Messy

Ranging expertly across business, politics and the arts, Tim Harford makes a compelling case for the creative benefits of disorganization, improvisation and confusion. His liberating message: you'll be more successful if you stop struggling so hard to plan or control your success. Messy is a deeply researched, endlessly eye-opening adventure in the life-changing magic of not tidying up -- Oliver Burkeman [Harford's] best and deepest book -- Tyler Cowen Messy masterfully weaves together anecdote and academic work * The Economist * Harford urges us to recapture our autonomy . . . fascinating . . . Harford's argument goes beyond aesthetics, resurfacing over and over in his engrossing narrative -- Maria Konnikova, author of The Confidence Game * New York Times * A profoundly stimulating canter through why we should all allow a little mess - but not chaos - in our lives, on our desks, and in our minds. A powerful expansion of Harford's previous excellent work, from a fascinating and contrasting viewpoint -- David Halpern It's a very very good book, full of wise counterintuitions and clever insights * Brian Eno * A charismatic book . . . Few writers are better qualified to champion disorder and particularity . . . Harford is an elegant and dizzyingly catholic thinker . . . entertaining and insightful * The Times * Tim Harford's brilliant new book -- Viv Groskop * The Pool * Messy is a book filled with instructive stories in the manner of Malcolm Gladwell * New Statesman * Messy is an intelligent self-help book designed to cultivate greater tolerance for spontaneity, uncertainty, dissonance and diversity. Harford's evidence-based account transcends the cliches endemic to the genre - or refashions them anew * Times Literary Supplement *