A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder.

At last – my kind of organizing book.

A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder. How Crammed closets, cluttered offices , and on-the-fly planning make the world a better place. Eric Abrahamson & David H. Freedman, Little, Brown & Co. 2006.

The authors’ premise is that although there is a lot of pressure from both external and internal sources (guilt) to be neat and organized, messiness can have definite advantages. Sometimes messy just works better. And neatness has its own costs: the law of entropy dictates that it takes extra effort to neaten up a system. (Left to themselves, things tend to fall apart.) Worrying about neatness can also be stressful.

There is, of course, such as thing as pathological messiness – ‘hoarding’ is the classic example.

On the other hand, flexibility is a major benefit of mess. ‘Messiness’ can also promote diversity, creativity, efficient use of resources, and adaptability. The authors give examples from business. Terrorism is also cited as apparently very effective and at the same time difficult for governments to deal with because it is messy.

I especially liked the book’s system for home organization, known by the acronym ‘ACE’:

A is for ‘Aw, Relax’. We worry too much about home mess, when people are busier than ever with work and family and a little mess is not going to hurt anything. Pressure comes from the outside to ‘be neat’, and there may be aesthetic and other considerations, but you may have other priorities. The authors include a “Room-by-Room Guide to Worrying Less about Mess” – of four pages (pp. 137-141).

C is for ‘Carve Out Time’. The real reason, they say, that people turn to professional organizers is that they don’t make time to deal with their stuff. “If you’re having trouble getting yourself to take the time to straighten up, it may be that accumulating mess really isn’t all that important to you compared to the other things going on in your life.” (p. 142) So set aside some time or hire/enlist someone else to help.

E is for ‘Eject Some Stuff’. Not necessarily a lot, just enough to clear away space that you need for something else. Get rid of what is clearly junk, stuff of no value or that can easily be replaced, and don’t worry about it. Less is always better if you want low maintenance, but “there’s no place like home for maintaining some sentimental mess, after all.” (p. 145)