How to Keep House While Drowning

From the book: How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by KC Davis

Priority is FUNCTION

Think how does this work for me...

"You don’t exist to serve your space; your space exists to serve you."

Definitions:

• Organization: Having a place for everything in your home and having a system for getting it there. Organization is FUNCTIONAL.
• Tidiness and Messiness: Describe how quickly things go back to their place
  • Tidy person returns things back to their home immediately
  • Messy person takes longer or doesn't

6 Pillars of Strugglecare

• Care tasks are morally neutral
• Rest is a right, not a reward
• You deserve kindness regardless of your level of functioning
• You can’t save the rainforest if you’re depressed
• Shame is the enemy of functioning
• Good enough is perfect

5 Things Method

• Trash
• Dishes
• Laundry
• Things that have a place
• Things that don’t have a place

Steps:

1. Tackle the first three types of messes: trash, dishes, and laundry. Pick these up first, but don’t deal with them just yet
   1. Put all the trash in a trash bag and leave it by the door
   2. Put the dishes into the sink
   3. Put the laundry in a basket and leave it by the washer
2. Address things that have a place
3. Lastly, things that don’t have a place
4. Once you have your five messes contained, then you can go back and deal with them

Timing

• Consider doing in 15 min spurts of time
• Do things by room or day

Other Notes

• Use baskets to contain things. Easy way to organize. Baskets go where the stuff already went.
• Not everything has to be clean at the same time
• Laundry:
  • Wash all clothes on Monday;
  • No sorting wash on cold;
  • Set timer when washer starts and when dryer starts;
  • Don't fold - hang what you need to
• Working/Living with a partner: The goal is not to make the work equal; but to ensure the REST is fair.

Anything worth doing is worth doing partially.

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