Organised Chaos

by Elizabeth Filips

Organised Chaos is a divergent approach to our culture’s assumptions around work, productivity and living a successful life. 

Having finally rejected habits, discipline and consistency for their futility to work for me long term, I’ve finally re-embraced the power of motivation, impatience and most importantly, passionate chaos. I’m aiming to share how I realigned my relationship with my brain, and in doing so, supercharged my output, happiness, passion and peace. 

This is for the chaotic, passionate, distractible amongst us. 

We’re not lazy or doomed for failure, there definitely is such a thing as organised chaos. 

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Psychology

67 pages, ebook

Published August 25, 2022

Reviews

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so validating and immensely helpful for the specific type of mind, gifted kids and passionate ADHDers/neurodivergent is what comes to mind to me. I follow Elizabeth Filips on Youtube and always feel like she speaks to my brain, so I knew this would be for me. This book is a hot take on productivity and discusses a better way to get things done for chaotic people.

It was eye-opening to realize other productivity books largely ignore motivation; it's actually so important for flow (which is the best state to do things in in my opinion) and not burning out! This book talks about real, actionable steps to increase motivation, for people like Elizabeth who want to improve themselves, but may easily tire of consistent habits and maybe can't or don't want to force themselves to do things they don't want to (my ADHD motivation-based nervous system comes to mind). She is amazing at explaining her thoughts and process, and breaks it down so that I could follow easily too.

The Notion page she includes helps with this, and there are nice breakdowns in the book, too. She has a Youtube video on this as well; this book was totally worth reading even after watching her video because in this book she distills everything so clearly and gives very helpful resources and explanations. Big fan of Elizabeth and appreciative of this book that validated my sometimes divergent productivity/thinking. :)

[Idil Sahin · Rating 5 out of 5]

thank you lizzie, you are wonderful

[Madalina · Rating 5 out of 5]

It surved its purpose! It gives you a chance of perspective

[Oscar Bastardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find Elizabeth's premise interesting and fresh, and I agree that current productivity advice is overly-focused on habits, routine and consistency, and motivation, in turn, is antagonised. I believe the boring reality is that we need both habits and motivation. Therefore, it is great to have a resource that goes against the current productivity trends and resonates with people who struggle with habits and consistency.

That said, I find the book very low effort. Perhaps (and here I am taking from the author's own words) this was her first take at publishing a book/audiobook, and she decided to go ahead and do it. I admire the effort, but the end product is not quite there yet for me. I believe the "this could have been a blog post" argument is overused when critiquing books on Goodreads, but I believe this is truly an instance where the contents could have been made into a blog/vlog and it would have worked better.

[E.P. Hasan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I kinda sorta do like it a lot lol. Though no scientific evidence, just anecdotal, and though I disagreed with some points, overall it was a great short read. And for the most part, it's how I function and kind of made me feel like I have permission now to just lean into it fully. Wonder what I can accomplish when I'm not working against myself. Wonder what you can accomplish too. Worth the read. Price exorbitant? Yes. But still, if you can splurge a bit, then great, this can be a good guilty pleasure read that might end up actually helping. Cheers🥂 and good luck!

[Barney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Organised Chaos by Elizabeth Filips expresses what I have always thought, that some people are more productive when motivated. I have always had a hard time working on boring tasks, and powering through them with sheer discipline is an ineffective way of getting them done. Her advice is to first spend some time to find motivation in boring tasks, even at the cost of falling behind, then catch up and even go ahead!