In “The Efficiency-Destroying Magic of Tidying Up“, Florent Crivello (twitter: @Altimor) has written a clear, convincing, and compact critique of the assumption that efficient organization is tidy, neat, and rectilinear. “[E]fficiency tends to look messy, and good looks tend to be inefficient.”

This is because complex systems — like laws, cities, or corporate processes — are the products of a thousand factors, each pulling in a different direction. And even if each factor is tidy taken separately, things quickly get messy when they all merge together

He applies this to management organization, the tool sets used by collaborators, city planning, science fiction visions of the future, parenting, and pizzas.

Not to mention that in one brief, beautiful essay he unites the themes of two of my books: Everything Is Miscellaneous and my new Everyday Chaos.

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I just posted a new page at the Everyday Chaos web site. It lists media coverage, talks, and other ways into the book.

Take a look!

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Joe McKendrick at Forbes has posted a concise and thoughtful column about
Everyday Chaos, including four rules to guide your expectations about machine learning.

It’s great to see a pre-publication post so on track about what the book says and how it applies to business.

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