instance, by recounting a story about a performance by the improvisational jazz pianist Keith Jarrett which gained great fame (The Koln Concert – I had the CD for years) but which almost didn't happen because the piano was unsuitable and Jarrett initially refused to play on it. He relented, following a personal entreaty and worked on what he had in front of him.

Harford follows up with stories about David Bowie and Brian Eno, particularly the latter's "Oblique Strategies" – a deck of cards with statements both annoying and stimulating – and various responses and outcomes. The music references are familiar to me, and I'm listening to Eno's "Thursday Afternoon" at the moment, for the purpose intended i.e it will block out unwanted sounds and help me write.

He also references another musical event in the late 1950s classic jazz recording "Kind of Blue" by the Miles Davis regarding the instructions Davis gave his musicians and how things turned out. Harford doesn't give this example, but some years later, his instructions to the British guitarist John McLaughlin were "play like you don't know how to play the guitar" and McLaughlin has recounted his response to that and how he consequently played on the session.

Charles Darwin is also mentioned in an interesting way that challenges a particular stereotype about his personality, as he is inevitably classified as an extravert, when the evidence I read, as here, suggests the opposite. But who knows? Jung suggested that creativity didn't necessarily have to do with a person's orientation.

Other people mentioned along the way are the personally chaotic mathematician Paul Erdos, the abrasive Steve Jobs, the scripted then scriptless Martin Luther King, and curiosities like Jeff Bezos, Erwin Rommel and Donald Trump. Harford's comments on the latter are interesting, as they include astute observations on the latter's method during the recent election process, but before the election, which off-sided a lot of people, mostly because he didn't play the same game, I think.

Harford also dips into organisational design, making the important point that people working in them want to have some control over their space, which means that cubicles, open-plan offices, treadmill desks, compulsory play and the like are always problematic, to say nothing of rules that preclude personal material of any kind being displayed and files etc put away at the end of the day. He demonstrates that these practices are demotivating, cause stress and resentment and damage productivity. This includes the practice some people have of tidying up for you, from anecdotal experience, a problem many women encounter with mothers-in-law with regard to kitchens.

Social policy also comes under examination, with examples from the British National Health Service and the presumptions of politicians and others, in his example then Prime Minister Tony Blair, that a single set of guidelines and instructions was all that was necessary for particular procedures. An aspect of this is the presenting of a target for output which then becomes the aim rather than the provision of a service, in the case given ambulance response times.

This kind of issue, which is compounded by inappropriate computer use, is a current political issue in Australia, with the computer driven generation of letters to large numbers of welfare recipients demanding back-payment of funds but based on a flawed algorithm, and unchecked by humans. Harford comments on the limits of computers as assistants, from this kind of issue to GPS problems, and a plane crash. The GPS one is interesting in that it reminded me of a professional colleague who turned up late for a particular meeting, on a rainy night, where the venue was possibly 10 minutes away by car. She arrived quite flustered and may not have heard or appreciated my comment that perhaps she should have looked out the window instead of engaging with the GPS.

Harford's take on resilience is much more mundane than the current jargon term, being merely how to survive all these issues, which is probably more useful. He finishes with a few "Life" stories, one being about online dating, a place i've thought of occasionally but have never ventured into. The few pages on it here demonstrate how unhelpful it might be. I also discovered, with surprise and much pleasure, that although Benjamin Franklin wrote about tidiness and the like in a somewhat exhortatory fashion, in fact he was unable to successfully apply those rules to himself, a failure he acknowledged.

This is a book well-worth reading even if, like me, you've read in such areas before and also have the view that people naturally come to different perspectives on this aspect of leading their lives. It's a must, really, if you have anything to do with organisations, or people who work in them.

I dislike star ratings on principle, but they're part of the furniture here, so I'll explain my less than perfect rating by saying that Harford doesn't have a distinctive writing style, and so it could be anyone writing it. That may be the aim of editors for all I know, and in his anecdotes Harford seems human enough and probably a good person to have a chat with. Other people I've read recently, on not unrelated topics have expressed themselves better as individuals anyway. Bit tough in a way, I know.

The music's about to stop...

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really interesting, how messiness makes us more creative? His argument is excellent and the examples are superb. He explicitly explained the Trump strategy, which now makes total sense to me, although I hate it.
The other section in chapter 10, he totally blows online dating out of the water. There is no such thing as matching people using an algorithm. Meeting people are messy also!
A very educational book, see my Kindle notes if you are interested in the snippets I marked.

[Jim]

Notes from christopherwinkdotcom. I will adjust them as I go along. I want to do more of these outlines to improve retention


In June 2009, the veteran lead pilot of Air France 447 was awoken from his scheduled nap to find his junior crew in trouble. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he had three minutes to determine which of the conflicting alerts from the plane’s automated system to respond to, and what were false alarms.

He failed. Nearly 250 crew and passengers died in the Atlantic Ocean.

That’s from the easily most gripping chapter in economics journalist Tim Harford’s 2016 book Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives. That tragic story is a cautionary tale for our age, demonstrating the paradox of automation: “The better the automatic systems, the more out of practice human operators will be, and the more unusual will be the situations they face.”

Notes below:

Daniel Oppenheimer et al showed high school teachers who used unusual fonts had better performing students

Bernice Eiduson followed scientists over careers: the top performers switched topics more than the others

Gruber and Sara Davis argue that creative people work on multiple projects so often that it should be considered standard practice: “network of enterprises” brings new ideas from frequent breaks

Soren Kieekegaard called this “crop rotation”

Oblique strategies

Mark Granovetter’s oft-cited 1973 paper on the strength of weak ties for job searches

Paul Erdos gave an academic example of weak ties when he said “another roof, anther proof” (he’s also the one who famously said a mathematician is “a machine for turning coffee in the theorems.”

Bonding social capital and bridging: sociologists like bonding and bridging

De vaan, David Stark and Vedres mapped the social connections of game developers to see what paths led to the most successful outcomes: networks of teams

Muzafer Sharif: famous social science study of two groups of boys pitted against each other as competitors after forming strong bonds as strangers

Cass Sunstein’s work on progressive Boulder and conservative Colorado Springs: a political divide grew more when people were put with like minded people

Irving Janis: group think

Scott Page: “diversity trumps ability”

Brooke Harrington: friend groups had more fun but performed worse on tasks as they sought to make everyone feel ok; diverse groups are more productive but had conflict

Ingraham and Morris: social event tracking found executives used networking events to reinforce existing friendships, despite claiming they sought new connections

Aldrich and Martinez-Firestone: most entrepreneurs aren’t actually creative, they mix with same people (and follow existing patterns)

Bahns Crickett Crandall: small colleges force more diverse friendships, where large colleges allow us to find ideological twins

Eli Pariser’s 2011 book Filter Bubble argues how the web allows us to further isolate politically

Emma Pierson showed tweets about protests in Ferguson Missouri did not interact

We need people who bridge and bond across social groups

You don’t want “team harmony” you want “goal harmony”

La Corbusier and Steve Jobs as design icons

Author hates 5s efficiency model in workplaces (keep things clean and orderly)

Haslam and Craig knight: office layout study in 2010

The advertising firm Chiat/Day called their offices a campus before tech companies like Google and Microsoft (fittingly Google now occupies the former Los Angeles HQ of Chiat/Day)

Leadership at Kyocera and other companies with lean-office culture hated employee knickknacks — but that’s how employees feel at home in otherwise sterile places

MIT Building 20 was a famous collision of specialities in part because it had a baffling room numbering system and was rushed to construction. Influential cross-disciplinary work took place there, like cognitive scientist Jerry Lettvin’s seminal 1959 paper “What the frog’s eye tells the frog’s brain” (on what the eye processes) and Noam Chomsky collaborate with Morris Halle

Offices should look like they way employees use them, as a “tool shop,” not the tidy way a boss dreams of them. Famous story of Steve Jobs wanting just two bathrooms for Pixar HQ to encourage serendipity but a group of pregnant employees got Jobs to backdown because they didn’t want to walk so damn far to the bathroom.

Neuroscientist Charles Limb on improvisation: “it’s magical but it’s not magic”

Tips from improv: habit of yes, listen closely and take risks

In 1995, Faurie & Raymond published their left-handed fighting hypothesis, in which left handed people survived in society because fighting them is difficult

Patterns of Conflict was a 1976 presentation by Colonel John Boyd outlining his theories on modern combat and how the key to success was to upset the enemy’s “observation-orientation-decision-action time cycle or loop”, or OODA loop

Steven Kerr’s 1975 paper: “On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B “ (unintended consequences of metric chasing)

In 1995, economist Peter Smith published a paper demonstrating the unintended consequences of public performance data, and tracked other unintended consequences from metrics

Jeremy Bentham: “impossibilizing the knowledge” is when you track several metrics and can’t solve for one and so judgement plays a role. You don’t want one tidy number which can lead to “overfitting” (or over-correcting for that one number)

Paradox of automation: “The better the automatic systems, the more out of practice human operators will be, and the more unusual will be the situations they face.”

In three ways: hides incompetence; erodes skills and automaton fails at most challenging times

In 1980, aviation expert Earl Wiener began questioning the limits of automation, leading to Wiener’s Laws, including: “Digital devices tune out small errors while creating opportunities for large errors.”

Rebecca Pilske: Veteran meteorologists made their predictions and then used software to spot gaps; Newer meteorologists relied entirely on software, missing the chance at learning to spot anomalies.

Rather than humans monitoring machines why not the opposite? Or at least machines must engage their human supervisors more often to keep them engaged and attentive.

Micro biome : fecal transplant

Jane Jacobs: diverse industry cities will last longer than one-industry like Detroit.

“Specialized cities are fragile”

Academic AnnaLee Saxenian, with a speciality in technology clusters, demonstrated that in 1994, Boston’s 128 Corridor was specialized in siloed companies like Wang, Raytheon and Sun whereas Silicon Valley was full of gossiping, catty, culturally diverse intermixing. The mindset was one of an “ecosystem” not one industry.

Cesar Hidalgo’s 2009 paper on economic complexity: relationship between a diversified economy, a complex economy, and a rich economy. “Variety and sophistication go hand-in-hand.” 216

“The economies that do lots of things tend to do most of those things very well.”

The Big Sort book

Planners like the simplicity of zoning but like an orderly forest it is fragile and prone to lack of dynamism (and disease). He compares to a German forest example

Research Diedrick Stapel faked 55 lab results because everyone wants neat and simple results

The Broken Windows Theory published by The Atlantic in 1982 was also an oversimplified tidy

Steven Levitt rejects broken windows. Instead, he argued the decline in crime in the 1990s was attributed to five main factors (initially four and added a fifth): more police, more prison population, the decline of the crack epidemic and the legalization of abortion in the 1970s – taking lead out of gasoline in the late 1970s was added

Fabian Waldinger: Nazi Germany chasing away brilliant Jewish and supportive scientists (Jon Von Neman, Einstein) cost them economic output

Of Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues, it was ORDER that gave him the most difficulty

David Kirsh: neaties and scruffies

A messy desk gives you signposts of what you were most recently doing. It is a kind of physical to do list. It is intolerable to work in someone else’s mess because it’s like you’re sitting in someone else’s language (“sign posts for someone else’s journey”)

Filers and pilers

Noguchi system and simpler versions: keep moving what you use the most so you know what to leave behind

Daniel Kirschenbaum: monthly planning was more effective than daily planning

How Mathematician Chris McKinlay used OK Cupid

The problem with tidy checklists for dating or jobs is that we often don’t actually know what we want

Marcel Proust’s questionnaire

Facebook expanding the “like” button wasn’t for users but for advertisers

Brian Christian won the Turing Prize as human with three tactics: went off book, got personal and interrupted

Peter Gray at Boston College: informal games for kids boost adult creativity

Emdrup Junk Playground: no more dangerous than standardized playground

[Kressel Housman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I’ve read several of Tim Harford’s previous books, I became aware of this one because of an interview he did about it on the Unmistakable Creative podcast. The angle of the interview was typical for the show: self-help about the creative process. So when I got the book and discovered that it was mostly theoretical and low on practical advice, I was disappointed. I had no patience to read about Rommel’s military tactics, and besides, they sounded like points made in Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath. The same went for the chapter on incentives. It was interesting, but I felt like I’d read the same ideas in the Freakonomics books. I almost gave the book 3 stars for that reason, which is a pretty mediocre rating coming from me.

But when I thought about it, I realized that I’d learned too much from the book to rate it so poorly. The point of the book is that creativity is a messy process, but more than that, it’s a warning not to fetishize tidiness. He doesn’t just mean physical neatness a la Marie Kondo (who gets a respectful nod.) The chapter that best sums up his point was called Automation. We all know how over-reliant we’ve become on algorithms. Well, consider this: people have been known to drive their cars into the water just because a GPS told them to. They ignored their own eyes and brain. Why? Because a computer must be more precise than a human brain. And perhaps it is, but precision isn’t everything. It’s a messy world out there, populated by other messy human beings. The best way to navigate your way through is your own messy humanity. And for that positive message, Tim Harford gets 4 stars.

[Julie Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

p 1 - unplayable piano - turns into best concert recording
Distractability as leading to creativity
Collaboration and group think
p. 68 "One perfectly competent employee is being harassed by another perfectly competent employee to satisfy the pointless demands of a company rule book"
p. 98 Miles Davis - one take; Improvisation; Martin Luther King "I Have a Dream Speech"
p. 105 "the habit of yes" - Always add to what has been said so far. Never say no; always say, "yes, and..."
p. 128 Rommel and Blitzkrieg as a messy improvisation before it was a tactic
p. 132 "He's in the OODA loop - deploying chaos as a weapon "Observe-orient-decide-act" The ability to act quickly and control the narrative; Preference for speed over perfection vs; schwerfallig = ponderous: Trump vs Bush
p. 137 Amazon - Jeff Bezos...As long as he kept moving, kept improvising, kept being willing to make mess, his competitors would hesitate
p. 143 While your team should understand broad goals - they shouldn't waste time trying to coordinate with one another. Boyd argued that synchronization was for watches, not people: trying to synchronize activities wasted time and left everyone marching at the pace of the slowest.
p. 151 Incentives - "The trouble is that when we start quantifying and measuring the world, we soon begin to change the world to fit the way we measure it"
p. 158 - We assume that by measuring one thing, we're really measuring everything. That is delusional. We hit the target, but miss the point.
p. 183 The paradox of automation: The better the automatic systems, the more out-of-practice human operators will be, and the more unusual will be the situations they face." autopilot and plane crashes
p. 186 Wiener's Law = digital devices tune out small errors while creating opportunities for large errors.
p. 203 - Round-abouts work because it is safer because it feels hazardous
p. 233 - filing system of piling things - and what is on top of the file is what you need or envelope...label with contents. Everytime you use the envelope - place it to the right.. These will be the things you actually use/need;
p. 240email - don't waste time organizing email. Keep everything in an archived folder and just use the "search" function.
p. 241 - monthly plans are the best as opposed to no plan or daily plans "Daily plans are tidym but life is messy"
p 260 - the idea of unstructured play and more natural playgrounds as just as safe as structured playgrounds.

[Vanessa W · Rating 2 out of 5]

I get the sentiment that this book is trying to convey, but I really think this message should have stayed with what was brought up in the chapter on corporations trying to force office space to be tidy: figure out which techniques and configurations are most comfortable for you, and always be looking for ways to improve (this includes not being neat, tidy, organized in the traditional way). I liked this book until I got to the part where the author said that Magnus Carlsen, potentially the best chess player in the world, is brilliant but his moves are meh. I understand that what the author is trying to say is that the moves are not what a computer would say is the correct move, but Carlsen doesn't play like a computer. That's the whole reason he's the best? For a book that's heavy on anecdotes, this author picks awful anecdotes. I nearly quit at 78% when the author brought up C. diff being treated successfully with fecal transplants in clinical trials. Fine, good example. But then he brought up an experimental, very controversial and in my opinion, very unethical idea that was tried on a tiny amount of people and potentially killed a few of them in California: using Enterobacter, a bacteria often found in fecal matter, to give patients with glioblastoma infections in their brain in order to promote immunotherapy. Honey, there are many other incredible scientific discoveries regarding bacteria and antibiotics and probiotics, do not highlight for the public the one that is least likely to be helpful for a group of people with terminal illness! 😡
Other than an economist picking out bad scientific examples, I think this is a book I wish all management would read to remember that sometimes, you just have to let live. Just because people aren't doing it your way doesn't mean they're doing it the wrong way. Sometimes forcing people to do it your way will lead to unhappiness.

[Keely · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Messy, Tim Harford explores the many ways in which embracing messiness can lead to better results, in everything from science, to business, banking, conversation, creative pursuits, and raising capable kids. Harford shares a variety of case studies in which letting go of our human tendency toward "tidy-mindedness" has opened the way for impressive breakthroughs. These include pianist Keith Jarrett's legendary 1975 Köln concert, during which he worked within the limitations of a very out-of-tune piano to create a sublime performance, as well as Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, which took place just as the meticulously scripted King was starting to embrace the idea of going off script in service to his cause. However, I think my favorite messy example was that of M.I.T.'s famously dumpy but magical Building 20, which wasn't pleasing to look at, but scrappily enabled all kinds of innovative work. Harford also shares contrasting examples, when insisting on tidy work spaces, or easy and predictable measures of complicated things, has proved unsuccessful or even disastrous. Volkswagen's cheating on emissions standards tests is one such example of a company gaming an overly tidy and predictable measure. Standardized academic tests like the S.A.T. suffer from the same shortcoming. Ostensibly objective, they still fail to measure the human complexity of what will make a successful college student.

Much like Harford's excellent Cautionary Tales podcast, Messy is fascinating. It reflects much of what I've learned through twenty years of trial and error as a creative professional, and it also serves up some fresh inspiration to embrace even more messiness in my work and personal life.