This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
If you're a parent, you've probably told your kids a thousand times, your room is a mess.
Clean it up.
Managers tell their employees to get organized.
Here in the United States, we elect presidents to go clean up Washington.
In the next half of our show today, we explore a very different what happens if we treat chaos as our friend instead of our enemy?
Tim Harford believes we should do just that.
He is the author of the power of disorder to transform our lives.
He joined us recently for a live taping.
We were just blocks from the White House at NPR's weekend in Washington.
It's an annual event that brings together public radio fans and supporters.
Tim Harford, welcome to Hidden Brain.
Thank you very much.
Hanka.
I want to begin by playing you a piece of music.
Tim, how did that piece of music come about?
What's the story?
It's beautiful, isn't it?
Two of my children were born to that.