Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives

by Tim Harford

The success we admire is often built on messy foundations—even if those foundations are often hidden away.

An article on the Psych Central website offers similar tips, counseling us to “limit distractions”—alas, on a webpage that is surrounded by sponsored links about wrinkle cream, sex addiction, and ways to save money on insurance. Some

Aiden seeks the hardest, most interesting problems he can find, and bounces between them. A failure in one area gives fresh insights and new tools that may work elsewhere.

Brian Eno says, the friend of creative work is alertness, and nothing focuses your attention like stepping onto unfamiliar ground.

the tendency to work on multiple projects is so common among the most creative people that it should be regarded as standard practice.31 Gruber

a fresh context is exciting; having several projects may seem distracting, but instead the variety grabs our attention—we’re like tourists gawping at details that a local would find mundane.

the vital ties are the weak ones.6 This seemingly paradoxical finding is obvious in retrospect. In a clique, everyone knows everyone and all your friends can tell you the same gossip. The more peripheral the contact, the more likely she is to tell you something you didn’t know.7

Sommer repeatedly found that apparently trivial freedoms, such as the right to paint your own wall, help people define personal space, and make people happier and more productive.11

curious value system in which superficial neatness is worth the price of deep resentment.

Building 20 was ugly and uncomfortable but its occupants loved it. MIT’s president during the 1970s, Jerome Wiesner, described it as “the best building in the place,” while Jerry Lettvin said it was “a building with a special spirit, a spirit that inspires creativity and the development of new ideas,” adding that it was the “womb of the Institute. It is kind of messy, but by God it is procreative!” The question is, why?

It was that it was so cheap and ugly that in the words of Stewart Brand, author of How Buildings Learn, “Nobody cares what you do in there.”

People flourish when they control their own space. But if it causes so much damage to impose a rigid aesthetic on workers, why are bosses so keen to keep everything shipshape? It seems as though actively encouraging staff to take control is far scarcer than the benign neglect of Building 20. Why is creativity something that happens only when the boss isn’t looking?

workplace cubicles had never been more ubiquitous. Empowerment is all very well, but never underestimate what managers will inflict on workers in

we find clutter and irregularity disturbing and don’t notice when it is doing us good.

productivity, the more elusive that research seemed. “People suddenly put into ‘good design’ did not seem to wake up and love it,” he wrote. What they loved instead was control over the space in which they had to live or work.

space that workers design for themselves will almost always look rather ugly. “It doesn’t look as good as something a designer would have chosen, and it never will.”32

his approach to jazz improv as creating “freedom and space to hear things.”27

The “habit of yes” helps.

A script can seem protective, like a bulletproof vest; sometimes it is more like a straitjacket. Improvising unleashes creativity, it feels fresh and honest and personal. Above all, it turns a monologue into a conversation.

“There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression.”

“There comes a time when people get tired of getting pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July, and left standing amidst the piercing chill of an Alpine November. There . . .” The roar of the crowd became too loud again. Amid the sound of feet thundering on the church’s wooden floorboards, King was forced to pause.37

He spoke of his dream that “one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood . . . that my four little children will one day live in

There’s even a theory—the Faurie-Raymond hypothesis2—that left-handed people have continued to survive in a right-handed world, despite numerous disadvantages and indignities, because right-handed people aren’t used to fighting them.* Whatever

Chaos wasn’t just something that happened on the battlefield—it could and should be deliberately deployed as a weapon.23

Northeastern University in Boston, for example, was reported in 2012 to be sending out 200,000 personalized letters to high school seniors, then following up those letters with six to eight e-mails, all to increase the number of applications it receives. It could then reject tens of thousands of applicants, boost its selectivity, and therefore rise in the USNWR rankings.6

And the Squareabout is safer than the traffic-light crossroads that preceded it, with half as many accidents as before. It is precisely because the Squareabout feels so hazardous that it is safer. Drivers

In nature, mess often indicates health—and not only in the forest. •

When mice are dosed with antibiotics, H. pylori is scoured from the stomach system and the mice get fat. (The intensive farming industry has known for years that antibiotics help fatten up livestock, but not why.)

every society needs its outsiders to bring new attitudes, ideas, and perspectives.

“What is your most treasured possession?” “What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?” “What is your favorite journey?” and “How would you like to die?” All of these questions beat “What do you do for a living?”