Messy
The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives
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Narrated by:
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Nicholas Guy Smith
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By:
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Tim Harford
About this listen
“Utterly fascinating. Tim Harford shows that if you want to be creative and resilient, you need a little more disorder in your world.” —Adam Grant, New York Times-bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take
“Engrossing.” —New York Times
From the award-winning columnist and author of the national bestseller The Undercover Economist comes a provocative big idea book about the genuine benefits of being messy: at home, at work, in the classroom, and beyond.
Look out for Tim's next book, The Data Detective.
Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives celebrates the benefits that messiness has in our lives: why it’s important, why we resist it, and why we should embrace it instead. Using research from neuroscience, psychology, social science, as well as captivating examples of real people doing extraordinary things, Tim Harford explains that the human qualities we value – creativity, responsiveness, resilience – are integral to the disorder, confusion, and disarray that produce them.
From the music studio of Brian Eno to the Lincoln Memorial with Martin Luther King, Jr., from the board room to the classroom, messiness lies at the core of how we innovate, how we achieve, how we reach each other – in short, how we succeed.
In Messy, you’ll learn about the unexpected connections between creativity and mess; understand why unexpected changes of plans, unfamiliar people, and unforeseen events can help generate new ideas and opportunities as they make you anxious and angry; and come to appreciate that the human inclination for tidiness – in our personal and professional lives, online, even in children’s play – can mask deep and debilitating fragility that keep us from innovation.
Stimulating and listenable as it points exciting ways forward, Messy is an insightful exploration of the real advantages of mess in our lives.
©2016 Tim Harford (P)2016 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“This absorbing book offers a different approach from instructional decluttering manuals by celebrating the successes derived from the unplanned, unscripted, and unknown.” (Library Journal)
“Weaving together lessons from history, art, technology, and social and scientific research, Harford’s theories have many potential benefits for individuals and businesses seeking to remain on the creative cutting edge, as well as profound implications for society.” (Publishers Weekly)
“Harford presents the strategies of disorganization as unique and enlightening and convincingly offers reinforced encouragement to those who may find themselves 'tempted by tidiness' to instead 'embrace some mess instead." (Kirkus)
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In this authoritative and fascinating new audiobook, Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, tears down some of the most popular myths about creativity and erects new principles in their place. He reveals that creativity is always collaborative: even when you're alone. Sawyer's audiobook is filled with compelling stories about the inventions that changed our world.
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Worth reading
- By Glenn on 12-29-10
By: Keith Sawyer
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Little Bets
- How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries
- By: Peter Sims
- Narrated by: John Allen Nelson
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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What do Apple CEO Steve Jobs, comedian Chris Rock, prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, the story developers at Pixar films, and the Army Chief of Strategic Plans all have in common? Best-selling author Peter Sims found that all of them have achieved breakthrough results by methodically taking small, experimental steps in order to discover and develop new ideas.
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Useful approach, not for everyone
- By Tad Davis on 08-15-11
By: Peter Sims
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The Click Moment
- Seizing Opportunity in an Unpredictable World
- By: Frans Johansson
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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On the one hand we aren’t surprised by the uncertainty of everyday life, but on the other we believe that success can be analyzed and planned for. It is a revealing paradox. The implications are explosive and they obliterate every common-sense notion we have about strategy and planning. The Click Moment is about two very simple but highly provocative ideas.
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Outstanding book!
- By Anilyn Karel on 08-26-24
By: Frans Johansson
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Thinking Machines
- The Quest for Artificial Intelligence - and Where It's Taking Us Next
- By: Luke Dormehl
- Narrated by: Gus Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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When most of us think about artificial intelligence, our minds go straight to cyborgs, robots, and sci-fi thrillers where machines take over the world. But the truth is that artificial intelligence is already among us. It exists in our smartphones, fitness trackers, and refrigerators that tell us when the milk will expire. In some ways the future people dreamed of at the World's Fair in the 1960s is already here. We're teaching our machines how to think like humans, and they're learning at an incredible rate.
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Mostly platitudes with no depth
- By Gary on 03-24-17
By: Luke Dormehl
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In Pursuit of Elegance
- Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing
- By: Matthew E. May
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
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In this thought-provoking exploration, Matthew May defines elegance as the elusive combination of unusual simplicity and surprising power, and pinpoints the four key elements that characterize it: seduction, subtraction, symmetry, and sustainability. In a story-driven narrative that sheds light on the need for elegance in design, engineering, physics, art, urban planning, sports, and work, May offers a surprising array of stories that illustrate why what's "not there" often matters more than what is.
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I love elegance, but this book isn't elegant
- By Oliver Nielsen on 06-26-11
By: Matthew E. May
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No Better Time
- The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet
- By: Molly Knight Raskin
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
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No Better Time tells of a young, driven mathematical genius who wrote a set of algorithms that would create a faster, better Internet. It's the story of a beautiful friendship between a loud, irreverent student and his soft-spoken MIT professor, of a husband and father who spent years struggling to make ends meet only to become a billionaire almost overnight with the success of Akamai Technologies, the Internet content delivery network he cofounded with his mentor.
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An Overlooked Hero of 9-11
- By Jean on 05-27-16
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Applied Minds
- How Engineers Think
- By: Guru Madhavan
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Through narratives and case studies spanning the brilliant history of engineering, Madhavan shows how the concepts of prototyping, efficiency, reliability, standards, optimization, and feedback are put to use in fields as diverse as transportation, retail, health care, and entertainment. Equal parts personal, practical, and profound, Applied Minds charts a path to a future where we apply strategies borrowed from engineering to create useful and inspired solutions to our most pressing challenges.
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excellent edifying book; great narrator too.
- By Phillip on 01-16-22
By: Guru Madhavan
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The Art of Innovation
- Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm
- By: Tom Kelley, Jonathan Littman - contributor, Tom Peters - foreword
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
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IDEO, the widely admired, award-winning design and development firm that brought the world the Apple mouse, Polaroid's I-Zone instant camera, the Palm V, and hundreds of other cutting-edge products and services, reveals its secrets for fostering a culture and process of continuous innovation.
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This is an old book!
- By EPR review on 01-05-17
By: Tom Kelley, and others
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The Friendly Orange Glow
- The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture
- By: Brian Dear
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 21 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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At a time when Steve Jobs was only a teenager and Mark Zuckerberg wasn't even born, a group of visionary engineers and designers - some of them only high school students - in the late 1960s and 1970s created a computer system called PLATO, which was not only years but light-years ahead in experimenting with how people would learn, engage, communicate, and play through connected computers.
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Memory lane for the cyberist.
- By Robert C. Hickcox on 08-08-18
By: Brian Dear
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Now You See It
- How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn
- By: Cathy N. Davidson
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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When Duke University gave free iPods to the freshman class in 2003, critics said they were wasting their money. Yet when the students in practically every discipline invented academic uses for the music players, suddenly the idea could be seen in a new light - as an innovative way to turn learning on its head. Using cutting-edge research on the brain, Cathy N. Davidson show how attention blindness has produced one of our society's greatest challenges.
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3 Reasons to Read
- By Joshua Kim on 05-06-12
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Sway
- The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
- By: Rom Brafman, Ori Brafman
- Narrated by: John Apicella
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
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A Harvard Business School student pays over $200 for a $20 bill. Washington, D.C., commuters ignore a free subway concert by a violin prodigy. A veteran airline pilot attempts to take off without control-tower clearance and collides with another plane on the runway. Why do we do the wildly irrational things we sometimes do?
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Disappointing book
- By Martin Proulx on 12-10-08
By: Rom Brafman, and others
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What listeners say about Messy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ya'at'eeh
- 08-23-24
So great to hear
Incredible, validating, and enlightening book on the value of messiness. Good examples and explorations. Highly recommended.
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- K. Keane
- 12-19-16
Formulaic Review of Randomness
I found it a bit amusing that book ascribing the value of mess, or as a scientist would call it "random noise" has such a predictable pattern. That is, this book like the vast number of other pop psychology and behavioral economics books out there all follow the same pattern: key in on a few personal and emotionally appealing anecdotes and make sweeping generalizations on human behavior based on these isolated stories. In fact, more than a few of the stories were borrowed from other pop psych books. That said, the stories are entertaining and the narrator has a pleasant, baritone voice (with a hint of a British accent) that made this book easy to listen to on my daily commute: which by the way I am very certain is the fastest way to/from work since I ride a bike everyday and have systematically reviewed all routes possible! Enjoy the ride.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Jesusa H. Chua
- 04-20-18
Must read
Learned a lot.
Great narration.
I’d recommend it.
Life is messy, it’s what makes us human and at the cutting edge.
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- Ken 'Spanky' Moskowitz
- 04-26-22
I live in chaos and succeed, now I know why
I’ve spent the better part of 5 decades trying to conform and tidy around me, attempting to “fit in” in a most uncomfortable way.
Messy, not only explains the organization of chaos, but gave me permission to just do what I do. I’ll never keep an organized office, but clearly I don’t need to. My success isn’t hindered by my chaos, my messy, it is because of it.
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-13-16
I'm a neat freak with three kids...
Would you consider the audio edition of Messy to be better than the print version?
Yes, listening to the British accent of the narrator is soothing for considering the idea of thinking different to accept that sometimes Messy is just the right challenge to make us excel.
Which scene was your favorite?
Chapter 7 & 8 discussing the AirFrance flight 447 tragedy. It was an interesting and overwhelming doing a step by step of the final moments wishing you could help them.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
To consider that when I've been confronted with a mess, the best choices I've ever made were to take a deep breath and get to work.
Any additional comments?
As a mom of twin toddlers, I've had to give up my neatness, and it's not been easy to accept the 'mess' this helped me understand the positive side of that, and how I've thrived in the chaos.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Mr. Ess
- 12-12-16
There is hope
Tim wrote a great book that put me at ease about messiness.
Tim references several pop culture reference making it easy to relate stories I knew to his argument.
Nick 'the nice' Guy Smith narrates perfectly making X1 speed a comfortable pace.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who has ever pooh-poohed another's messy workspace.
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2 people found this helpful
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- S. Schwankert
- 02-28-20
Tim Harford's podcasts are better
I chose this title on the strength of Tim Harford's podcasts, namely "Cautionary Tales."
However, what works in 20 or 30-minute segments doesn't necessary work as well in a longer format. Perhaps this would have been a better paper book than audio.
The biggest disappointment, frankly, is that Harford himself doesn't do the reading. Harford has a much warmer, more personable voice, rather than Nicholas Guy Smith's "I went to Oxbridge and you didn't" timbre. His pronunciation of "LeCorbusier" sounds like he can't stand French people, whether that is his intention or not.
The book's premise is used up rather quickly. We get it -- diverse teams and untidy desks produce greater creativity. Harford takes a swipe at Steve Jobs for his obsession with minimalist design. Well, the day that your maximalist, disorganized workspace produces as much creativity and invention as Steve Jobs, then I'll listen to your book. There -- you just saved nine hours and 42 minutes.
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-23-18
Making space for the mess
The principles explored in the book are as relevant for personal relationships as they are for organizations, communities, and other human systems. This is also an important book as virtual reality and artificial intelligence become more of a focus in the business and technology sectors. I also felt empowered as a parent to allow —and perhaps even create — space for messiness in my children’s lives. Lastly, as a “piler” rather than a “filer” I felt encouraged that my messy way of approaching my life is perhaps not as dysfunctional as it may appear on the outside. Of course there is always a balance to be struck but I think holding space for the messiness that is simply part of the human experience is something missing in so many facets of American culture.
The audio book was a delight to listen to.
In short, I highly recommend this book.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Ben
- 12-12-16
Meh-ssy
Sometimes it's good to mix things up a little bit. And scene.
This felt like a story that could have been better told in a shorter form Fast Company article. I found it more entertaining than insightful. In analytics, one of the best methods for avoiding a local optimization trap and to find a better global optimum is to introduce a little randomness into your equation, and so it is with life. This is a book of those illustrative examples from life.
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- Howard P
- 03-31-19
Loved the book. Tim Harford does a great job explaining why being Messy is a good thing.
I must admit that I’m a messy person, when it comes to my recording & art studio. Mr. Harford’s book has vindicated my seemingly disorganized creative lifestyle :) In fact, according to the author, in just about any situation being messy beats being well-organized. It may seem counterintuitive but Mr Harford makes his case based on many different situations, observations, and logical conclusions.
Messy is one of my favorite books - it’s at the top of the pile on my cluttered desk. Listen to the book to understand what I mean. I’m a songwriter, musician and artist. Mr. Harford’s discussion about creativity is spot on. My studio is a far from decluttered, giving me the freedom to be creative. No one else may be able to find things, but I can, and that works fine for me.
The narrator is excellent, one of the best Audible books I’ve listened to. The author does an amazing job of using many different examples to reach his conclusion (and vindicating my messy studio in the process). I would love to read other books by Tim Harford, and listen to other books by the narrator.
This is one book that I flew through in a few days. I highly recommend Messy!
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