Book review: Messy: How To Be Creative And Resilient In A Tidy-Minded World by Tim Harford

If you’ve ever been told to tidy up your desk by your boss, make sure they get a copy of this book.

You’ll be vindicated and your boss will learn about the benefits of a little disorder in boosting creativity and innovation. Tim Harford, the undercover economist, examines the positive impacts that mess and complication can have across a wide range of situations.

From battles won by German officer Erwin Rommel because he ordered his troops to do the unexpected, to the impact of a lack of rules in a building at MIT, which resulted in some of the most creative scientific and engineering thinking of the last century, he cites clear examples of the benefits of a little chaos.