Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Audiobook (abridged)3 hours
A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder ? How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-fly Planning Make the World a Better Place
Written by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman
Narrated by Scott Brick
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
Ever since Einstein's study of Brownian Motion, scientists have understood that a little disorder can actually make systems more effective. Yet most people still shun disorder or suffer guilt over the mess they can't avoid.
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 career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abrahamson 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 the ways messiness can trump neatness, and will help you assess the right amount of disorder for any system.
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 career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abrahamson 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 the ways messiness can trump neatness, and will help you assess the right amount of disorder for any system.
Unavailable
Related to A Perfect Mess
Related audiobooks
The Four Workarounds: Strategies from the World's Scrappiest Organizations for Tackling Complex Problems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Failure Management: Malfunctions of Technologies, Organizations, and Society Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYou CAN Stop Stupid: Stopping Losses from Accidental and Malicious Actions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSee, Solve, Scale: How Anyone Can Turn an Unsolved Problem into a Breakthrough Success Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not with a Bug, But With a Sticker: Attacks on Machine Learning Systems and What to Do About Them Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings60-Minute CEO: Mastering Leadership an Hour at a Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Win at Work!: The Everybody Wins Approach to Conflict Resolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAchieve with Accountability: Ignite Engagement, Ownership, Perseverance, Alignment, and Change Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe AI Dilemma: 7 Principles for Responsible Technology Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Data Science Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Decoded Company: Know Your Talent Better Than You Know Your Customers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHolacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Using Scenarios: Scenario Planning for Improving Organizations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Failure of Risk Management: Why It's Broken and How to Fix It 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 3rd Paradigm: A Radical Shift to Greater Success Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5WINX: The Problem Solving Model to Win Exponentially with Customers, Employees & Your Bottom Line Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sentient Enterprise: The Evolution of Business Decision Making Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How to Measure Anything in Cybersecurity Risk, 2nd Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary, Analysis, and Review of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary, Analysis, and Review of Dan Heath's Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPositive Chaos: Transform Crisis into Clarity and Advantage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStrategic Doing: Ten Skills for Agile Leadership Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary, Analysis & Review of Tim Harford's Messy by Instaread Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDon't Get Mad At Penguins: And Other Ways to Detox the Conflict in Your Life and Business Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGame Theory for Business: How Successful Entrepreneurs Apply Game Theory in Their Businesses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Professional Skills For You
The 80/20 Principle and 92 Other Powerful Laws Nature: The Science of Success Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Be Better at Almost Everything: Learn Anything Quickly, Stack Your Skills, Dominate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mastering Productivity: Everything You Need to Know About Habit Formation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mind Management, Not Time Management: Productivity When Creativity Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The End of Procrastination: How to Stop Postponing and Live a Fulfilled Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stick with It: A Scientifically Proven Process for Changing Your Life-for Good Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Writing Well Audio Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live Fearlessly Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Be the Unicorn: 12 Data-Driven Habits that Separate the Best Leaders from the Rest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Conquer Your Chaos Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bull's-Eye: The Power of Focus Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/512 Months of Work in 12 Weeks: How to Work Smarter and Explosively Grow Your Productivity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twenty-Five Hour Days: How to Take Control of Your Time, Meet Your Goals, and Do More of What Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You've Got 8 Seconds: Communication Secrets for a Distracted World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn Anything: Crafting a Map to Learn New Skills Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Energy Management: Structuring Your Time to Get the Important Stuff Done in Fewer Than Fifteen Hours a Week Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Truth Detector: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide for Getting People to Reveal the Truth Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Write Copy That Sells: The Step-By-Step System for More Sales, to More Customers, More Often Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Come Up for Air: How Teams Can Leverage Systems and Tools to Stop Drowning in Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for A Perfect Mess
Rating: 3.484371625 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
160 ratings13 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really liked this one, more for some of the sparks it set off in my head than some of the actual content. This explores the phenomenon of professional Organisers and how they try to impose a rigid structure of order on people's lives. What isn't often explored in the quick TV show is the fact that a lot of these people find it almost impossible to maintain this order. Without some form of fludity in the choice many people find order a difficult prospect, and many find that it really doesn't quite work, both on a professional and personal level. Personally I'm in a bit too much of a mess but rigid order doesn't really work all that well for me either (yes I'm a librarian, yes some parts of my life are well-organised)While complete chaos isn't ideal, people in general are messy and systems have to reflect this. This is a look at humanising systems and instead of everyone being the same, that we all chose a system that works (and complete chaos doesn't tend to be a workable system) for us and that we all should allow for the fact that other people's mileage may vary.It does display a certain amount of bias towards a more chaotic feel but that's slightly refreshing (for me at least) in a sea of books about rigid order.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A string of interesting anecdotes, mostly on the theme that a little unstructured disorder fosters creativity and innovation. And then the book just stops, as though the authors had run out of things to say.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The first half of A Perfect Mess is charming and informative. At the midpoint, I dreaded picking it back up. Every one of my reader friends told me to skim it, but I slogged on. And what a slog it was. Someone else took over the helm at the midpoint, and A Perfect Mess became a doctoral thesis. I'm glad I did hang on until the end, however, because the final two chapters had quite a bit to say about creativity and "mess" that I found worth reading. It took me a month of picking it up and putting it back down to finish this one, and I believe i should have listened to my friends. I could have skimmed it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I listened to this while (you've gotta love this) deep-cleaning and organizing my house. The author uses many of the same techniques to exlpain why a little mess is good for you that Malcolm Gladwell uses to explain why snap thinking is a good thing (See: Blink). State a thesis, throw in some facts, throw in some anecdotes, and throw in some interesting conjecture and you've got a book! Abrahamson doesn't have quite the finesse of Gladwell, but that still makes this an interesting read (or listen). It's really funny in some parts and makes me glad I have a little bit of a mess on my desk and in my home (I have a four year old, and to me, if you can't tell a child lives in a home where the child lives, you're doing something very wrong). However, while making statements about how the mind is evolutionarily set up to handle mess, he ignores the great stress that many people feel when confronted with the messiness of others. Maybe we can handle clutter well, but there is something to be said for laying out the outfit you're going to wear the next day or letting your employees know what is expected of them in the long term.On the whole, this book was entertaining and informative and certainly gives the reader a number of great excuses to NOT file, sort, arange, or organize. I think his editor may have taken this lesson too much to heart, though-it tends to hop around a lot and many of the stories are very non sequiter.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A real eye opener. When is the last time someone defended being messy? Such a wake up call for a culture obsessed with organizing shows, magazines, stores! The author backs up his claims with studies and statistics but more importantly raises the point that maybe your messy desk works just fine even if it doesn't look like a picture from the Container Store catalog.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Not a bad book but I like order instead of disorder. A few ideas are good and I will modify some departments.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The book is inspirational and insightful. Thank you! Looking forward hearing more.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The concept is really good - what’s the cost to organize and how to you determine which organizational activities to engage in and which to skip. Unfortunately, it seemed more of a biased editorial shaming planning. I would have loved more studies about what to do and when to do it and how to improve myself rather than studies saying people who plan are wasting time.
Too much what they are telling you is wrong.
Not enough here’s what to do and why. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5interesting book. great examples. the recording was problematic though. kept skipping....
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Audiobook narrated by Scott Brick. I didn't think this was the right voice for this book, but in any case my brand of messiness has been validated! What I got out of it: messiness is flexible; it reflects the organizational structures of individual minds; constant organizing and cleaning can be inefficient; messiness can lead to creative breakthroughs and discoveries.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At first, I didn't think I was going to like this book. The author seemed to be reaching with a lot of his examples of the advantages of disorder. But over time, the examples mounted and he shifted his focus on finding a balance or order to disorder. I really enjoyed his analysis and I appreciated that this book made me think outside the box.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Couldn't finish it (made it to page 84). I was looking forward to some good argumentative discourse but this book really let me down. While I do believe that sometimes the cost of organising something is much greater than what you get in return, the way the authors try to prove their point leaves the impression of deceit.
They use quirky anecdotes for proof that messy systems sometimes work only to constantly repeat that it's better to be somewhere in the middle.
The anecdotes aren't the annoying part, the argumentation and classification is. The way they "scientifically" try to differentiate mess from chaos is this: they won't use chaos because chaos, in modern sciences as chaos theory, implies that there's a hidden order; this differs from the common utilisation of the word chaos by us common people, so they thought they'll use mess as expressing exactly what common people understand by mess... Why not use chaos then if you'll go with what most people understand by it? Maybe because 'mess' is mild in comparison to 'chaos' thus making their point of view easier to agree with. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5A book of case studies, from homes to business organizations, arguing that “mess” is not inherently bad and in many cases is actually beneficial. The authors’ point is very valid; American ideals of “neat” and “organized” do tend to be at levels that take far more time to maintain than they give back in efficiency. But after a while I found the book’s evangelization annoying. The authors do acknowledge that there are particular situations where neatness indeed pays off, and levels of messiness that do indeed reach the pathological; however, it reads more like a token “yeah, a sloppy operating room is bad” than a real acknowledgement that there is still such thing as inappropriately messy. (As for the final section on smells, I invite them to ride around in my ex’s car on a hot day sometime.)
My chief disagreement with the book (and it’s possible that they do address this and I overlooked it) is that the authors don’t address situations where your individual messiness affects other people — not aesthetically (the authors make it quite clear that they’re on the side of “none of your business what someone else’s desk/yard/business plan looks like”), but functionally or financially. Asking “Does this level of mess help or harm my overall functioning?” is a necessary question, but so is “Does this level of mess help or harm the functioning of people who I have obligations toward — my spouse, my family, my coworkers?”