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A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder--How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place
Ever since Einstein's study of Brownian Motion, scientists have understood that a little disorder can actually make systems more effective. But most people still shun disorder-or suffer guilt over the mess they can't avoid. No longer! With a spectacular array of true stories and case studies of the hidden benefits of mess, A Perfect Mess overturns the accepted wisdom that tight schedules, organization, neatness, and consistency are the keys to success.
Drawing on examples from business, parenting, cooking, the war on terrorism, retail, and even the meteoric career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, coauthors Abrahmson and Freedman demonstrate that moderately messy systems use resources more efficiently, yield better solutions, and are harder to break than neat ones.Applying this idea on scales both large (government, society) and small (desktops, garages), A Perfect Mess uncovers all the ways messiness can trump neatness, and will help you assess the right amount of disorder for any system.
Whether it's your company's management plan or your hallway closet that bedevils you, this book will show you why to say yes to mess.
Drawing on examples from business, parenting, cooking, the war on terrorism, retail, and even the meteoric career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, coauthors Abrahmson and Freedman demonstrate that moderately messy systems use resources more efficiently, yield better solutions, and are harder to break than neat ones.Applying this idea on scales both large (government, society) and small (desktops, garages), A Perfect Mess uncovers all the ways messiness can trump neatness, and will help you assess the right amount of disorder for any system.
Whether it's your company's management plan or your hallway closet that bedevils you, this book will show you why to say yes to mess.
327 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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2130 people want to read
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August 20, 2007
If you are messy and disorganized, this book will make you feel justified in your piles and clutter. If you're organized, the cover is a soothing Real-Simple shade of blue. This book has something for everyone.
October 15, 2007
That my OCD/perfectionist/virgo/anal retentive traits to keep everything in it's right place may not be all that great and can actually drive me crazy.
Consider this example I saw on the news. They had a gardener on the show for how to plant a beautiful garden. The female anchor was arranging all the bulbs in neat, concise rows, perfectly spaced. She then asked the gardener why he wasn't doing the same and was just throwing them in. His reply was that mother nature doesn't have such a system, yet look how beautiful the world can be.
I try to apply this metaphor for all of my life lessons, no matter how messy they can get.
Consider this example I saw on the news. They had a gardener on the show for how to plant a beautiful garden. The female anchor was arranging all the bulbs in neat, concise rows, perfectly spaced. She then asked the gardener why he wasn't doing the same and was just throwing them in. His reply was that mother nature doesn't have such a system, yet look how beautiful the world can be.
I try to apply this metaphor for all of my life lessons, no matter how messy they can get.
March 6, 2008
January is "Organizing Month". So, it seemed appropriate that I read the book A Perfect Mess by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman. I was under the impression that this book was about actual CLUTTER - as in all the piles o' crap lounging around my house. As longtime readers of this blog know, I have a family member who has a serious hoarding problem. Serious as in "Oprah Should See Her House" SERIOUS - entire rooms of her house cannot even be accessed because of the clutter and soon, her dining room will be the next victim. So, I have a constant paranoia of getting overwhelmed with junk because I've seen how too easily it can get out of control. I thought this book would be a good way to take a different look at all my stuff. However, this book turned out to be much, much more. Oh sure, it covered good old-fashioned junk, but it also discussed messy ideas, relationships, schedules, traffic patterns, Internet search engines, business strategies, art and even music. It examined ways mess can impact our lives - good and bad.
The authors make the valid point that sometimes, we throw away too much stuff, things that we will regret later not having in our lives. I can't agree more. I have given away things that I wish I had now - things that evoked special memories from particular moments in my life. The authors also make the point that there is a discrimination against messy people and again, I can't agree more. When I look back on my professional life, I remember specifically those co-workers and clients that had atrocious desks with piles of paper teetering close to the brink of disaster - I always thought distastefully what slobs they were. However, some of those very co-workers were some of the brightest and most productive that I have ever worked with - perhaps, they spent more time working and less time procrastinating? Furthermore, the authors examine how mess can affect relationships - and that hit close to home. X is a messy guy, I would prefer things to be more tidy. When we were first married, it was a major problem that had to be worked out. Over the years, we've established ground rules, but realistically, mess sorta rules our roost now. I've learned to be okay with it for the most part and to put my foot down on the certain things that really make my stomach churn.
This book made me look at the mess in my own life and I took stock. What am I okay with? What am I not okay with? Toys littering the living room? I'll live with it. Dishes filling the sink? Never. Piles of paper on my desk? I'll live with it. Mentally keeping track of appointments or the list for the grocery store? Never.
In short (notice how I put this at the end? after the cluttered review?), I liked this book - it made me think. It also forced me reconsider all the things I had considered "messy" and "wasteful". I should note this is a great book for discussion. I highly recommend it for bookclub reading since there is a wealth of points to ponder after reading this book.
And now? I guess I better start on that stack of mail that has been growing for the past 2 weeks. Gulp.
The authors make the valid point that sometimes, we throw away too much stuff, things that we will regret later not having in our lives. I can't agree more. I have given away things that I wish I had now - things that evoked special memories from particular moments in my life. The authors also make the point that there is a discrimination against messy people and again, I can't agree more. When I look back on my professional life, I remember specifically those co-workers and clients that had atrocious desks with piles of paper teetering close to the brink of disaster - I always thought distastefully what slobs they were. However, some of those very co-workers were some of the brightest and most productive that I have ever worked with - perhaps, they spent more time working and less time procrastinating? Furthermore, the authors examine how mess can affect relationships - and that hit close to home. X is a messy guy, I would prefer things to be more tidy. When we were first married, it was a major problem that had to be worked out. Over the years, we've established ground rules, but realistically, mess sorta rules our roost now. I've learned to be okay with it for the most part and to put my foot down on the certain things that really make my stomach churn.
This book made me look at the mess in my own life and I took stock. What am I okay with? What am I not okay with? Toys littering the living room? I'll live with it. Dishes filling the sink? Never. Piles of paper on my desk? I'll live with it. Mentally keeping track of appointments or the list for the grocery store? Never.
In short (notice how I put this at the end? after the cluttered review?), I liked this book - it made me think. It also forced me reconsider all the things I had considered "messy" and "wasteful". I should note this is a great book for discussion. I highly recommend it for bookclub reading since there is a wealth of points to ponder after reading this book.
And now? I guess I better start on that stack of mail that has been growing for the past 2 weeks. Gulp.
September 21, 2025
Eric Abrahamson is a professor of business at Columbia Business School and David Friedman is a science journalist. Their 2006 book, A Perfect Mess, is a defense of messiness and clutter in a world that's fixated on being neat and organized.
Reading this book in 2025, I can definitely say that Abrahamson and Friedman haven't really changed the cultural zeitgeist in favor of clutter, as the professional organization industry is still thriving, hundreds of books about being well-organized continue to be published annually, and The Container Store is still in business (albeit barely).
While I admire this book for its unique spin in the personal productivity space, it's also unfortunately a confused and disorganized book at its core (ironic pun intended). The authors attempt to defend many different kinds of “mess” - physical clutter at home, a disorganized desk at work, on-the-fly vs. streamlined project management, freeform daily schedules vs. to-do lists and calendars, etc. Most frustrating for me as a reader, instead of focusing chapters on various types of clutter and why each might be justifiable backed by research, the authors zig zag repeatedly through the same examples, all while vindictively jabbing at professional organizers (whom they seem to regard as charlatans and sheisters). At least Marie Kondo had the sense to publish The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing several years after this book, or I'm sure she'd have been particularly skewered.
They cite examples such as the Marines delaying mission planning until the evening before, so as not to waste time replanning when conditions change. Interesting as these anecdotes are, the book never really distinguishes which kinds of mess might be beneficial and which kinds are simply distractions.
While I don't think the authors' arguments are entirely devoid of merit (and I agree with them that we don't need to drop hundreds at the Container Store or have a home organizer on retainer to be productive), I would have appreciated more conciseness, a cleaner presentation (pun intended), and more incisive backing by research finding rather than anecdotes or individual case studies. Speaking from my own experiences, I am fairly tolerant of clutter in the less visible spaces of my home, but I don't work well with a messy desk -- it stresses me out. So, I incentivize myself to keep my desk surface clutter-free at the end of every evening, as this gives me both the physical space but the mental space to get my best work done.
Further reading:
Tidy the F*ck Up: The American Art of Organizing Your Sh*t by Messie Condo - an irreverent middle ground
My statistics:
Book 292 for 2025
Book 2218 cumulatively
Reading this book in 2025, I can definitely say that Abrahamson and Friedman haven't really changed the cultural zeitgeist in favor of clutter, as the professional organization industry is still thriving, hundreds of books about being well-organized continue to be published annually, and The Container Store is still in business (albeit barely).
While I admire this book for its unique spin in the personal productivity space, it's also unfortunately a confused and disorganized book at its core (ironic pun intended). The authors attempt to defend many different kinds of “mess” - physical clutter at home, a disorganized desk at work, on-the-fly vs. streamlined project management, freeform daily schedules vs. to-do lists and calendars, etc. Most frustrating for me as a reader, instead of focusing chapters on various types of clutter and why each might be justifiable backed by research, the authors zig zag repeatedly through the same examples, all while vindictively jabbing at professional organizers (whom they seem to regard as charlatans and sheisters). At least Marie Kondo had the sense to publish The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing several years after this book, or I'm sure she'd have been particularly skewered.
They cite examples such as the Marines delaying mission planning until the evening before, so as not to waste time replanning when conditions change. Interesting as these anecdotes are, the book never really distinguishes which kinds of mess might be beneficial and which kinds are simply distractions.
While I don't think the authors' arguments are entirely devoid of merit (and I agree with them that we don't need to drop hundreds at the Container Store or have a home organizer on retainer to be productive), I would have appreciated more conciseness, a cleaner presentation (pun intended), and more incisive backing by research finding rather than anecdotes or individual case studies. Speaking from my own experiences, I am fairly tolerant of clutter in the less visible spaces of my home, but I don't work well with a messy desk -- it stresses me out. So, I incentivize myself to keep my desk surface clutter-free at the end of every evening, as this gives me both the physical space but the mental space to get my best work done.
Further reading:
Tidy the F*ck Up: The American Art of Organizing Your Sh*t by Messie Condo - an irreverent middle ground
My statistics:
Book 292 for 2025
Book 2218 cumulatively
June 16, 2007
Confirmed my suspicions that people spend too much time straightening, cleaning, and organizing - and worrying about not doing these things! - while a little disorder actually helps. Some companies and individuals actually devote more time to neatening before and after work and play, than to actual work and play.
Read
November 18, 2021The premise of this intriguing book is that mess is actually good! Being less than perfectly organized allows for more creativity and flexibility and can even be more efficient, especially in the business world. Authors Abrahamson and Freedman share several anecdotes, including a look into the profitable world of professional organizers.
-- Louisa --
-- Louisa --
Want to read
October 14, 2008Oh! How wonderful it feels to be justified!!!
May 3, 2018
Super quick and interesting read. Now not only do I not feel so bad about being a disorganized slob, but I actually am intrigued by all the other hugely successful disorganized slobs in the world. What I really want to know is why I’m not one of them yet? Like a multimillionaire disorganized slob genius. Yes yes I realize the word slob is not used in the book but let’s be real here. I’m a little more than a bit disorganized so when referring to myself I’m ok with using it. Anyway this book had a lot of good information on how too much organization can take away from actual work being done and lower businesses success rates. It made a lot of sense. Unfortunately I think I’m still going to have to attempt to organize my stuff and eventually my life because if I just throw it all to the wind the doggo might get lost in the chaos along with my sanity. Plus I have a super messy car and that’s like the one exception in this book. Apparently a car is the one place that shouldn’t be messy because it’s a piece of heavy machinery and all small and can get gross and can have all sorts of other problems because of it. So there you have it folks. I have not even been able to keep up with the one awesome book that tells you it’s totally cool to be messy!
August 6, 2011
A Perfect Mess
The premise is intriguing and intuitive: time spent organizing one's inner and outer lives had better have a positive ROI, or the entire industry of personal organization gurus like Peter Walsh can be shown to be a con.
Well this book is, as befits the predilections of its authors, a mess. They have an theory: neatness is a sign of internal and external inefficiency, and they proceed to look for validating instance proofs. But their instance proofs were only useful ones for a nanosecond after they wrote this book - it feels like they picked plausible existence proofs, present them as definitive and then ask us to move on quickly.
Well, reading this book four years after it came out (I bought it when it came out but never found it interesting enough to continue to read at the time), here are some of their existence proofs and a more considered examination of the results rendered by their examples.
Example 1 - Steve Jobs and Apple are obsessively neat while Bill Gates and Microsoft are described to be relatively messy in organizational structure. Gates, the authors say, "is known for encouraging independent teams to go off in many, often conflicting, directions, and is more tolerant of delays and changes" than Steve Jobs is. Jobs is "a fastidious, turtleneck-only control freak widely know to rage at his teams when they've diverged from precise goals and schedules". This existence proof is made by citing examples like the success of Windows, Word and Excel, and noting that "by early 2006 analysts were predicting the iPod would soon be losing market share". True - until the industry-shaking Apple iPhone was released six months after this book was published. Oops!
Example 2 - Arnold Schwarzenegger has, the authors say, a "messy formula for success". Unlike most executives, Schwarzenegger operates his daily life as the Governor of California without a schedule. One cannot schedule a meeting with him. If you want an appointment with him, the authors admiringly describe how you should just call him up and, if he's free when you call, you can talk to him. Otherwise, try again later. If he does meet with you, it "might be for five minutes or five hours - he'd see how it went".
Schwarzenegger is "a master at looking neat while keeping major aspects of his life steeped in a mess". They note that most professionally successful people shoot for planfulness and consistency, while Schwarzenegger "has overachieved through improvisation and inconsistency". Interestingly, this was particularly helpful to him when it helped him created a variable exercise regime during his body-building days that resulted in a flexible set of exercises that fit his mood, rather than a set schedule of exercises like most body-builders. The authors imply that his success was directly tied to this one behavioral component. One wonders if other factors were at play here, but no other factors are addressed. Moreover, like the Gates/Jobs example, the authors necessarily stop at the time of publication. If they were more honest though, Californians were disappointed with Schwarzenegger's lack of success at fiscal reform, and as time has gone on, the basic feeling in California is that he was a disappointment.
These are just two examples put forth to prove the book's thesis. Really, none of their examples were conclusive, because one cannot be definitive when talking about a dichotomy about this, in which the 'right' answer is situational. The authors huff and puff about how different the philosophies of consistency and improvisation are, but in fact pragmatic, high-achieving people travel between these two poles when one or both qualities are called for.
In the end, the book was though provoking, and for that the book was probably worth reading, if disappointing. You have to wonder if the authors ever really convinced themselves their animus towards neatness and personal organizers was really heartfelt or a 316-page defense of their wanting to live a messy life and write messy books like this one.
The premise is intriguing and intuitive: time spent organizing one's inner and outer lives had better have a positive ROI, or the entire industry of personal organization gurus like Peter Walsh can be shown to be a con.
Well this book is, as befits the predilections of its authors, a mess. They have an theory: neatness is a sign of internal and external inefficiency, and they proceed to look for validating instance proofs. But their instance proofs were only useful ones for a nanosecond after they wrote this book - it feels like they picked plausible existence proofs, present them as definitive and then ask us to move on quickly.
Well, reading this book four years after it came out (I bought it when it came out but never found it interesting enough to continue to read at the time), here are some of their existence proofs and a more considered examination of the results rendered by their examples.
Example 1 - Steve Jobs and Apple are obsessively neat while Bill Gates and Microsoft are described to be relatively messy in organizational structure. Gates, the authors say, "is known for encouraging independent teams to go off in many, often conflicting, directions, and is more tolerant of delays and changes" than Steve Jobs is. Jobs is "a fastidious, turtleneck-only control freak widely know to rage at his teams when they've diverged from precise goals and schedules". This existence proof is made by citing examples like the success of Windows, Word and Excel, and noting that "by early 2006 analysts were predicting the iPod would soon be losing market share". True - until the industry-shaking Apple iPhone was released six months after this book was published. Oops!
Example 2 - Arnold Schwarzenegger has, the authors say, a "messy formula for success". Unlike most executives, Schwarzenegger operates his daily life as the Governor of California without a schedule. One cannot schedule a meeting with him. If you want an appointment with him, the authors admiringly describe how you should just call him up and, if he's free when you call, you can talk to him. Otherwise, try again later. If he does meet with you, it "might be for five minutes or five hours - he'd see how it went".
Schwarzenegger is "a master at looking neat while keeping major aspects of his life steeped in a mess". They note that most professionally successful people shoot for planfulness and consistency, while Schwarzenegger "has overachieved through improvisation and inconsistency". Interestingly, this was particularly helpful to him when it helped him created a variable exercise regime during his body-building days that resulted in a flexible set of exercises that fit his mood, rather than a set schedule of exercises like most body-builders. The authors imply that his success was directly tied to this one behavioral component. One wonders if other factors were at play here, but no other factors are addressed. Moreover, like the Gates/Jobs example, the authors necessarily stop at the time of publication. If they were more honest though, Californians were disappointed with Schwarzenegger's lack of success at fiscal reform, and as time has gone on, the basic feeling in California is that he was a disappointment.
These are just two examples put forth to prove the book's thesis. Really, none of their examples were conclusive, because one cannot be definitive when talking about a dichotomy about this, in which the 'right' answer is situational. The authors huff and puff about how different the philosophies of consistency and improvisation are, but in fact pragmatic, high-achieving people travel between these two poles when one or both qualities are called for.
In the end, the book was though provoking, and for that the book was probably worth reading, if disappointing. You have to wonder if the authors ever really convinced themselves their animus towards neatness and personal organizers was really heartfelt or a 316-page defense of their wanting to live a messy life and write messy books like this one.
August 17, 2012
Lightweight, but pleasing, I think is how I would sum this one up.
The authors' premise is that the modern world is going overboard in its attempts at neatness, order and organisation, and that in fact a bit of mess, disorder and disorganisation is not only not a bad thing, but often quite a good thing. They spend a chapter at the beginning setting this out, and a chapter at the end demonstrating how too much mess (what they describe as "pathological mess") really is a bad thing. The bulk of the book consists of examples of how various kinds of mess are good: messy desks, messy houses, messy gardens, messy thinking, messy business practices...
It's interesting and entertaining, though the authors don't delve especially deeply; they're more interested in providing examples than digging into whys and wherefores. And it's pleasingly vindicating to those of us who don't like to tidy up because then we can't find anything.
The authors' premise is that the modern world is going overboard in its attempts at neatness, order and organisation, and that in fact a bit of mess, disorder and disorganisation is not only not a bad thing, but often quite a good thing. They spend a chapter at the beginning setting this out, and a chapter at the end demonstrating how too much mess (what they describe as "pathological mess") really is a bad thing. The bulk of the book consists of examples of how various kinds of mess are good: messy desks, messy houses, messy gardens, messy thinking, messy business practices...
It's interesting and entertaining, though the authors don't delve especially deeply; they're more interested in providing examples than digging into whys and wherefores. And it's pleasingly vindicating to those of us who don't like to tidy up because then we can't find anything.
December 13, 2017
hot garbage
May 11, 2015
Disclaimer: part of how I feel about this book is attributed to listening to the audio version - not my favorite reader.
But most of my lack of enthusiasm was based on the writing and assertions made. While I agree there is benefit to be found in not being too strict or overly organized (read spending all of your time planning and none of your time doing) I think there is also power and benefit in planning and creating some level of order.
Perhaps they were just going to an extreme to make a point, but often the disdain in the book rubbed me the wrong way. As an example - the author talked about how the marines' have a saying: "Plan early, plan twice." They claim this is because the marines know it is better to not plan and just roll with whatever comes up. What is not acknowledged is that before they are in a team where they can go in and complete a mission and deal with whatever obstacles come up they spend considerable time training, preparing their bodies, their minds and each other to be ready for whatever circumstances come their way.
As a second example, they talk about not needing to organize things so long as we can put a chip on them and just call up their specific location - or information if we can just Google it. All well and good - so long as someone else (i.e., Google) is doing the organizing for us.
Basically, I wish there was a little more balance in this book. But, it did make me think. And it did open me to consider places in my life where I can embrace some of the mess that turns up - not just grit my teeth and endure it.
Quotes:
-People shape their environments over time until it conforms to the way they are comfortable working – even if it seems out of control to someone else.
-A better yardstick than frequency of use if potential value and replaceability (in deciding whether to keep something or not).
-Throw out just enough to restore a comfortable amount of space and order
-There’s no place like home for maintaining some sentimental mess after all.
-Our personalities tend to be more clearly expressed in our disorder than in our neatness.
-We are all a bit of a mess and the more interesting for it.
-Place yourself on a frontier for experiment rather than a treadmill towards rotely increasing neatness and order.
-Focus and consistency tend to be enemies to creativity
-Even though you can’t count on serendipity it’s more likely to find those who are open to disorder.
-Our memories are not precise recordings of what we’ve taken in from the world. Rather, they are heavily massaged tableaus constructed by our brains based partly on reality and partly on what we need, want, or expect reality to be; A way of retroactively neatening the world.
-Once we put an entity in one category we risk failing to notice its potential utility in another one.
-Our interested in categorizing can lead us to view the world in oversimplified ways.
But most of my lack of enthusiasm was based on the writing and assertions made. While I agree there is benefit to be found in not being too strict or overly organized (read spending all of your time planning and none of your time doing) I think there is also power and benefit in planning and creating some level of order.
Perhaps they were just going to an extreme to make a point, but often the disdain in the book rubbed me the wrong way. As an example - the author talked about how the marines' have a saying: "Plan early, plan twice." They claim this is because the marines know it is better to not plan and just roll with whatever comes up. What is not acknowledged is that before they are in a team where they can go in and complete a mission and deal with whatever obstacles come up they spend considerable time training, preparing their bodies, their minds and each other to be ready for whatever circumstances come their way.
As a second example, they talk about not needing to organize things so long as we can put a chip on them and just call up their specific location - or information if we can just Google it. All well and good - so long as someone else (i.e., Google) is doing the organizing for us.
Basically, I wish there was a little more balance in this book. But, it did make me think. And it did open me to consider places in my life where I can embrace some of the mess that turns up - not just grit my teeth and endure it.
Quotes:
-People shape their environments over time until it conforms to the way they are comfortable working – even if it seems out of control to someone else.
-A better yardstick than frequency of use if potential value and replaceability (in deciding whether to keep something or not).
-Throw out just enough to restore a comfortable amount of space and order
-There’s no place like home for maintaining some sentimental mess after all.
-Our personalities tend to be more clearly expressed in our disorder than in our neatness.
-We are all a bit of a mess and the more interesting for it.
-Place yourself on a frontier for experiment rather than a treadmill towards rotely increasing neatness and order.
-Focus and consistency tend to be enemies to creativity
-Even though you can’t count on serendipity it’s more likely to find those who are open to disorder.
-Our memories are not precise recordings of what we’ve taken in from the world. Rather, they are heavily massaged tableaus constructed by our brains based partly on reality and partly on what we need, want, or expect reality to be; A way of retroactively neatening the world.
-Once we put an entity in one category we risk failing to notice its potential utility in another one.
-Our interested in categorizing can lead us to view the world in oversimplified ways.
February 5, 2020
This book resonated with me more than The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up because just like tidiness there is a place for chaos and *ahem* "more flexible" systems. I rarely have a clean desk because there are more time sensitive projects that would take time away from the projects. Though when I do need a clean space, such as for cooking, it's there. I have a workroom for a reason - craft supplies and my desk. Glad to know that there are others in the world like me - organized and systematic - (yet neat, when necessary).
August 24, 2016
I started listening to the audio book and I couldn't finish it. The premise is very interesting, but the long drawn out details and the fact that the author skips from one seemingly unrelated subject to another caused me to lose interest quick.
July 1, 2017
Vindication! Some interesting stuff. A nice, light read providing a mix of science, sociology, psychology & pop culture. I took 4.5 pages of notes in my reading journal to remember for the next time someone grouses about my messy desk at work or my room at home. Loved it.
April 5, 2019
Challenges everything we know about organization and neatness. Marie Kondo would die hearing this.
January 13, 2025
I thought this book would help me make more of my ADHD but it truly did nothing of the sort. This might as well been a book of random facts because the author just jumped to one subject to another, often with no relevance. I get that the overarching idea is that messy people can be successful but this book could have been shorter. It didn’t need to be drawn out the way that it was. I am not quite sure how people have found this appealing but good for them I guess! Maybe the book was too messy and scatter-brained even for me!
July 2, 2018
A good book which develops the good idea of finding value into mess, in different areas of our life. Unfortunately, the book suffers from the typical "American business-oriented essay" approach: so it talks about disorder but it ends up being too much ordered and predictable in its own structure.
November 6, 2018
2.5/5.0
December 7, 2019
overtly organized
the tone was a bit uneven (perhaps with two authors that can happen)
a bit heavy on the repeating
repeating
the tone was a bit uneven (perhaps with two authors that can happen)
a bit heavy on the repeating
repeating
February 16, 2021
"That messiness and disorder can be so useful wouldn't seem such a counterintuitive notion if it weren't for the bias toward neatness programmed into most of us. Specifically, people tend to ignore the cost of neatness, discount the possibility that messiness can't always be excised no matter how hard it's fought, and distrust the idea that mess can work better than neatness. Neatness for most of us has become an end in and of itself. When people are anxious about their messy homes and offices or their disorganized schedules, it's often not because the messiness and disorder are causing problems, but because people simply assume they should be neater and more organized and feel bad that they aren't."
<>>--<<>
This exploration and celebration of mess was written by two American businessmen who specialize in management and technology, and published in 2006. At one point the iPod is referenced as the absolute latest in fashion tech and it is very cute; they also predict its demise.
In the course of thirteen chapters, they examine and illustrate the many aspects of life, business, and character that can actually benefit from a little bit less schedule, planning, focus, categorization, and purging. There are beautiful human anecdotes to accompany every hypothesis, including examples from the lives of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Frank Gehry, and Beethoven. There is also a section where, for the neat freaks, they meticulously identify, name, define, categorize, and present the diverse varieties of mess and messy people.
Although I am generally fastidious about my stuff and my environment, reading this book reminded me just how much my life and my decisions are influenced by pure mess, and how enriching the resultant happy accidents have always proven to be. It was a good opportunity to examine how much of my habitual tidying is done in service of real benefits, and how much of it is simply a result of lifelong socialization.
Marie Kondo, eat your heart out. Read this book to balance your perception in the face of widespread conditioning, and to take a closer look at all the favours your mess might be doing you.
<>>--<<>
This exploration and celebration of mess was written by two American businessmen who specialize in management and technology, and published in 2006. At one point the iPod is referenced as the absolute latest in fashion tech and it is very cute; they also predict its demise.
In the course of thirteen chapters, they examine and illustrate the many aspects of life, business, and character that can actually benefit from a little bit less schedule, planning, focus, categorization, and purging. There are beautiful human anecdotes to accompany every hypothesis, including examples from the lives of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Frank Gehry, and Beethoven. There is also a section where, for the neat freaks, they meticulously identify, name, define, categorize, and present the diverse varieties of mess and messy people.
Although I am generally fastidious about my stuff and my environment, reading this book reminded me just how much my life and my decisions are influenced by pure mess, and how enriching the resultant happy accidents have always proven to be. It was a good opportunity to examine how much of my habitual tidying is done in service of real benefits, and how much of it is simply a result of lifelong socialization.
Marie Kondo, eat your heart out. Read this book to balance your perception in the face of widespread conditioning, and to take a closer look at all the favours your mess might be doing you.
December 27, 2012
This book starts with the premise that messiness or disorder is good and then proceeds to demonstrate with many examples spread across several chapters. He comes down hard on professional organizers.
The first premise is that the cost of ordering stuff may exceed the benefit. Another premise is that order stifles innovation, and that disorder may be conducive to greater creativity.
A few interesting things:
Cell phone providers managed to annoy users by eliminating noise. (We need the noise to know that someone is still on the other end.) The book seemed to say to reduce bandwidth consumption, they take out the real noise and put in fake noise at the other end.
The 1948 book Cheaper by the Dozen is based on an actual family where the father indeed strove to impose a high level of order or discipline on his family.
There were examples of many unknown and small companies reputed to have success through disorder and lack of planning. Risk takers and non-conformists seems like a pretty good description of most of them. One recognizable name was mentioned, Novel Corporation. Not exactly a sterling model of a successful strategy, however, they still exist as a company.
It mentioned some examples where noise is useful in decoding information, both in biological and man-made systems, but didn't mention one that I am familiar with, which is delta-sigma analog to digital converters.
An interesting read that will probably make little difference in my life. On second though, perhaps I will do a little less planning. The book said that planning doesn't improve outcome.
The first premise is that the cost of ordering stuff may exceed the benefit. Another premise is that order stifles innovation, and that disorder may be conducive to greater creativity.
A few interesting things:
Cell phone providers managed to annoy users by eliminating noise. (We need the noise to know that someone is still on the other end.) The book seemed to say to reduce bandwidth consumption, they take out the real noise and put in fake noise at the other end.
The 1948 book Cheaper by the Dozen is based on an actual family where the father indeed strove to impose a high level of order or discipline on his family.
There were examples of many unknown and small companies reputed to have success through disorder and lack of planning. Risk takers and non-conformists seems like a pretty good description of most of them. One recognizable name was mentioned, Novel Corporation. Not exactly a sterling model of a successful strategy, however, they still exist as a company.
It mentioned some examples where noise is useful in decoding information, both in biological and man-made systems, but didn't mention one that I am familiar with, which is delta-sigma analog to digital converters.
An interesting read that will probably make little difference in my life. On second though, perhaps I will do a little less planning. The book said that planning doesn't improve outcome.
August 15, 2019
Визирайки как душата ми не може да живее без ред и организираност, не знам кой дявол ме накара да прочета тази книга. Сама си се предизвиквам и вкарвам в шантави книжни ситуации.
За книгата: изпълнена е с множество печатни грешки, които ти бъркат в здравето, и за съжаление, се оказа от онези книги, които морално остаряват и след 10 години губят всяка полезност. Случаят тук е същия, книгата е доста стара.
Определено си беше предизвикателство да чета за ползите от безпорядъка, при все че авторът ясно обяснява, че не отрича напълно редът (един вид пропагандира за някакъв баланс между двете), имаше места в книгата, на които ми беше трудно да си напомням това, а направо ми идваше да псувам, защото никой не може ме убеди, че да си оправяш сутрин леглото е като да си връзваш връзките на обувките след като ги събуеш - безсмислено. Мииии... не!
Също така някои примери бяха откровено преиначени да служат целите на книгата му. Как да е. Не беше лошо така да се предизвикам и видя другата страна на монетата.
Малко безпорядък не вреди, напротив наистина прави животът по-жив, по-цветен и по-вдъхновяващ в правилния момент. :)
За книгата: изпълнена е с множество печатни грешки, които ти бъркат в здравето, и за съжаление, се оказа от онези книги, които морално остаряват и след 10 години губят всяка полезност. Случаят тук е същия, книгата е доста стара.
Определено си беше предизвикателство да чета за ползите от безпорядъка, при все че авторът ясно обяснява, че не отрича напълно редът (един вид пропагандира за някакъв баланс между двете), имаше места в книгата, на които ми беше трудно да си напомням това, а направо ми идваше да псувам, защото никой не може ме убеди, че да си оправяш сутрин леглото е като да си връзваш връзките на обувките след като ги събуеш - безсмислено. Мииии... не!
Също така някои примери бяха откровено преиначени да служат целите на книгата му. Как да е. Не беше лошо така да се предизвикам и видя другата страна на монетата.
Малко безпорядък не вреди, напротив наистина прави животът по-жив, по-цветен и по-вдъхновяващ в правилния момент. :)
December 3, 2014
Abrahamson and Freedman attempt to dispel the myth that mess is time-consuming and a sign of a lazy person. Mess, they argue, is in fact conducive to creativity, time-saving and a sign of a healthy mind. Using examples of everything from the ease and ability a messier person has in finding files readily at hand on their desk - as compared to someone who has spent hours filing everything away, to brilliant scientists like Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin after forgetting a petri dish on his desk over vacation. Mess, disorder, chaos all create random connections in the mind, fostering creativity and creating visual and physical reminders of other things. Chock full of great stories and examples on mess, plus plenty of bone-picking with professional organizers, this book is a panacea for anyone who has no problem with a few books are papers here and there. After all, our heaps are fostering creativity and making us work faster. Sweet!
August 19, 2019
I had no idea that my reviews of books on cleaning and tidying was going to become a series. Three makes a series. right? This one though, advocates for mess. I am on board for this message.
Eric Abrahamson is a professor of management at Columbia University and David Freeman is a journalist and author. While they do talk some about mess in the home, their hearts are really in mess in business and the office. This is not a book that tells you how to be strategically messy, it does tell you why you should be strategically messy.
As I said in the previous reviews, I help people clean and organize AND I don’t care how neat or messy you keep your house. Like Abrahamson and Freedman, I am well aware that there is a billion dollar industry that has grown up around organization and storage. You should not trust any industry that makes billions of dollars off your culturally driven insecurities – organization, wellness (diet, fitness, beauty) and wealth (mlms, wealth management, all those courses that teach people how to become rich). They will never allow us to be enough. We will always fall short because if we stop needing their help, they stop making money.
It should be noted that this book was published in 2006. It has an ode to “rising political star” Arnold Schwarzenegger that has not aged well. Ignore that part. The book starts off at a national conference for professional organizers. They make it very clear that organization is a fast growing industry and it is designed to use your insecurities to sell you services and stuff. From there they wander through some case studies and features some experts on why a certain amount of mess and disorganization is more beneficial than harmful. They also talk about the flip side – why too much organization and neatness is far more harmful than beneficial. Some of the points they make are:
* our society takes an unnecessarily dim view of mess and judges people for mess
* our world, the universe, and our brains are naturally messy and contain a certain amount of disorder
* neatness and organization are time consuming and may require unneeded labor costs
* the disorder we create in our work spaces very often has a logic that allows us to work more productively
* for a variety of reasons, mess promoted productivity and creativity
* children learn better and perform better with a degree of mess and disorder
* a certain amount of mess and disorganization allows your enterprise to adapt quickly to changing trends
* our personal messes reflect who we are as individuals and eliminating them strips us of our personality.
I had an strong emotional reaction when they were talking about the persistence of the “clean desk” policy in work places. Years ago, I went to law school to make the world a better place. I discovered that I was unsuited for the particular area I had planned to study – human rights (weak stomach). I ended up working for a mental health association managing a small, controversial advocacy agenda. I loved it and I was good at it. My workplace became increasingly toxic and I ended up burning out, going to massage therapy school and working in a bakery. One of the points of contention was my messy desk. I dislike wasting my time on cosmetic things that are done purely to meet an unrealistic and arbitrary standard. It was hardly the only problem, and the head of my department was hardly my only antagonist, but the conflict over my desk exacerbated all of the other toxic issues, drained my motivation and ground me down. I have not worked in an office since.
One of the things that Abrahamson and Freedman allude to, but don’t dive into, is the gendered nature of judgement about mess and disorganization. They do follow an appointment between a professional organizer and client. The client is a successful woman and it is hinted at that her failure to keep a clean and tidy house is causing marital strife. The husband is no where to be found during the appointment. Viewers of Tidying Up with Marie Kondo will recognize the pattern of both the husband and the wife blaming the wife for the mess while also discovering that the husband isn’t exactly the patron saint of throwing things away.
One of the reasons I appreciated Marie Kondo’s book was because it focused on the individual creating a space filled with the things that brought them joy. I liked Rachel Hoffman’s Unfuck Your Habitat method because it doesn’t insist on a spotless house at all times and strongly recommends that you limit your cleaning time commitment. Abrahamson and Freedman back up a lot of my personal feelings about not getting wrapped up in shame about mess. Mess is fine. Relax. You have better things to do with your time.
One final anecdote – A woman contacted me about helping her daughter clean and organize her room because her daughter wasn’t getting her homework done and she blamed the room. I met with them in their home and asked the daughter to take me to her room without the mother. The room was messy. I asked the daughter to tell me about her room. As she explained, it was clear to me that the room was organized, just messy. I asked the daughter why she thought she wasn’t getting her homework done. She said she and her mom fought so much about the room that she hated being at home, so she hung out with her friends instead. I asked the mom to come into the room and I explained her daughter’s organization to her. After some compromises about keeping dirty dishes out of the room and dirty laundry in baskets, she agreed to let go of the perfectly neat room she envisioned for her daughter. Her daughter agreed to spend less time with friends. I worked with the daughter for the rest of the school year, helping her learn to organize big homework projects. She graduated from high school on time and I feel better about that first hour long meeting than I do about my decade working for the mental health group.
Eric Abrahamson is a professor of management at Columbia University and David Freeman is a journalist and author. While they do talk some about mess in the home, their hearts are really in mess in business and the office. This is not a book that tells you how to be strategically messy, it does tell you why you should be strategically messy.
As I said in the previous reviews, I help people clean and organize AND I don’t care how neat or messy you keep your house. Like Abrahamson and Freedman, I am well aware that there is a billion dollar industry that has grown up around organization and storage. You should not trust any industry that makes billions of dollars off your culturally driven insecurities – organization, wellness (diet, fitness, beauty) and wealth (mlms, wealth management, all those courses that teach people how to become rich). They will never allow us to be enough. We will always fall short because if we stop needing their help, they stop making money.
It should be noted that this book was published in 2006. It has an ode to “rising political star” Arnold Schwarzenegger that has not aged well. Ignore that part. The book starts off at a national conference for professional organizers. They make it very clear that organization is a fast growing industry and it is designed to use your insecurities to sell you services and stuff. From there they wander through some case studies and features some experts on why a certain amount of mess and disorganization is more beneficial than harmful. They also talk about the flip side – why too much organization and neatness is far more harmful than beneficial. Some of the points they make are:
* our society takes an unnecessarily dim view of mess and judges people for mess
* our world, the universe, and our brains are naturally messy and contain a certain amount of disorder
* neatness and organization are time consuming and may require unneeded labor costs
* the disorder we create in our work spaces very often has a logic that allows us to work more productively
* for a variety of reasons, mess promoted productivity and creativity
* children learn better and perform better with a degree of mess and disorder
* a certain amount of mess and disorganization allows your enterprise to adapt quickly to changing trends
* our personal messes reflect who we are as individuals and eliminating them strips us of our personality.
I had an strong emotional reaction when they were talking about the persistence of the “clean desk” policy in work places. Years ago, I went to law school to make the world a better place. I discovered that I was unsuited for the particular area I had planned to study – human rights (weak stomach). I ended up working for a mental health association managing a small, controversial advocacy agenda. I loved it and I was good at it. My workplace became increasingly toxic and I ended up burning out, going to massage therapy school and working in a bakery. One of the points of contention was my messy desk. I dislike wasting my time on cosmetic things that are done purely to meet an unrealistic and arbitrary standard. It was hardly the only problem, and the head of my department was hardly my only antagonist, but the conflict over my desk exacerbated all of the other toxic issues, drained my motivation and ground me down. I have not worked in an office since.
One of the things that Abrahamson and Freedman allude to, but don’t dive into, is the gendered nature of judgement about mess and disorganization. They do follow an appointment between a professional organizer and client. The client is a successful woman and it is hinted at that her failure to keep a clean and tidy house is causing marital strife. The husband is no where to be found during the appointment. Viewers of Tidying Up with Marie Kondo will recognize the pattern of both the husband and the wife blaming the wife for the mess while also discovering that the husband isn’t exactly the patron saint of throwing things away.
One of the reasons I appreciated Marie Kondo’s book was because it focused on the individual creating a space filled with the things that brought them joy. I liked Rachel Hoffman’s Unfuck Your Habitat method because it doesn’t insist on a spotless house at all times and strongly recommends that you limit your cleaning time commitment. Abrahamson and Freedman back up a lot of my personal feelings about not getting wrapped up in shame about mess. Mess is fine. Relax. You have better things to do with your time.
One final anecdote – A woman contacted me about helping her daughter clean and organize her room because her daughter wasn’t getting her homework done and she blamed the room. I met with them in their home and asked the daughter to take me to her room without the mother. The room was messy. I asked the daughter to tell me about her room. As she explained, it was clear to me that the room was organized, just messy. I asked the daughter why she thought she wasn’t getting her homework done. She said she and her mom fought so much about the room that she hated being at home, so she hung out with her friends instead. I asked the mom to come into the room and I explained her daughter’s organization to her. After some compromises about keeping dirty dishes out of the room and dirty laundry in baskets, she agreed to let go of the perfectly neat room she envisioned for her daughter. Her daughter agreed to spend less time with friends. I worked with the daughter for the rest of the school year, helping her learn to organize big homework projects. She graduated from high school on time and I feel better about that first hour long meeting than I do about my decade working for the mental health group.
February 12, 2008
For all intents this book was written about my life. It is all about disorganization with major subjects including Boston (apparently a hub of confusion), software development, and even Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some parts were thought-provoking, while I felt that others were flawed. At the very least it serves as a reminder that organization has its short-comings and that we should celebrate disorder, randomness, improvisation, and clutter. At a point in my life when I'm trying to get my act together, it is refreshing to read about all the famous people, companies, and discoveries that owe their origins to things that transcend (or would even be harmed by) organization. You got to keep it real.
January 29, 2017
Rrrr... pirmo reizi neuzmanības pēc tiku pie "apgraizītas" grāmatas (3h vs 10h). Tomēr, ja ļaujos grāmatas pamatdomai - būs jau labi! Domu uztvēru un ietaupīju 7h.
Cilvēkam ar veselīgu pašapziņu un veselo saprātu grāmata varētu šķist pašsaprotama. Bet iztrūkstot kādai vai abām komponentēm, var diskutēt un diskutēt gan par, gan pret grāmatas idejām. Savos dzīves gados pieredzot gan vienu (pilnīgu haosu visās dzīves jomās), gan otru (tādu kārtību, ka par paelpot bail) galējību, grāmatu uztvēru kā iedrošinājumu saglabāt mērenību un spēju ļauties dzīves notikumiem to dabiskā plūdumā, lai dāvātu sev iespēju pieredzēt pārsteidzošo daudzveidību, ar ko pār pārēm pilna ir mūsu ikdiena.
Cilvēkam ar veselīgu pašapziņu un veselo saprātu grāmata varētu šķist pašsaprotama. Bet iztrūkstot kādai vai abām komponentēm, var diskutēt un diskutēt gan par, gan pret grāmatas idejām. Savos dzīves gados pieredzot gan vienu (pilnīgu haosu visās dzīves jomās), gan otru (tādu kārtību, ka par paelpot bail) galējību, grāmatu uztvēru kā iedrošinājumu saglabāt mērenību un spēju ļauties dzīves notikumiem to dabiskā plūdumā, lai dāvātu sev iespēju pieredzēt pārsteidzošo daudzveidību, ar ko pār pārēm pilna ir mūsu ikdiena.
March 25, 2009
This book was given to me by Ryan in defense of the piles of stuff that seem to accumulate wherever he spends time in the house and my constant nagging to clean it up. The author's defend Ryan's right to messiness through a variety of specific examples. Here's to hoping his disorder leads to creative and inventive thinking, and allows him time to do all those other things he would rather be doing...
July 6, 2011
I love this book. It is a must for anyone feeling a little guilty about their disordered lives. Neatness may not always be the best solution. Fleming would not have discovered penicillin if he had had a well ordered laboratory. There are indeed hidden benefits to disorder, a cluttered desk can lead, for example, to serendipitous discoveries. The most popular feature of an i-pod is the shuffle command so the tunes come at random and not some neat pre selected order.
August 15, 2017
觀乎全書，只看到作者對「亂」的歌功頌德，一面倒地鼓吹「亂」如何有效減省維持整齊的成本與時間、令事情更兼具彈性等，雖然我個人也抱持著一定程度的亂中有序原則，但要我從此過著這種近乎率性而為的生活方針，未免強人所難了一點。
就辦公室生活而言，維持整齊、光潔的工作環境是必須的，除有助提升上司的印象，亦可減少對同事的影響，畢竟，過於髒亂的環境會影響心情的－－事實上，每當我看到鄰座那堆得像小山的雜物，總會興起一股替對方收拾的心情。對比起一絲不苟的整齊，適當的凌亂的確可彰顯人性，但凡事不能太過。
扯回書本的內容，作者書寫的目的就是歌頌「亂」的種種好處，但對於整齊，作者卻著墨不多，每次提到時，都以成本高昂作結，令身為讀者的我很想問一句：然後呢？
若想要讓讀者更認同「亂」的美好，列舉更多實證是必須的，就這一點而言，此書內容未達合格水平。
就辦公室生活而言，維持整齊、光潔的工作環境是必須的，除有助提升上司的印象，亦可減少對同事的影響，畢竟，過於髒亂的環境會影響心情的－－事實上，每當我看到鄰座那堆得像小山的雜物，總會興起一股替對方收拾的心情。對比起一絲不苟的整齊，適當的凌亂的確可彰顯人性，但凡事不能太過。
扯回書本的內容，作者書寫的目的就是歌頌「亂」的種種好處，但對於整齊，作者卻著墨不多，每次提到時，都以成本高昂作結，令身為讀者的我很想問一句：然後呢？
若想要讓讀者更認同「亂」的美好，列舉更多實證是必須的，就這一點而言，此書內容未達合格水平。
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