A Perfect Mess

March 12-14, 2007

A Perfect Mess
by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman

My mother gave me this book for Christmas. I think in hope of communicating to me that she loves me in spite of my messy messy ways. I know she does, but it was still a nice gesture.

The premise of this book is that we, as a culture, have gone too far in our quest for organization, and that we now seek to be more organized simply for the sake of organization, rather than because we have a good idea of what the actual benefit of this organization might be. Basically, being organized has a cost in time and resources and such, but frequently people don't consider that, and instead just quest to keep everything NEAT without thinking if that time could have been used more productively for other things. (Anyone that has seen my bedroom or the back seat of my car knows that I suffer from no such illusion, and think that my time can be better used for just about anything rather than just making things neat.)

The authors are not advocating anarchy or complete and total sloppiness, but they argue that in each situation there is an optimal level of messiness that will result in a maximization of productivity/creativity etc. and that we should quest for that. They split the existence of messiness up into many levels and different types of messiness, and talk about how a slight mess can be an advantage in everything from our desks to our thinking.

The argument is a pretty common sense one once you think about it, but I did still find parts of the book enlightening, especially as I am one of those people constantly in a quest to go from chaos to totally perfect organization. I have, since reading this book tried to introduce a little of the productive kind of messiness into some areas of my life. (For example, my MCAT studying now includes more passages unrelated to the things that I have recently reviewed.) I'm pretty sure that I haven't yet found the optimal level of messiness (Read: agenda still compulsively color coded, floor of my bedroom, less easy to find.) But I hope that this thinking might help me get there.

It is a little redundant, and if you can accept the idea that neater is not ALWAYS better, than you can probably get by with only the first couple chapters, or reading the reviews, but if mess and organization is something that you struggle with (like me) than this might be a good one to get you to calm yourself down.

Maybe I should have bought it for my mother...

Want to know what else I've been reading lately? Check out The 2007 Booklist