A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder - How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-The-Fly Planning Make the World a Bet

by David H. Freedman and Eric Abrahamson

Book Overview

Combining business, science, history, and psychology, this groundbreaking book sheds new light on ideas of order and shows how chaos, disorder, and mess make the world a better place.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316114758
• ISBN13: 9780316114752
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 327 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Strong on ideas, light on useful suggestions

Over the last several years, I've worked very hard to become more and more organized with my stuff. I used to have a very difficult time finding things that I needed when I needed them and I also had some degree of difficulty effectively managing my time. Thankfully, over the last few years, I've really managed to conquer both of these. I feel incredibly productive on an average day now and I rarely have trouble finding the things that I need. Yet with all this organization, I find that there are simply some things where organization gets in the way. The best example I can think of is brainstorming. When I go to the library, I find lots of books and articles worth reading. I often photocopy interesting passages there. At home, I often jot down notes from things that I observe as well as tearing articles out of magazines as I read them. This ends up being something of a pile of ideas. And what I've found is that this pile of ideas is much more effective if it's chaotic. If I try to order it, I get fewer ideas out of that pile. On the other hand, if I just let it be, tossing new stuff on there in a haphazard fashion, it starts to click. Then I just set aside some time each week for brainstorming, where I grab articles from that pile at random, read what I've highlighted, flip through personal finance books, and so on. This chaos generates ideas - things that would not have normally associated themselves together sometimes become linked because of this mess. Frankly, sometimes it's better to have disorder. And that's the idea behind A Perfect Mess by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman. They argue that there is often a significant benefit in productivity, creativity, resilience, and profit in allowing a certain level of messiness and they offer a ton of advice in finding that balance. 1. The Cost of Neatness Abrahamson and Freedman open the book by arguing that there is a significant cost to neatness, one that is often not repaid by the benefits of neatness. One particular example they use is that of an ordered pack of playing cards, used in essence to represent a filing system. If you need to retrieve four specific cards from a pack of playing cards, it will be much easier to find them from a pack that's organized by suit and rank than from a pack that's in random order. However, there's a very large up front cost in actually organizing the cards into order. Plus, there's also a time cost in refiling - when you have to return the four cards, you have to put them back in the right place in the ordered deck, whereas with the unordered deck, you can throw them in wherever (or perhaps right at the front, because you're likely to need certain files more often than others). They argue that the time cost of the initial filing plus the time cost of refiling doesn't add up to equal the net benefit of being able to pull out a particular card a bit more quickly. 2. A Mess Sampler Here, several areas of messiness are surveyed: desks, lawns, corporate pl

my messiness is finally in style!!!!!

I can't believe that my messiness has finally become a positive trait. I love it¡¡¡¡¡

Best Organization Training Book Ever

I'm not kidding. It is not even intended to be such a book, but the research that proves that over-organizing is a costly endeavour and of very little profit is priceless. If you believe that being very organized is always best, you will be shocked when you read this book. You'll discover that there is little to no research proving that you save time by plannig your day, but that there is extensive research showing that you can lose a lot of time by over-planning your day. That's not all, but I'm actually getting ready to read through the book again with a highlighter. I read it on the plane last time. Or maybe I'll read something else instead so I can get the great benefit of creativity that comes partially from disorganization. I just can't decide! Hmmm.... I think you'll really like this little book. It's an eye opener. Tom Carpenter, Senior Consultant - SYSEDCO Helping IT Professionals Succeed

So, Who You Callin' a Slob?

Freedman and Abrahamson make a marvelous case for driving the burgeoning legions of neatniks and professional organizers out of town (think Jesus and the moneylenders here). Feel guilty about being a little messy and disorganized? Don't. Einstein was, and he got by nicely. Ditto Bill Gates. The authors debunk the "dangers" of a range of messiness from simple closet clutter (so, remember those baseball cards you tossed 50 years ago that now would be worth a Duke Snider-ish ransom?) to socio-political disorganization (Arnold Schwartzenegger, of all people, - a slob? Yo, what gives?) What gives is very simple - sometimes it takes, (ugh!) poop, to make things bud, grow and flourish. Creative types have a history of being a bit disorganized (hey, remember, no mess in Alexander Flemings' lab, no penicillin, and think about that the next time you're down for the count with a terminal case of the sneezies.) Rigid organization and planning? Fine and dandy concepts, indeed, but the authors sprinkle more than a few grains of salty resiliency and flexibilty on 'em. The pro organizers may be appalled by seat-of-the-chinos, on-the-fly planning but the Marines (Yup, THOSE Marines!) have a saying - "plan too far ahead - plan twice". You gonna call a Marine an undisciplined, messy thinker, not me, pal. Freedman and Abrahamson trace the history of mess from medeival times to the present (and hope for more of it in the future). After reading "A Perfect Mess:", I casually tossed it aside - and left it there. The authors would have understood perfectly.

Messy? Who Me?

(also available as audio download) Imagine a world without mess. Did you imagine Utopia, a land of absolute order? Your perfect world? I'll bet you didn't imagine it without penicillin, Brownian motion or a successful Arnold Schwarzenegger. In A Perfect Mess the authors delve into mess, what makes it, and how it isn't always a catastrophe if there is a little disorder in our lives. For example, a desk piled with papers usually self-sorts into urgent and less necessary just by the nature of the user anyway, making filing a time waster. And did you know that the chemicals we use to keep our homes "sanitary" are often more likely to cause respiratory problems in our children than the germs we are trying to eradicate? However, this isn't only a book about why we don't have to clean (because sometimes disorder can become downright dangerous), it is an in-depth look at many of the successes of this, and previous generations that are due in large part to thinking outside of the orderly method to which we have become accustomed. Let me make a suggestion. If January is the month that you typically get the urge to become organized, and, let's face it, it often is, wait to read this book until February. I found myself walking through the stores with all of their January "get organized" paraphernalia for sale, and scoffing. I'm not sure my husband is pleased. I highly recommend this book whether you are a businessman trying to maintain the clean-desk policy or a homemaker beating yourself up over the clutter in the kitchen. Even if you are an organizational freak, you'll rip through these pages if only to find something to disagree with (yes Mom, this line is for you). Armchair Interviews says: A Perfect Mess is a fascinating look into "the hidden benefits of disorder."