A PERFECT MESS

Physicists have long recognized, going back to Einstein's work on Brownian motion, that some disorder can make a system work better. Yet many of us still avoid clutter or feel guilty about the untidy corners of our lives that we cannot escape. This book argues that the tidy ideals of tight timetables, orderly habits, and consistency are not the secret to success after all.

The authors gather a wide range of true stories and case studies showing where mess has quietly helped. Their examples run from corporate management and child-rearing to cooking, the fight against terrorism, retail stores, and the rise of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Their central claim is that systems with a moderate amount of mess use their resources more efficiently, find better solutions, and resist breaking down better than very neat ones.

The ideas are applied at scales from national government and society down to a cluttered desktop or garage. Readers are shown how to judge how much disorder suits any given system, whether it is a company's strategy or a hallway closet that causes frustration.