09/26/2024
We are back with another post! Today’s book is How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis, a short and highly accessible volume on cleaning, maintaining a household, and making accommodations to meet your needs. I’ve recommended it to many clients and found it useful in my own life as well.
Davis focuses heavily on the idea that it’s essential to divorce the ideas of cleanliness and tidiness from the concept of moral goodness. When we can give ourselves grace and focus on making spaces functional rather than perfectly sparkling clean, we regain control over our time. She acknowledges the gendered aspects of housework, as well as other identity factors that cause it to impact some people more heavily over others.
Most salient points:
- having a system for cleaning that works for you is significantly more important than having a system that looks good from the outside.
- when cleaning up a space and feeling overwhelmed, it can be helpful to focus on five categories: trash, dishes, laundry, things that have a place, and things that don’t have a place.
- there is no shame in outsourcing help if you are able to do so, and the book provides examples of what this help can look like.
- how your house looks has no bearing on whether or not you are a good person, no matter what you were taught when you were young.
Therapist recommended? ✅
