How to Keep House While Drowning

a wonderful book that raised a lot of conversation points between my partner and I throughout the entirety of the book. Highly recommend!

How to Keep House While Drowning

Overall Rating: ⭐ ⭐ (2/5) or 4.42/10 overall

Credibility/Research - 6

Authenticity/Uniqueness - 4

Writing - 5

Personal Impact - 4

Intrigue - 4

Logic/Informativeness - 5

Enjoyment - 3

Overall Thoughts:

This book wasn't helpful to me. Nothing stuck out as deeply original, informative, or unique. I felt like I got nothing out of it, and that's a crappy feeling to have after finishing a non-fiction self-help book. I can't say I really took away anything from this book, nor did I have any epiphany like "oh, so I can use that technique to improve such and such task!" I wish I could say I even got one new idea to test with my care task routines from this book, but no. :/

Book 1/n of my self-help book clean up; Self help books are everywhere, and every so often I see one and can't help but think: “Maybe there's actually some good advice in there?” So I'll try to get through as many as quickly as I can.

Review:

Thankfully, I don't have nearly as many barriers to functioning as some others among the target audience of this book. So, much of the advice geared towards compassionate self-talk wasn't super relevant for me specifically. But I'm still a sucker for a good, practical and honest housekeeping tip that acknowledges your limitations and instead of fighting them accepts them and basically turns that into a judo move for dealing with your chores–and there are some good ones like that in here!

So for me, specifically, it was a 3/5 read. But for everyone struggling with keeping house from an emotional standpoint, I think this is a 5/5 starting point for decreasing that load. So 4/5 overall.

Really changed my mindset.

This book came for my neck. “When I viewed getting my life together as a way for trying to atone for the sin of falling apart, I stayed stuck in a shame-fueled cycle of performance, perfectionism, and failure.”

This book was just O.K.

I think that there are some good tidbits within here that can help people to clean and organize in a new way. However, with that said, this book goes out of its way to be “accessible”. I understand that this is in line with the premise of a “gentle approach”, it makes it hard to stay interested in the book, especially as an audiobook.

I also think this book is laid out somewhat weirdly. I feel like the 1st part could have been the entire book, because there's a point in which she just goes back more in depth into the specific rooms she has. While this can be useful, a lot of those later chapters include fluff that was already covered in the first part of the book, where she talks over cleaning as a whole. This was why it took me a while to read this book, it was hard for me to turn on just to listen to the same thing again and again as I got closer to the end.

If you're struggling with cleaning because you get overwhelmed, I think this book is great. But I am unsure if you need to read the entire book to get what you need to out of it.

If you are struggling with mental health and trying to figure out how to do the dishes and brush your teeth regularly - this is for you.

4.5 ⭐

Había leído una reseña anterior y, estoy de acuerdo con una oración de esta; es un libro más teórico que práctico. Sí es verdad que te da ciertos consejos, pero lo que más te llevas de esta lectura es que la limpieza es un acto de amabilidad hacia ti mismo, no uno moral.
Como alguien que creció con una madre que es un tanto obsesiva con la limpieza, este libro se sintio como algo fresco. En mi opinión fue una agradable lectura, que recomiendaria demasiado, pero depende un tanto de tu preferencia con respecto a los libros de auto ayuda. Como dije esta es una lectura más teorica, y no te da demasiados consejos implícitos. De todas maneras el enfoque que le dio K.C fue perfecto para mi.

For me, the biggest takeaway from this book is the idea that households (partners) should focus more on splitting REST more equally, and let the chips (work) fall where it may. Most times, we are obsessed with making sure that we are doing equal amounts of work, and that leaves one or more people chronically tired and constantly falling further behind, becoming more irritated, and resentful. The shift to prioritizing rest, and then tackling the tasks that are most important to making our lives easier and more functional will lead to improved mindsets. I also appreciated the author's specific outlining of what counts as rest or freedom from responsibility, and what does not. Time to yourself is not necessarily rest if you are “on call”.

Another thing this book did a good job of was stating that it is okay to not do it all. Many other books in this realm try to solve the problem of not doing it all (i.e. it's okay that you don't do it all, because now you have my book; here's how to do it all), but I found this book stopped after saying it is okay. There is a very basic guide for how to improve the situation (gather trash, gather dishes, gather laundry, gather misplaced items, action the four previous steps), but the author acknowledges you may still have a mess on your hands after; and, she reiterates that it's okay.

The focus on mental health, no matter the physical state of your environment, is usually absent or a footnote in other books; it was nice to see the spotlight on it, here.

Loved it. It really is a gentle approach to cleaning and organising. This is the best self help book i've read. It's short and it has a lot of actionable steps. it really focuses on you doing what is best for you to make your space functional. There are no hard set rules to cleaning and organising there is no shame or morality tied to doing chores. You do not live to serve your home, your home is there to serve you.

An enjoyable read that really takes others struggles into account and is a very kind read. I highly recommend!

In a way, this is a very ‘basic' book. This isn't full of ideas about how to keep your home sparkling clean or aesthetically pleasing. This is a book that people like me need. I struggle a lot with executive dysfunction and doing basic tasks around the house can feel physically painful at times. KC Davis was absolutely right to call this “a gentle approach.” This book understands you, assuages your guilt, and reframes how we look at chores. Davis emphasizes how cleanliness is not linked to worthiness, points out that our home should be there for us and not vice-versa, and shares the things she uses to make her own life easier. For example: she doesn't fold her laundry! Everything that doesn't wrinkle gets thrown into a basket and everything that does wrinkle gets hung up. Changing her mindset and letting go of the assumption that laundry needs to be folded made it a much more manageable task. I'll definitely be recommending this book to friends in the future and am glad I bought a physical copy because I know I'll be coming back to it a lot.

"Remember that anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed"

This is short and so sweet. I am a perfectionist that can be self-critical when things don't meet my standards, and this book is like a hug. It focuses on cleaning, organizing, and self-care for people with depression, ADHD, autism, and those generally struggling with executive functioning. She also discusses race, class, and gender when talking about the culture of cleanliness.

I related to K.C. on a few things, like needing to put a timer on for laundry or I will inevitably forget about it (although recently I still forgot my clothes in the drier for over an hour after the timer went off because I got distracted), throwing clothes in bins without folding them, being messy but organized, and the not-quite-clean-not-quite-dirty laundry pile chair (f it works, it works!). I couldn't relate to some other aspects of the book, like having to clean up big messes made by two kids everyday, or not being able to keep up with personal hygiene habits (and therefore didn't find value in her advice in those sections), but that's ok. Even if you can't relate to all the struggles in this book, it will allow you to become more empathetic to those who do, and that's so valuable.

I only wish there was more practical advice to those of us that have the capability to execute them. I think that would expand the target audience and allow more people to walk away from the experience with more than just kind words.

Wow, this book is incredible. Short and to the point, very accessible and useful for everyday life. I don't even know what else to say about it except I can't believe how loving and helpful it is. There are really good ideas in here.

Short but important philosophy and has helpful tips too.

I follow KC on TikTok and picked up this book because I often find myself in this endless cycle of clean, clean, clean - home is messy for days on days on days - then clean, clean, clean and repeat. Some of her tips are things that we already strive to do, like setting a timer for 10 minutes and agreeing to tackle the dishes for just those 10 minutes. Her statements about cleaning being morally neutral really struck home; despite having gone to therapy, I had never thought to analyze my feelings about cleaning (before and after). That “good feeling” after I clean my home feels so good and I had never considered that that could be contributing to this cycle. I plan to spend more time with the idea that cleaning is a function - like eating - and you can reduce it to the reason that it needs to be done to reframe it as a simple, morally neutral function.

I appreciated a lot of the little takeaway quotes she gave. Example: “You are not responsible for saving the world if you are struggling to save yourself.” Or “Anything worth doing is worth doing partially.” Her 5 category cleaning method also seems quite effective - I wish I had used that when I was going through depression a few years ago. And, finally, my favorite “Good enough is perfect.”