“Messy” by Tim Harford

This book might be described as a self-help book written by an economist. That is a complement, sort-of. The prose are even more breezy than Harford’s Financial Times articles and the book is helpfully sectioned off into themes. For boosting creativity, Harford suggests, “the combination of gradual improvements and random shocks turns out to be a very effective way to approach a host of difficult problems.” He points out that we, as humans, are always trying to get ever-better at things, but sometimes you have to take a few steps backwards or start over from a lower starting point to get to the eventual higher peaks. In collaborative efforts, Harford suggests that life’s weak ties are sometimes the most fruitful ones. “The more peripheral the contact, the more likely she is to tell you something you don’t know.” He warns to beware when metrics become an end in themselves, instead of a tool. “When we start quantifying and measuring the world, we soon begin to change the world to fit the way we measure it.” Harford also suggests making a conscious embrace of life’s messiness. “Given a tidy option, we tend to take it.” Overall, he suggests making efforts to get out of one’s comfort zone. Often when we believe we are doing our best we are not. We deceive ourselves in a quest for simplicity, ease, and order. “Trying to categorize the world is not as straightforward as we like to believe. Our categories can map to practical real-world cases, or they can be neat and logical, but rarely both at once…. Daily plans are tidy, but life is messy.”