by Eric Abrahamson, David H. Freedman
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Product Description
"An engaging polemic against the neat-police who hold so much sway over our lives." -The Wall Street Journal
Enthusiastically embraced by readers everywhere, this groundbreaking book is an antidote to the accepted wisdom that tight schedules, neatness, and consistency are the keys to success.
With an astounding array of anecdotes and case studies of the useful role mess can play in business, parenting, cooking, the war on terrorism, hardware stores, and even the meteoric career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, coauthors Abrahamson and Freedman demonstrate that moderately messy systems use resources more efficiently, yield better solutions, and are harder to break than neat ones. From clutter to time sprawl to blurring of categories, A PERFECT MESS will forever change the way we think about disorder.
"A compelling and comical tour of humanity's guilt-ridden love affair with accidents, messes, and randomness... Combine the world-is-not-as-it-seems mindset of Freakonomics with the delicious celebration of popular culture found in Everything Bad Is Good for You to get the cocktail-party-chatter-ready anecdotes of 'messiness leading to genius' in A PERFECT MESS." -Fast Company
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 A New Perspective on Mess, 2008-10-10
_A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder_ provides vindication for those of us who never seem to attain the level of orderliness we feel our lives "should" contain.
Authors Eric Abrahamson (professor of management at Columbia Business School) and David H. Freedman (a contributing editor and the technology columnist at _Inc._ magazine) label a system "messy" "if its elements are scattered, mixed up, or varied due to some measure of randomness, or if for all practical purposes it appears random from someone's point of view." Thus, what may be orderly to one person may appear messy to another -- if, for example, the system of order cannot be discerned. While "messiness" may be due to an absence of order, it is more often due to a system of order that isn't working properly.
"Messy" can describe not only living quarters and workspaces, but also lawns, schedules, traffic patterns, company policies and procedures, leadership styles, thought processes, and a host of other things. The authors contrast "messiness" and "neatness" in these various contexts, and they describe individuals, businesses, and organizations that have achieved phenomenal success despite -- or, more accurately, because of -- their unconventional organizational structures.
While Abrahamson and Freedman concede that messiness is not always superior to neatness, they point out the benefits of messiness because of our society's general bias toward neatness. They demonstrate how moderate disorganization often leads to greater flexibility, efficiency, and effectiveness than do more highly organized systems. In addition, the unusual juxtapositions that may occur in a messy environment can spark creativity or suggest solutions to problems.
_A Perfect Mess_ may inspire us to reconsider the optimal level of neatness or messiness in various areas of our lives. Doing so may free up hours of our time, unleash our creativity, and allay our guilt.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
my messiness is finally in style!!!!!, 2008-07-19
I can't believe that my messiness has finally become a positive trait. I love it¡¡¡¡¡
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
The Benefits of "some"mess, 2008-07-06
Some years ago I discovered that almost half of world population was not as organized as I thought they might be, I discovered I was normal!!! and without any guilt.
This book reframes mess into new perspective. Some chapters called my attention, Ch 1 - The Cost of Neatness; Ch 3 - Types of Mess; Ch 4 - The benefits of mess and Ch 12 - Pathological Mess.
I am a firm believer that some mess is normal and sometimes necessary to enhance creativeness and you may read this book and Time Management for Unmanageable People and, for sure you will reframe your thoughts: "Mess is Often in the Eyes of the BEHOLDER"
Humberto Souza - Brazil
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Lighthearted and Engaging, 2008-06-14
Breaks mess into several categories and uses scientific studies, examples from successful businesses, and anecdotal stories to illustrate the benefits of some disorder at work and home.
Mess provides numerous advantages, including: 1. Things are close at hand, 2. no rigid plan means flexibility, and 3. serendipitous usefulness is created when you stumble upon one thing while looking for another in all the mess. The value of organization is questioned and some balance of both is recommended in the end.
I found the description of the Japanese filing system interesting and useful.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Seeking Functional Organization, 2008-03-15
The book starts out, and is touted, as something that will convince us that being disorderly will make the world a better place. In the end, the book does not do this, instead it provides a much more balanced perspective than it initially eludes to.
From my personal experience, operating in a mess is great in the creative stages of something (i.e. when doing design work). Coming up with new things, ideas, elements that do not currently exist in the world, requires a lot of input - a lot of outside influence from various sources so that something "new" and unique can be synthesized. It's almost impossible to know where the inspiration for this creation will come from, so just tossing everything into the soup works very well, then you add it to the flavor you're stewing. You ladle out the chunks that don't work when you start paring down that soup.
As your idea formulates, you pare it down to something you can build. As you get to finishing touches you are seeking less and less input - whatever you are designing is taking shape and by definition that limits the options you have at your disposal. As you approach the finished product, your work is clean, clear, well defined. It is very organized, less messy.
If you are limited and operate in only one aspect of this spectrum (i.e. design), then you can possibly always operate in mess. If you are widely adept, and operate in the entire spectrum (from design, to creation, to implementation, and maintenance) you know that certain levels of mess benefit different points along that spectrum.
The secret to maximizing your potential is knowing where you are along that spectrum and making use of the appropriate mode of operating in it. I would be willing to bet, however, that many may seek this volume merely as a way to justify an "existence"...and I don't think that it's just that simple. Existing constantly in mess does not ALWAYS contribute to greater insights, quality, existence, and certainly doesn't contribute to greater clarity.
This work does a good job of convincing us of the value of mess. However, it stretches into realms (particularly toward the end) that divert from the point; taking us off on tangents that do not contribute to the central thesis. Yeah, not all results come from perfect order and not all come from perfect messes. The authors acknowledge the limitations of each, if you read it without an agenda you'll get a balanced perspective from the overall volume.
If you already understand that spending too much time being organized can limit creativity (and reduce availability of/openness to ideas) then this book is not for you. If you feel that nothing should be organized, then the book could serve you well. If you feel that everything must be in it's place and there is no room in your life for disorganization (even temporarily) then the book is definitely for you.
In the end the book does not convince us to be entirely disorganized; it teaches more about what functional disorganization is like. (The same principles will hold for organization - it can be both functional and dysfunctional.) Either approach is functional when it serves us, they become dysfunctional when operating (living) in that system takes more effort than not operating in it would.
In the words of the authors:
"The advantages and disadvantages to increasing mess don't kick in smoothly and steadily. With most systems, adding a little mess tends to lead quickly to some big advantages with few drawbacks. As the mess grows, the rate at which the advantages grow tends to slow and eventually trail off - a desk that's already pretty messy doesn't become a lot more useful when you add a bit more mess to it. Meanwhile, the rate at which the disadvantages accumulate will eventually start to take off - a very messy desk with just a small amount of open workspace can dramatically leap into utter uselessness when a little additional mess takes over that space. The result is that as mess is added to a system, the disadvantages will at some point start to overwhelm the advantages."
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