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3.28 AVERAGE
3.28 AVERAGE
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.
I "had" to read this because of recent work events.. Here's your tax dollars at work: "the Laboratory is conducting a site-wide “Housekeeping and Work Site Cleanliness” assessment".. So.. ouch! Well, the first few chapters of the book were fairly interesting. Then the book turned to "how to run a business" and "how to design a city" and I really lost interest. I did power through the whole thing (audiobook), but only barely.
Early going, I did enjoy the comparison with the various productivity/getting-things-done (GTD) folks. There are some good GTD ideas, but this book does a good job of "take what works and ignore that majority.."
Early going, I did enjoy the comparison with the various productivity/getting-things-done (GTD) folks. There are some good GTD ideas, but this book does a good job of "take what works and ignore that majority.."
I’m very organized and feel out of control when my day isn’t calendar blocked. I read this in hopes to better understand my fiancé and daughters care free schedules. It was a successful read! 😃
Started out strong, then it kind of devolved into more and more trivialized anecdotes. I do agree with the notion that too much organization is a detriment and hinders productivity as you feel like you need to clean due to societal pressures. Some order is absolutely necessary. We cannot all be like Arnold Schwarzenegger and have no set schedule or agenda. Nothing would get done. In the end, mess isn't inherently bad and over-organization can be a huge problem. Many of the strong claims of this book appear more to be "Here's a better way to be neat while being seemingly messy, even though it's not," rather than "Being messy is good for you."
Started this one - then realized the last thing I need is an excuse to keep my office messy. Since I am just settled in to a new office, I'm going to stick with keeping it more organized!
informative
medium-paced
The 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 --
In a nutshell, the book's main point is that spending too much time/money/effort/stress on organizing can actually be self-defeating. Not that a complete lack of organization is good, just that the point of diminishing returns can be reached alot sooner than most people realize, and that what at first appears to be a "mess" may be more efficient than one would assume.
The rest of the book is mostly entertaining anecdotes backing their claim.
"If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, Of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" -- Albert Einstein
The rest of the book is mostly entertaining anecdotes backing their claim.
"If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, Of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" -- Albert Einstein
I really liked this book; I like being organized and neat, and do tend to stress about the areas I'm still messy in. "A Perfect Mess" though, is a great antidote to the pressure to always be neater, more organized, or more put together.
Mess can be ok; this book was kind of permission to let myself be messy in some areas. Piles of things in certain places don't bother me, but a kitchen full of dirty dishes and countertop full of crumbs, will drive me batty. And that's ok. The US Marines actually have a saying: "Plan early, plan twice" which means that since circumstances can change so quickly, planning too early can lead to having to start the planning over when key components change.
Abrahamson argues that a neat and orderly system is constantly struggling to fight off randomness, and when randomness randomly leaks in, the system is thrown off. The benefits of mess include flexibility, completeness, resonance, invention, efficiency, and robustness. Abrahamson deals with each benefit in its own chapter and includes lots of anecdotal stories and examples to explain the benefits of mess. For example, the scientist who identified penicillin did so after leaving his office in disarray and came back to see something growing in petri dishes he had left out.
This book had some remniscent feelings of "Freakonomics", combining unusual pieces to draw a conclusion from. One example that sticks out is the comparison between boxing and cage fighting - boxing seems much more neat and orderly compared to the no-holds-barred cage fighters. However, the heavily padded boxing gloves leave little in the way of cuts and gashes, meaning that fights can last longer then cage fights, which allows more opportunities for brain injuries in boxing. The Journal of the American Medial Association have found that boxers who have competed in 20+ rounds have a 75% rate of observable brain damage. There are no reported incidents of cage fighters, however, who have been diagnosed with severe or chronic brain damage.
Overall, this was a pretty intriguing book. It did a feel bit... messy, for lack of a better term, in terms of organization, but that could be due to the fact that I read this book in short bursts versus a more prolonged period. An entertaining read though that I would recommend.
Mess can be ok; this book was kind of permission to let myself be messy in some areas. Piles of things in certain places don't bother me, but a kitchen full of dirty dishes and countertop full of crumbs, will drive me batty. And that's ok. The US Marines actually have a saying: "Plan early, plan twice" which means that since circumstances can change so quickly, planning too early can lead to having to start the planning over when key components change.
Abrahamson argues that a neat and orderly system is constantly struggling to fight off randomness, and when randomness randomly leaks in, the system is thrown off. The benefits of mess include flexibility, completeness, resonance, invention, efficiency, and robustness. Abrahamson deals with each benefit in its own chapter and includes lots of anecdotal stories and examples to explain the benefits of mess. For example, the scientist who identified penicillin did so after leaving his office in disarray and came back to see something growing in petri dishes he had left out.
This book had some remniscent feelings of "Freakonomics", combining unusual pieces to draw a conclusion from. One example that sticks out is the comparison between boxing and cage fighting - boxing seems much more neat and orderly compared to the no-holds-barred cage fighters. However, the heavily padded boxing gloves leave little in the way of cuts and gashes, meaning that fights can last longer then cage fights, which allows more opportunities for brain injuries in boxing. The Journal of the American Medial Association have found that boxers who have competed in 20+ rounds have a 75% rate of observable brain damage. There are no reported incidents of cage fighters, however, who have been diagnosed with severe or chronic brain damage.
Overall, this was a pretty intriguing book. It did a feel bit... messy, for lack of a better term, in terms of organization, but that could be due to the fact that I read this book in short bursts versus a more prolonged period. An entertaining read though that I would recommend.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
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!