How To Keep House While Drowning

A tender guide to doing the best you can under challenging circumstances

We have a team book club at Big Rocks, which means we get paid to read interesting books. How cool is that? This month, we’ve been reading How To Keep House While Drowning. I haven’t written a book report in sixty years or so, but this particular book is worth sharing.

This quick, easy read focuses on housekeeping and organizing for people who are neurodivergent, struggling with mental health challenges, have experienced trauma or grief, or are facing other obstacles. The author, KC Davis, is a licensed therapist and a recovering addict who has struggled with mental illness all her life. So she knows a lot about how to care for a home while also caring for herself. I can’t distill all her good, gentle advice into a short post, but here are some highlights.

How to care for your home while navigating difficult challenges

Care tasks (any kind of housekeeping chore) are morally neutral.

That means it is not a moral failing if it doesn’t get done. We are often our harshest critics. But, if you look at an undone task as just a functional blip, not a moral one, you feel less ashamed. It's not about being a good person. It’s just a pile of laundry, not an indictment of your character. Let it go.

You are not lazy.

This message belongs on a sticky note on everyone’s bathroom mirror. Something is getting in the way of having a perfectly tidy home, but it isn’t laziness (even if you’ve heard that all your life, which is a whole other complicated thing the author explores). If your home isn’t as neat as it could be, guess what? That’s okay. Just breathe, and give yourself the same grace you would give a friend who’s struggling.

Not everything in your home has to be clean at the same time.

We get this image in our minds of a perfect home where all rooms are tidy all the time, and we judge ourselves when that doesn’t happen. Well, it can’t happen. Life is lived in every room, and you can’t spend that life cleaning up all the time. If your living room is a disaster, remind yourself that you sorted the mail yesterday. Good on you!

Reframe your thinking.

Instead of thinking, "Ugh, the kitchen is a train wreck," try to reframe the thought: “Hey, I made a nice dinner for my family.”

You’re not here to serve your home, your home is here to serve you.

Your self-worth does not hinge on whether there’s a pile of stuff on the dining table. Your home does not judge you, nor are you here on earth to make your home a sparkling beacon of Instagram perfection. You are human. You live in a home that gets messy. Again, that’s okay. You are worthy, no matter what your home looks like.

Forget self-help organizing books.

Most organizing books are written by people who are really organized, so they can’t possibly know the struggles of people who aren’t. Teaching you to fold your underwear into an origami swan will not be your path forward. KC Davis’s real-world advice is to do what you can, and don’t feel guilty about what you can’t. She offers some very specific tidying tips that might work for you.

The five things tidying method.

When you look at a messy space, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and just want to walk out of the room before you start to panic-sweat. But if you break the tidying down into five tasks, it’s less daunting. Look at any room, and there are only five issues to deal with, depending on the room:

1. There’s trash to be picked up.
2. Some dishes need to be washed.
3. There’s laundry to wash or put away.
4. Some things are not in their place.
5. Other things do not have a home.

The author’s approach is to start with task #1. Focusing on that one task can make the whole space seem less intimidating, and make you feel less paralyzed. When you’ve done task #1, move on to one of the other tasks. Or not. If just doing task #1 is all you can do today, then that’s fine; you will feel better than you did when you started. You can do another task tomorrow.

The timer technique.

Set a timer for just fifteen or twenty minutes. Then, put on music, a podcast, or a TV show (but don’t park your butt on the couch to watch it), and just work on something that needs to be done for that short time. It’s amazing how much better a space can look with just a few minutes of tidying.

Be kind to future you.

Think about whether doing a task, such as cleaning up the dinner dishes, benefits future you (i.e. the person who will get up tomorrow morning and wish the dishes were done). Sometimes it’s easier to get a chore done not because you feel morally obligated, but because you’re doing future you a favor.

Organization means having a place for everything. Even if it’s a messy place.

Many of us have spent money on pretty organizing bins that don’t keep us organized. That’s because not everyone organizes into tidy little labeled bins. The idea is to organize in whatever way works for your brain and your life. If that means you organize clean pajamas by leaving them in a heap in a laundry basket till you (or your kids) need a pair, then that’s fine. If you organize all the little things on your counter by dumping them into a shoebox, then that’s also fine. Organizing doesn’t have to be pretty, you just have to be able to find your car keys. It’s about your space being functional, not photographable.

Division of labor: Dividing fairly.

There’s a lot in this book about the uneven division of labor between partners—too much to explain adequately here. If that’s an issue in your house, this book is worth reading just for that chapter alone.

Rest is not a reward. It’s a right.

Think you don’t deserve to rest until all the chores are done? Look at it this way: maybe the chores aren’t done because you need rest! Rest is something you need, something you deserve, something you’re entitled to, no matter what state of chaos your home is in.

How To Keep House While Drowning (don’t we love that title, by the way?) has dozens more tips on how to keep your head and your home above water. Everyone deserves to have their home be their sanctuary, and this book can help you find the self-compassion and skills to make your own peaceful space—even if some of that space still contains chaos. That’s life. Be gentle with yourself as you live it.

Buying the book

The book is available from Amazon at the link below. I’d lend you my copy, but I scribbled illegible notes all over it. It’s also available at Powell’s and look for it at your local library. (We are not affiliated with the author or the bookstores we’ve mentioned and we receive no compensation for our recommendation. We just think it’s a really good book.)

How to Keep House While Drowning

Catch the replay of our “Ask the Organizer” book discussion here!

About Andrea Thompson

Andrea was an advertising copywriter/creative director for 40 years before retiring then unretiring to start a new career in organizing. She fully admits her new home is not 100% organized.