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How to Keep House While Drowning: 31 days of compassionate help
Why is it so hard for me to stay on top of housework? What's wrong with me?Depression, anxiety, ADHD, parental trauma, chronic illness, postpartum, bereavement, lack of support...Cooking, cleaning, laundry, and sometimes hygiene can become almost impossible during these struggles, yet that's rarely the focus of books about these mental, physical, and social barriers. Until now.How to Keep House While Drowning will introduce you to six life-changing principles that will revolutionize the way you approach home care-without endless to-do lists. Presented in 31 daily thoughts, this compassionate guide will help you begin to get free of the shame and anxiety you feel over home care.How do I know? I'm KC Davis, licensed professional counselor and mother of two. I birthed my second baby in a new city right as the world shut down from COVID-19. Without access to a support network for months on end, I used every tool in my therapy training arsenal and created a self-compassionate way to address my stress, depression, and ever-mounting laundry pile. After sharing this unique approach on social media, I gained hundreds of thousands followers within a few months. I realized the shame over not being able to keep up with housework is universal and that's why I wrote this book. Inside you will learn: - How to shift your perspective of care tasks from moral to functional- How to stop negative self-talk and shame around care tasks- How to give yourself permission to rest, even when things aren't finished- How to motivate yourself to care for your spaceBuy How to Keep House While Drowning now and start feeling better today.
64 pages, Paperback
First published April 26, 2022
10007 people are currently reading
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K.C. Davis
5 books564 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 10,850 reviews
November 18, 2020
short, sweet, and validating as fuck.
January 10, 2021
I believe deeply in letting go of shame*, especially when it comes to house work. There are a lot of reasons why house keeping can get away from you and putting a lot of shame on yourself about it is unnecessary and counter productive. I know this deeply and truly about other people. It is much much harder to apply those beliefs to myself.
How to Keep House While Drowning: 31 Days of Compassionate Help is very short, and on Kindle Unlimited, if you have that. I recommend it whether you struggle with care tasks or not. Even if you have never had a problem doing your dishes, you know someone who has. Either way, removing the moral valuation of cleanliness is going to be helpful to you or someone you care about now or in the future. Davis’ 6 Pillars of strugglecare are:
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
By page 11, Davis is giving concrete strategies for cleaning a messy space without becoming overwhelmed. She keeps her chapters short and she gets directly to her points about the moral neutrality of unfolded laundry, finding your compassionate voice, and gentle skill building. She advocated for replacing the moral view of cleaning with a functional view: the purpose of the cleaning is not to end up with a perfect, clean space, the purpose is to have a functional space. There is no grand reward at the end of your life for always having a clean sink, but if you are about to start cooking, it really helps to have a sink that is not full of dirty dishes. I bring this up because a few years ago I made a commitment to myself to end every day with an empty, clean sink and clean counters. I like starting the day with a clean(ish) kitchen. The pandemic has made that surprisingly challenging. I go fewer places and have fewer people in the my space, so why is keeping it clean harder? Focus and energy. I find it harder to focus on everything so it takes longer to get anything done, so I am more exhausted at the end of the day. I didn’t realize I was allowing shame to build up until I started reading How to Keep House While Drowning.
She repeats frequently that shame is a terrible motivator, an unnecessary burden, and a likely to cause future damage. In addition to encouraging us to remove shame from taking care of our physical space and our bodies, she encourages us to make rest a right and not a reward. If we have the right to rest when we want to, we don’t rest in shame and the quality of our rest is better. She differentiates between rest and sleep. Rest is the activities you engage in while conscious that help you recharge. It is as much a right as sleep.
While Davis isn’t talking about rest as resistance, I do want to direct your attention to The Nap Ministry. The Nap Ministry was started by Tricia Hersey, a Black woman, to advocate for rest as an act of resistance to capitalism and white supremacy. Given the history of white women coopting social justice movements started by Black women, I want to be sure the work of The Nap Ministry is seen and Hersey’s leadership is respected.
Throughout the book and on her website and tiktok, Davis offers additional resources. I like the mindset of approaching chores from a functionality perspective. Removing shame from caring for your home and for yourself allows room to be good enough, to ask for help, and to hire help. What’s funny is that my housemate and I were talking about how difficult we have found it to clean in the last few months. She suggested that when it’s safe to do so, we hire someone to do a deep clean of the house and then we can go back to maintaining it. The idea stirred up a lot of feelings of guilt and shame and I argued for a little bit. She pointed out that it’s exactly what I would suggest to a friend in the same situation. She’s right. It takes practice and it’s practice I clearly need.
How to Keep House While Drowning: 31 Days of Compassionate Help is very short, and on Kindle Unlimited, if you have that. I recommend it whether you struggle with care tasks or not. Even if you have never had a problem doing your dishes, you know someone who has. Either way, removing the moral valuation of cleanliness is going to be helpful to you or someone you care about now or in the future. Davis’ 6 Pillars of strugglecare are:
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
By page 11, Davis is giving concrete strategies for cleaning a messy space without becoming overwhelmed. She keeps her chapters short and she gets directly to her points about the moral neutrality of unfolded laundry, finding your compassionate voice, and gentle skill building. She advocated for replacing the moral view of cleaning with a functional view: the purpose of the cleaning is not to end up with a perfect, clean space, the purpose is to have a functional space. There is no grand reward at the end of your life for always having a clean sink, but if you are about to start cooking, it really helps to have a sink that is not full of dirty dishes. I bring this up because a few years ago I made a commitment to myself to end every day with an empty, clean sink and clean counters. I like starting the day with a clean(ish) kitchen. The pandemic has made that surprisingly challenging. I go fewer places and have fewer people in the my space, so why is keeping it clean harder? Focus and energy. I find it harder to focus on everything so it takes longer to get anything done, so I am more exhausted at the end of the day. I didn’t realize I was allowing shame to build up until I started reading How to Keep House While Drowning.
She repeats frequently that shame is a terrible motivator, an unnecessary burden, and a likely to cause future damage. In addition to encouraging us to remove shame from taking care of our physical space and our bodies, she encourages us to make rest a right and not a reward. If we have the right to rest when we want to, we don’t rest in shame and the quality of our rest is better. She differentiates between rest and sleep. Rest is the activities you engage in while conscious that help you recharge. It is as much a right as sleep.
You do not exist to maintain a space of static perfection. Care tasks exist for one reason only….to make your body and space functional enough for you to easily experience the joy this world has to offer.
While Davis isn’t talking about rest as resistance, I do want to direct your attention to The Nap Ministry. The Nap Ministry was started by Tricia Hersey, a Black woman, to advocate for rest as an act of resistance to capitalism and white supremacy. Given the history of white women coopting social justice movements started by Black women, I want to be sure the work of The Nap Ministry is seen and Hersey’s leadership is respected.
Throughout the book and on her website and tiktok, Davis offers additional resources. I like the mindset of approaching chores from a functionality perspective. Removing shame from caring for your home and for yourself allows room to be good enough, to ask for help, and to hire help. What’s funny is that my housemate and I were talking about how difficult we have found it to clean in the last few months. She suggested that when it’s safe to do so, we hire someone to do a deep clean of the house and then we can go back to maintaining it. The idea stirred up a lot of feelings of guilt and shame and I argued for a little bit. She pointed out that it’s exactly what I would suggest to a friend in the same situation. She’s right. It takes practice and it’s practice I clearly need.
March 18, 2023
3.8 zaskoczyło mnie dość mocno!
January 1, 2023
Bumping up to 5 stars because the book came for my neck. Quote to prove it: “When you view care tasks as moral, the motivation for completing them is often shame. When everything is in its place, you don’t feel like a failure. If you are completing the care tasks with a motivation of shame, you are also probably relaxing in shame too, because care tasks never end and you view rest as a reward.” Though I wasn’t struggling with house care and chores and therefore probably won’t follow her suggestions, I still found this book helpful for my unhealthy relationship to productivity. I appreciated the radical perspectives she brought forth about how laziness doesn’t exist and that care tasks are morally neutral. Listening to the audiobook was like a gentle embrace!
July 2, 2022
“How to Keep House While You’re Drowning” is the first self-help book that made me improve my life in spite of the book rather than because of it. Whenever the author said it was okay to not do something, like doing the dishes, I went and did it anyway.
If I looked up K.C. Davis before reading, I would have never checked this book out from my library — I’ve yet to find one “blogger with a book” who has written a good book.
“Drowning…” focuses on two major concepts: not tearing down one’s self esteem and picking only the most necessary tasks to accomplish day-to-day.
Intuitiveness is one of the latest lifestyle trends, particularly on TikTok, and is promoted by this author. The basic idea is identifying what triggers certain bad feelings and responding appropriately (the term “morally neutral” crops up A LOT). If the task is morally neutral, then failing to complete it isn’t morally wrong.
Humans are creatures of habit, so it’s not an inherently bad psychological tool.
In this case, however, the zeal to validate negative emotions feels more like listening to someone make excuses for themselves off than solid advice.
It’s obvious Davis is a TikTok influencer because her writing style is very short, repetitive and generic. At several points, the narrative even devolves into complaining about a random bad comment she received on a video.
Much of her book centers on poorly thought out ideas of a woman incapable of looking beyond her lived experiences (and she readily admit her disconnect from the working world).
For example, in the section about laundry, she makes a big deal about having multiple laundry baskets in every room, leaving clean laundry in piles in a separate room and putting all extra clothing into storage if necessary, all the while validating forgetting to move laundry into the dryer.
Imagine trying to follow that advice while living in a studio apartment or patronizing a laundromat.
Davis refuses to give advice in areas she is not knowledgeable in. For example, her “chapter” on keeping a car clean is an entire page about how she doesn’t know how to do it. Then why the fuck did you write about in the first place? It’s not cute and it’s a waste of the reader’s time.
Every other self help book written by a mental health professional I’ve encountered tackles this problem by using their patients with diverse lived experiences as examples and explain how the author helped them fix their situation (or, in some cases, how the author failed to do it and what they learned from the experience).
This is a memoir about a woman who narrating what’s literally in front of her face, not a self-help book. How frustrating.
If I looked up K.C. Davis before reading, I would have never checked this book out from my library — I’ve yet to find one “blogger with a book” who has written a good book.
“Drowning…” focuses on two major concepts: not tearing down one’s self esteem and picking only the most necessary tasks to accomplish day-to-day.
Intuitiveness is one of the latest lifestyle trends, particularly on TikTok, and is promoted by this author. The basic idea is identifying what triggers certain bad feelings and responding appropriately (the term “morally neutral” crops up A LOT). If the task is morally neutral, then failing to complete it isn’t morally wrong.
Humans are creatures of habit, so it’s not an inherently bad psychological tool.
In this case, however, the zeal to validate negative emotions feels more like listening to someone make excuses for themselves off than solid advice.
It’s obvious Davis is a TikTok influencer because her writing style is very short, repetitive and generic. At several points, the narrative even devolves into complaining about a random bad comment she received on a video.
Much of her book centers on poorly thought out ideas of a woman incapable of looking beyond her lived experiences (and she readily admit her disconnect from the working world).
For example, in the section about laundry, she makes a big deal about having multiple laundry baskets in every room, leaving clean laundry in piles in a separate room and putting all extra clothing into storage if necessary, all the while validating forgetting to move laundry into the dryer.
Imagine trying to follow that advice while living in a studio apartment or patronizing a laundromat.
Davis refuses to give advice in areas she is not knowledgeable in. For example, her “chapter” on keeping a car clean is an entire page about how she doesn’t know how to do it. Then why the fuck did you write about in the first place? It’s not cute and it’s a waste of the reader’s time.
Every other self help book written by a mental health professional I’ve encountered tackles this problem by using their patients with diverse lived experiences as examples and explain how the author helped them fix their situation (or, in some cases, how the author failed to do it and what they learned from the experience).
This is a memoir about a woman who narrating what’s literally in front of her face, not a self-help book. How frustrating.
August 5, 2021
As an autistic, my life consists of rules on “how to be a person”. It’s the only way I can sort of make sense of the world. However, it caused me to consider everything I do (or not do) as good or bad. I had never considered I’m not a terrible person for not having a spotless home. Basically not clean = bad person, bad adult, failure. This book was a complete 180 from that. Not folding your laundry does not make you a bad person, it literally does not have moral value. Care tasks are morally neutral.
Definitely recommend.
Definitely recommend.
November 15, 2020
Simple and super short, but a lot of encouragement packed into a tiny space. Just the simple reframe- “household tasks are not moral issues” has helped my mental health already.
December 9, 2022
Only have two baby bottles to clean? No problem, run the entire dishwasher. Only have a couple things to wash? No problem, run the entire washing machine and dryer cycle. Too tired to consider the enormous carbon footprint caused by choices made to alleviate your own exhaustion? You do you, that’s part of self care. Can’t seem to find time to mop the floor? Then just take it off the list of what you need for a clean house. Magic!
I was hoping for a few tips to help deal with the tasks of adulting; what I got instead were tips on how to create more waste, buy more laundry baskets, and avoid unpleasant tasks. This book was not for me.
However, one idea that I really did appreciate from this book was the idea that in a jointly-run household (or, really, any non-solo living situation), every person -regardless of income and their financial contribution ability- deserves equal *rest* time. Rather than diving tasks 50/50, consider instead what needs to happen in order for each person to have equal rest time, where “rest” does not include meeting basic needs (such as sleep, hygiene, exercise, eating).
I was hoping for a few tips to help deal with the tasks of adulting; what I got instead were tips on how to create more waste, buy more laundry baskets, and avoid unpleasant tasks. This book was not for me.
However, one idea that I really did appreciate from this book was the idea that in a jointly-run household (or, really, any non-solo living situation), every person -regardless of income and their financial contribution ability- deserves equal *rest* time. Rather than diving tasks 50/50, consider instead what needs to happen in order for each person to have equal rest time, where “rest” does not include meeting basic needs (such as sleep, hygiene, exercise, eating).
August 16, 2024
I picked up this book on housekeeping and self-care hoping to find some fresh ideas. 💡
It reminds us that your worth isn’t tied to how clean your house is.
Aim for a space that works for you, not for perfection.
I love how it breaks down overwhelming tasks into smaller, manageable steps.
Taking care of yourself is just as important as cleaning.
Create routines that fit your energy levels and needs. 💪
Approach housekeeping with understanding and compassion.
The author's approach is really kind and understanding, making it a very easy read.
It reminds us that your worth isn’t tied to how clean your house is.
Aim for a space that works for you, not for perfection.
I love how it breaks down overwhelming tasks into smaller, manageable steps.
Taking care of yourself is just as important as cleaning.
Create routines that fit your energy levels and needs. 💪
Approach housekeeping with understanding and compassion.
The author's approach is really kind and understanding, making it a very easy read.
Read
June 5, 2021Feels weird to review a book about cleaning I read in 25 minutes on my lunch break. Even weirder that I would give it five stars if I were in the habit of rating books anymore. It's very short, less than 75 pages! However, I was honestly very moved by this book about cleaning that I read in 25 minutes on my lunch break. Hygiene and keeping my spaces clean (care tasks, as Davis calls them), are tasks I struggle with a lot due to ADHD and [distant yelling over the sound of "Serotonin" by girl in red]. I have struggled for years with these things and they have been a constant source of stress and anxiety; care tasks became particularly difficult when I started living on my own. My habit of cleaning evolved to: do the bare minimum of cleaning to mostly keep my dog safe, feel bad and deep clean over a weekend every six months when I had a rare burst of energy, let my spaces become messy and uncomfortable again, do the bare minimum for my dog etc etc etc.
A friend recommended this to me after I was emoting at length to her over the state of my house and how awful it makes me feel and I am glad that I was able to finish it (a rare thing for me these days.) It's a short quick read, as I said before, and not intimidating. It is not a judge-y self-help book, does not motive you or hype you up with swear words, just a gentle encouragement to try new ways of thinking about care tasks. Life is hard and if you are reading this book you are clearly struggling but want to get better, so be gentle with yourself. Davis' framing of care tasks (cleaning, laundry, hygiene etc) as tasks that do not hold moral value but are value neutral have helped me a lot already as I face down cleaning a house that has quite frankly become a wreck over the course of the pandemic. I am not a bad person who fails at life for not having mopped the floor in a year or not having vacuumed in six months. Doing or not doing them does not make me fundamentally good or bad; they are just actions. Not mopping does not make me a bad person. I am just a human who is struggling with mopping. That's neither good nor bad. It just is. And that's advice I needed.
Her encouragement to find one room in your house that HAS to be kept tidy (for whatever reason) and set tasks you do for it each day of the week will be extremely valuable I think -- I have tried and failed many ways of keeping my entire house clean by assigning tasks in different rooms on different days/weeks to keep clean and it has always become a source of stress as I was never able to keep up with the whole house every week. The idea of taking one room is much more manageable and i like the idea that it carries over to other rooms; I completed my daily task in one room so now if I have time (and this is key -- if I have time/energy/motivation) I can go to another room and complete a same or similar task. Additionally, the framing of, "what do you need your space for and how can you keep it clean to serve YOU" is so good for me as a person who assigns a lot of value to the state of my living space and quite frankly lets it own me. For example, I need my downstairs floors to always be clear and free from debris in case my dog has a seizure; I need my space to serve me and my dog so that he can be safe and I can be free from worry when I am out of the house. I understand Davis correctly, she says not to assign value to the care task of your space (I let the recycling pile up on the floor so now my dog is in danger and also now I have ants so actually I'm a bad person and a terrible dog parent and just an all-around worthless human being) but to simply make sure that the way I frame the care task is value neutral in a way that makes the space serve me and my needs/desires (I need to keep the downstairs floors clear of debris and bugs to keep my dog safe.)
I'm going to stop writing here as a) this review is now easily longer than some chapters and b) I'm mostly just processing in public what I read at this point. But I did enjoy this little book very much and recommend it to anyone who feels a lot of shame around how they approach their living spaces and hygiene. It makes me want to be kinder to myself and that's worth so much.
A friend recommended this to me after I was emoting at length to her over the state of my house and how awful it makes me feel and I am glad that I was able to finish it (a rare thing for me these days.) It's a short quick read, as I said before, and not intimidating. It is not a judge-y self-help book, does not motive you or hype you up with swear words, just a gentle encouragement to try new ways of thinking about care tasks. Life is hard and if you are reading this book you are clearly struggling but want to get better, so be gentle with yourself. Davis' framing of care tasks (cleaning, laundry, hygiene etc) as tasks that do not hold moral value but are value neutral have helped me a lot already as I face down cleaning a house that has quite frankly become a wreck over the course of the pandemic. I am not a bad person who fails at life for not having mopped the floor in a year or not having vacuumed in six months. Doing or not doing them does not make me fundamentally good or bad; they are just actions. Not mopping does not make me a bad person. I am just a human who is struggling with mopping. That's neither good nor bad. It just is. And that's advice I needed.
Her encouragement to find one room in your house that HAS to be kept tidy (for whatever reason) and set tasks you do for it each day of the week will be extremely valuable I think -- I have tried and failed many ways of keeping my entire house clean by assigning tasks in different rooms on different days/weeks to keep clean and it has always become a source of stress as I was never able to keep up with the whole house every week. The idea of taking one room is much more manageable and i like the idea that it carries over to other rooms; I completed my daily task in one room so now if I have time (and this is key -- if I have time/energy/motivation) I can go to another room and complete a same or similar task. Additionally, the framing of, "what do you need your space for and how can you keep it clean to serve YOU" is so good for me as a person who assigns a lot of value to the state of my living space and quite frankly lets it own me. For example, I need my downstairs floors to always be clear and free from debris in case my dog has a seizure; I need my space to serve me and my dog so that he can be safe and I can be free from worry when I am out of the house. I understand Davis correctly, she says not to assign value to the care task of your space (I let the recycling pile up on the floor so now my dog is in danger and also now I have ants so actually I'm a bad person and a terrible dog parent and just an all-around worthless human being) but to simply make sure that the way I frame the care task is value neutral in a way that makes the space serve me and my needs/desires (I need to keep the downstairs floors clear of debris and bugs to keep my dog safe.)
I'm going to stop writing here as a) this review is now easily longer than some chapters and b) I'm mostly just processing in public what I read at this point. But I did enjoy this little book very much and recommend it to anyone who feels a lot of shame around how they approach their living spaces and hygiene. It makes me want to be kinder to myself and that's worth so much.
October 19, 2022
Uuugh, this book, it just... wasn't for me. And lets just get this out of the way, this is my opinion, the author, and anybody reading this can have their own and do whatever the F they want, that's the great thing about being a grown up out in the world.
I could say I'm not the target audience (I don't have kids, which is addressed somewhere near half, but for real, it just feels very geared towards parents, so that was alienating from jump)... but that's not it, because I do fall into some of the things this book is aimed at. And also some of the things that are discussed I think are applicable to everyone. Yes, you heard it here, applicable to everyone. So lets talk about what I thought was spot on.
Big ups for pointing out and reiterating that cleanliness is not, in fact, next to godliness, but rather, keeping a clean house has nothing to do with your moral standings. A clean house doesn't equal a good person, and an unclean house doesn't equal a bad person. JHC, more people need to hear this, and then hear it again, and again, and again. I have a close family member who has ADHD and depression, his house is a hoarding paradise, we work at it together when he's able, and he's a fantastic human, just not fantastic at house keeping.
Second, your spaces serve you, you don't live to serve your spaces. I like this mentality because it asks you to question what you're doing in your space that isn't working for you and how you can change it and make it better so you have more time for yourself, your family, or just slowing down.
But here's the thing... The tone of this book was very much, in my opinion, just give up and hit the easy button at every juncture. And that's just not how I roll (I'm going to find every efficiency I can for the boring stuff, but at some point you still have to do it). Life is fucking hard, and a lot of the time you won't want to do the thing (make the appointment, do the hygiene, get out of bed, get into bed, fold the laundry, go for the walk, address your shit behaviour with your therapist), it will feel hard, you will have mental resistance, you will get overwhelmed, but you still have to do it. And sometimes you're going to have to hit the easy button to get through a patch... but that's not how you should approach all of life (actually fuck, I'm shoulding all over you now, my bad, honestly do what you want). This book just felt like coddling. Life is hard, and there are times that are going to be harder than others, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't show up.
And then there was the stuff that really got me wound up, the questionable environmental advice if you will. Throw away daily plastic toothbrushes (contrasted with masks for Covid, come, the, actual, fuck, on... those two things are very different), and then there's somewhere else where using throw away dishes is suggested as a way forward. I think the mindset is something along the lines of "you can't save the rain forest if you're drowning in depression", and that's valid, but are you going to feel any less shitty when you're throwing out all the plastic and making it worse... that would blow my anxiety through the roof personally.
So ultimately, I don't know what to say. If this book helped you great, I'm glad it exists so that you found help when you needed it. But ultimately I strongly dislike this book, it's a hard pass for me.
I could say I'm not the target audience (I don't have kids, which is addressed somewhere near half, but for real, it just feels very geared towards parents, so that was alienating from jump)... but that's not it, because I do fall into some of the things this book is aimed at. And also some of the things that are discussed I think are applicable to everyone. Yes, you heard it here, applicable to everyone. So lets talk about what I thought was spot on.
Big ups for pointing out and reiterating that cleanliness is not, in fact, next to godliness, but rather, keeping a clean house has nothing to do with your moral standings. A clean house doesn't equal a good person, and an unclean house doesn't equal a bad person. JHC, more people need to hear this, and then hear it again, and again, and again. I have a close family member who has ADHD and depression, his house is a hoarding paradise, we work at it together when he's able, and he's a fantastic human, just not fantastic at house keeping.
Second, your spaces serve you, you don't live to serve your spaces. I like this mentality because it asks you to question what you're doing in your space that isn't working for you and how you can change it and make it better so you have more time for yourself, your family, or just slowing down.
But here's the thing... The tone of this book was very much, in my opinion, just give up and hit the easy button at every juncture. And that's just not how I roll (I'm going to find every efficiency I can for the boring stuff, but at some point you still have to do it). Life is fucking hard, and a lot of the time you won't want to do the thing (make the appointment, do the hygiene, get out of bed, get into bed, fold the laundry, go for the walk, address your shit behaviour with your therapist), it will feel hard, you will have mental resistance, you will get overwhelmed, but you still have to do it. And sometimes you're going to have to hit the easy button to get through a patch... but that's not how you should approach all of life (actually fuck, I'm shoulding all over you now, my bad, honestly do what you want). This book just felt like coddling. Life is hard, and there are times that are going to be harder than others, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't show up.
And then there was the stuff that really got me wound up, the questionable environmental advice if you will. Throw away daily plastic toothbrushes (contrasted with masks for Covid, come, the, actual, fuck, on... those two things are very different), and then there's somewhere else where using throw away dishes is suggested as a way forward. I think the mindset is something along the lines of "you can't save the rain forest if you're drowning in depression", and that's valid, but are you going to feel any less shitty when you're throwing out all the plastic and making it worse... that would blow my anxiety through the roof personally.
So ultimately, I don't know what to say. If this book helped you great, I'm glad it exists so that you found help when you needed it. But ultimately I strongly dislike this book, it's a hard pass for me.
May 11, 2023
Anything worth doing is worth doing partially.
I've been watching KC's Tiktok videos for a little while now and have immensely enjoyed the way she interweaves self-care, cleaning/organizing, and therapy, so when I realized she had this little book on KU, I wanted to check it out right away - and I'm so glad I did. Even if you've watched every video on her Tiktok account over at @domesticblisters, I still recommend reading this. It's so short, very easy to read through, and adds some really incredible insight into what causes our brains to view care tasks as something morally charged and something worthy of stressing over or faulting ourselves for — instead of what they should be: a morally neutral path to helping ourselves function in daily life, to whatever degree.
You do not exist to maintain a space of static perfection. Care tasks exist for one reason only....to make your body and space functional enough for you to easily experience the joy this world has to offer.
December 11, 2022
Ohhhhh this one got me. I tried and tried and tried some more to keep in mind she was in the trenches with PPD during pandemic lockdown when she wrote this, but I still can’t help but think, so I’ll just say it—have some respect for yourself and your family and take even the smallest granule of responsibility!
I don’t recall where I found this book but remember saving it to read now before I have my second baby thinking it may offer some tips to reorganizing the home life and daily chores while I’m on maternity leave with a baby and a toddler. But literally all this book did is make me laugh and realize I could do absolutely squat and still accomplish more than this woman without even trying. Her tips aren’t tips, they’re giving up on yourself and your family and then to go a step further, justifying to yourself that it’s completely okay to be a lazy bum. My personal favorite tip was during the dishwashing section when the author literally said “if the dishes surrounding the sink have been there for MORE THAN TWO WEEKS” I’m sorry, what?! What are you even cooking or eating on at this point if you haven’t so much as touched a plate in two weeks?! But let me finish…”if the dishes surrounding the sink have been there for two or more weeks, throw everything out and buy new but use paper plates in the meantime until you feel you can move back to real.” That’s realistic. Throw out all of your kitchen supplies and buy new, forget the cost because you don’t need to guilt yourself with money or dishes, you’re just trying to survive mama, you got this! Absolutely terrible advice. This woman is the friend you don’t need because when you vent to her, she will automatically tell you you’re in the right regardless if whether or not you are.
Every “tip” she had followed the above nonsensical pattern. Too lazy to fold your clean clothes? Don’t, have a massive clean clothes pile somewhere in your house where everyone digs for a wrinkly shirt when they need one. Cleaning the bathroom going to exert too much effort because you let it get so nasty? Don’t clean that one, clean the other one you just kind of cleaned last week because it’s barely dirty again so it’ll be quick and make you feel accomplished. WHAT?!
Like I said, my issue with this book is that she acknowledges she’s struggling but doesn’t take even the tiniest step toward actually bettering herself or her home or establishing a real routine to eventually get to a maintenance level. Everyone struggles sometimes and I’d have a tad more sympathy if she was grieving a family loss or something here, but she’s not. And again, I know the lockdown was hard for lots of people who felt isolated and like they were raising kids solo but she has a husband. And PPD is no joke either when you’re in the pit of it but it isn’t forever. And in fact, being able to feel like you accomplished one or two small tasks a day helps with PPD. So when her advice throughout this book is make a to-do list and don’t feel guilty if you don’t do a single thing on it today, or the next day, or next week, it’s fine. Well no, it’s not. You’ll never feel accomplished or worthy about anything if you follow that path. I’m seriously upset someone published this garbage and I definitely hope it’s not placed in the self-help section of any bookstore anywhere because it is the opposite of helpful or motivating. Girlfriend needs a therapist and a new outlook on life if this is how she’s been living since 2020. End rant.
I don’t recall where I found this book but remember saving it to read now before I have my second baby thinking it may offer some tips to reorganizing the home life and daily chores while I’m on maternity leave with a baby and a toddler. But literally all this book did is make me laugh and realize I could do absolutely squat and still accomplish more than this woman without even trying. Her tips aren’t tips, they’re giving up on yourself and your family and then to go a step further, justifying to yourself that it’s completely okay to be a lazy bum. My personal favorite tip was during the dishwashing section when the author literally said “if the dishes surrounding the sink have been there for MORE THAN TWO WEEKS” I’m sorry, what?! What are you even cooking or eating on at this point if you haven’t so much as touched a plate in two weeks?! But let me finish…”if the dishes surrounding the sink have been there for two or more weeks, throw everything out and buy new but use paper plates in the meantime until you feel you can move back to real.” That’s realistic. Throw out all of your kitchen supplies and buy new, forget the cost because you don’t need to guilt yourself with money or dishes, you’re just trying to survive mama, you got this! Absolutely terrible advice. This woman is the friend you don’t need because when you vent to her, she will automatically tell you you’re in the right regardless if whether or not you are.
Every “tip” she had followed the above nonsensical pattern. Too lazy to fold your clean clothes? Don’t, have a massive clean clothes pile somewhere in your house where everyone digs for a wrinkly shirt when they need one. Cleaning the bathroom going to exert too much effort because you let it get so nasty? Don’t clean that one, clean the other one you just kind of cleaned last week because it’s barely dirty again so it’ll be quick and make you feel accomplished. WHAT?!
Like I said, my issue with this book is that she acknowledges she’s struggling but doesn’t take even the tiniest step toward actually bettering herself or her home or establishing a real routine to eventually get to a maintenance level. Everyone struggles sometimes and I’d have a tad more sympathy if she was grieving a family loss or something here, but she’s not. And again, I know the lockdown was hard for lots of people who felt isolated and like they were raising kids solo but she has a husband. And PPD is no joke either when you’re in the pit of it but it isn’t forever. And in fact, being able to feel like you accomplished one or two small tasks a day helps with PPD. So when her advice throughout this book is make a to-do list and don’t feel guilty if you don’t do a single thing on it today, or the next day, or next week, it’s fine. Well no, it’s not. You’ll never feel accomplished or worthy about anything if you follow that path. I’m seriously upset someone published this garbage and I definitely hope it’s not placed in the self-help section of any bookstore anywhere because it is the opposite of helpful or motivating. Girlfriend needs a therapist and a new outlook on life if this is how she’s been living since 2020. End rant.
July 12, 2024
3.5 rounded up - I do think there are some important messages here, especially as relates to childhood trauma with "chores" and those negative messages. While much of this one is not personally applicable to me (or those perhaps w/o small kiddos) I did find a take away or two here & see why this book is so popular right now. “Anything worth doing is worth doing half assed” !!!
January 26, 2023
This book made me so angry. The title should have been different because there are almost NO TIPS on how to keep a house clean…it validates not having a clean house, and they it’s ok to not be ok. Which is fine, but the titile and description were really deceiving.
February 4, 2023
I feel like this book isn't for me. And that isn't to say I don't agree that cleaning and organizing is a functional activity and not a moral one, and that it's important to do what you can and find what works for you. But this book is very much for people who struggle with being externally motivated instead of internally motivated and who are vulnerable to shame, which isn't me. I know the title is How to Keep house While Drowning, but for some reason I didn't think "Oh, this is for people with depression" I was thinking more, "Oh, this is for people who have more to do than they CAN do." While this attempts to cover both groups of people, I think it's much more for people who suffer from negative self-talk or who are emotionally overwhelmed due to trauma, and less for people who are simply extremely busy or overwhelmed because of external factors. Like for me I have a chronic illness (or three) that gets in the way of my ability to do things, but I'm not mean to myself about it. So this book felt like a pep talk I didn't need.
My problem is far more about other people not being understanding of my limitations, than my own perception of my limits. I already know I do my best. And this book doesn't get into external pressures at all. It's entirely focused on what's going on inside your own head as if all those external pressures are behind you. It actually kind of assumes that everything is fine in your life. Like this ends with the author being like, "I don't feel bad about my weight because my husband loves me." I feel like the unspoken step one of her advice is to make a life for yourself where the only one who has a problem with you is you.
So this book is basically for people who need help being nice to themselves and if that's you I'd say you should probably read this because it will help you reframe how you see housework and your ability to do it. But if your problem isn't mean voices in your head telling you that you're not good enough, I don't know how much you'll get out of this.
My problem is far more about other people not being understanding of my limitations, than my own perception of my limits. I already know I do my best. And this book doesn't get into external pressures at all. It's entirely focused on what's going on inside your own head as if all those external pressures are behind you. It actually kind of assumes that everything is fine in your life. Like this ends with the author being like, "I don't feel bad about my weight because my husband loves me." I feel like the unspoken step one of her advice is to make a life for yourself where the only one who has a problem with you is you.
So this book is basically for people who need help being nice to themselves and if that's you I'd say you should probably read this because it will help you reframe how you see housework and your ability to do it. But if your problem isn't mean voices in your head telling you that you're not good enough, I don't know how much you'll get out of this.
November 8, 2022
Somebody online called the author lazy in 2020 and she is still so bitter and angry about it that she wrote this book. There's nothing helpful or empowering, just lots of ranting and waffling on. Awful.
December 15, 2022
Let me properly retitle this book for you: “How to Justify Giving Up”.
June 13, 2022
Apologies but why is this rated so highly? It’s dreadful. I bought it on Emily Oster’s endorsement but feel the 30 dollars spent was terribly wasteful. Really average advice.
August 13, 2022
I waited a long time for this library book. I was #44 in line. After reading it, I don't understand why it is so popular? Is it just the title? Overall this book is very very repetitive, with the main topics being dishes and laundry and be kind to your self. I did find some parts funny and some true. Yes, your space should be functional. And, I liked the image of decide if you are juggling glass versus plastic balls. She does relate to needs of people with disabilities of any kind. I was a messier person when I went to work in a wheelchair, walker and crutches for 2 years after a near fatal car accident and had to learn to walk again. Cleaning was not so important with cracked collarbone, ribs, pelvis. After work, I stopped at the nursing home to care for my mom whin who had dementia. Then I went for water pool therapy. I had to set priorities...many priorities. And, I was a messier person when my tiny kitchen had no counterspace and my house had just 1 small closet for clothes. Now, I am grateful for my ranch house with lots of cabinets and closets and storage space. It is much easier to not be messy. And, I am easily motivated to keep my nice home clean and tidy...not perfect or all the time. I do have work, many animals, a big garden lots of hobbies, friends and family.
Perhaps the author needs to get some organisational help, rather than writing a book like this. I would recommend the book "Tiny Habits" ; it has many useful hacks. Better hacks than buying 144 disposible toothbrusher. He suggests floss jut 1 tooth a day...lol. And, " there are no projects , just Next Actions ". I read that in another self-help book recently. That advice turned my List Making into a simple doable day to day plan. It can apply to jobs, projects and home care etc. Sure you can read this book, but there are really not enough suggestions to be very useful. I do not need a laundry basket in every room. But, maybe I'll put a watering can in every room.
A final thought, perhaps her home is just too big to take care of. Some houses today seem big enough for 2 families. It may be time to downsize.
Perhaps the author needs to get some organisational help, rather than writing a book like this. I would recommend the book "Tiny Habits" ; it has many useful hacks. Better hacks than buying 144 disposible toothbrusher. He suggests floss jut 1 tooth a day...lol. And, " there are no projects , just Next Actions ". I read that in another self-help book recently. That advice turned my List Making into a simple doable day to day plan. It can apply to jobs, projects and home care etc. Sure you can read this book, but there are really not enough suggestions to be very useful. I do not need a laundry basket in every room. But, maybe I'll put a watering can in every room.
A final thought, perhaps her home is just too big to take care of. Some houses today seem big enough for 2 families. It may be time to downsize.
April 16, 2024
Do you struggle with keeping up with household tasks while also working and/or taking care of kids? How to Keep House While Drowning is a small book with a powerful message. The author, KC Davis, has a gentle way of reminding us, or telling us for the first time, that care tasks (like dishes, vacuuming, dusting, etc) are not moral judgments. You are not a “bad person” if you can’t keep up with your housework. Some other key points she emphasizes are that “good enough is perfection” and that you don’t have to earn rest. Davis does describe an easy, practical 5-step cleaning method, but beyond that, the book will help you release any guilt, blame, or shame you may be feeling if you are trying to keep house “while drowning.”
-Diana F.
-Diana F.
April 9, 2022
3.5 Sometimes one is just not up to par, either physically or mentally, or both. This book does a good job describing short cuts, while making the point of points, that this is not something for which one should feel shame. Keeping house with its myriad of chores, is often not easy during the best of times, and near impossible at others. Loved her matter of fact approach and though some of it is common sense, others will be of use.
ARC from Netgalley.
ARC from Netgalley.
December 31, 2022
*Recommended by Leigh Kramer
August 17, 2021
This is an incredibly kind, thoughtful, and sensible little book for anyone who's feeling overwhelmed in their home, whether that overwhelm comes from an external life-crisis, overwork, depression, a physical illness/disability, or any other factor. Davis firmly divorces care tasks (housecleaning, hygiene, etc) from morality and shame and focuses on self-compassion and functionality. Because she's aiming this book at a varied audience with lots of different struggle-factors, not every tip will be needed by every reader - but I found the whole book to be incredibly warm and healing and exactly what I needed after a rough year and a half of family health issues. Highly recommended.
February 27, 2023
I could write a book on all the reasons I did not care for this book or think it was effective. To list a few:
1. The author belittles other methods to make hers seem better.
2. The author can't even follow her own rules/methods/advice.
3. Entire skippable chapters. Including a waste of one about cars where the author says she has no advice because she's bad at it. Refer back to number 2.
4. The author states having kids does not make care tasks harder. After multiple times of referring to how much harder her life was after kids. What??? This really irked me as a parent. Things are most definitely harder!
5. So much advice was counterintuitive to someone looking for help in the "keep house" category.
Overall, maybe it was just the title that needs to be fixed. Maybe it should have been, "How To Be Okay With A Messy House," or "It's Okay To Live In A Mess," or "Excuses To Not Keep House."
1. The author belittles other methods to make hers seem better.
2. The author can't even follow her own rules/methods/advice.
3. Entire skippable chapters. Including a waste of one about cars where the author says she has no advice because she's bad at it. Refer back to number 2.
4. The author states having kids does not make care tasks harder. After multiple times of referring to how much harder her life was after kids. What??? This really irked me as a parent. Things are most definitely harder!
5. So much advice was counterintuitive to someone looking for help in the "keep house" category.
Overall, maybe it was just the title that needs to be fixed. Maybe it should have been, "How To Be Okay With A Messy House," or "It's Okay To Live In A Mess," or "Excuses To Not Keep House."
December 29, 2024
Lots of great and practical advice for anyone. Mostly wanted to understand better my friends who have accessibility needs. Turns out that the advice in here is highly applicable to myself as well, and it felt good to know I’d already naturally created some of these coping mechanisms on my own to help make life easier. Was also reminded of my first lesson in 7th grade critical thinking class - assigning morality is unhelpful and useless.
November 11, 2023
”you do not exist to serve your space, your space exists to serve you.”
very calming self help book on learning how to be gentle and kind to yourself when struggling to keep up with activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living.
it really helped me with understanding that feeling “shame” from falling behind actually deters you from doing your tasks and continues to put you in a negative headspace. shifting your mindset towards completing tasks because you need a more functional space is more beneficial than constantly telling yourself you’re a failure.
i would recommend this if you struggle with negative self talk, and want helpful tips on how to be kind to yourself and still get work done.
very calming self help book on learning how to be gentle and kind to yourself when struggling to keep up with activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living.
it really helped me with understanding that feeling “shame” from falling behind actually deters you from doing your tasks and continues to put you in a negative headspace. shifting your mindset towards completing tasks because you need a more functional space is more beneficial than constantly telling yourself you’re a failure.
i would recommend this if you struggle with negative self talk, and want helpful tips on how to be kind to yourself and still get work done.
February 3, 2023
Morality concerns itself with the goodness or badness of your character and the rightness or wrongness of decisions….How you relate to care tasks—whether you are clean or dirty, messy or tidy, organized or unorganized—has absolutely no bearing on whether you are a good enough person.
I think I knew this in my head, but my gut feelings don't match. I heard somewhere that women view their homes as representations of themselves. Often when they want their lives to change, they start by working on their homes. Housework bores me and I am completely unmotivated to do it. Perhaps by reframing it as care tasks, done to care for Tomorrow Me, I'll be able to do the truly necessary tasks. I hope so. And who knows, maybe that list will expand over time.
I think I knew this in my head, but my gut feelings don't match. I heard somewhere that women view their homes as representations of themselves. Often when they want their lives to change, they start by working on their homes. Housework bores me and I am completely unmotivated to do it. Perhaps by reframing it as care tasks, done to care for Tomorrow Me, I'll be able to do the truly necessary tasks. I hope so. And who knows, maybe that list will expand over time.
September 17, 2023
How to tell yourself it’s ok to live in a pigsty while drowning. She talks about privilege but then says it’s acceptable to throw away dishes (not just single use ones) and assumes everyone she’s talking to has money to waste on endless disposables and has multiple rooms and in unit laundry. Using a new disposable tooth brush everyday!!!??? Doesn’t that make more trash for you to have to throw away anyways and defeat the purpose?? What about people who worry about the environment and being wasteful would worsen their mental issues???
I’ve had friends with roommates who’ve had mental health issues and have refused to do anything to contribute to the shared home. That’s incredibly frustrating and unkind to the other roommates who have to do extra and may have their own issues not acknowledged. Her advice is to just say passive aggressive bullshit to the person who doesn’t want to live like a slob and wants you to pull your weight. Since when is self-care just admitting defeat and not doing what’s hard? Why does everything have to be fun or easy to do? Instead of teaching useful habits, her solutions are mostly “just don’t do it.”
And she just lumps everyone together. I feel like severe depression is different than ADHD. Figuring out routines and strategies for one is different than another. Full of Tiktok buzzwords and this coddling style of therapy where nothing is ever your fault and you should never force yourself to be uncomfortable or inconvenienced.
How will my house be a sanctuary if I just throw everything out and accept it looking messy? I feel mentally better when my house is clean and orderly. Is mental wellness just learning to accept your mental issues and live with them? Idk, when I talk to therapists I want solutions that improve
my life not just encourage me to continue the way I was.
Plus, why is this a book full of boring factoids about her personal problems? She gives you shortcuts and says it’s short to make it more accessible but there’s so much useless griping that isn’t as easy to skip.
I’ve had friends with roommates who’ve had mental health issues and have refused to do anything to contribute to the shared home. That’s incredibly frustrating and unkind to the other roommates who have to do extra and may have their own issues not acknowledged. Her advice is to just say passive aggressive bullshit to the person who doesn’t want to live like a slob and wants you to pull your weight. Since when is self-care just admitting defeat and not doing what’s hard? Why does everything have to be fun or easy to do? Instead of teaching useful habits, her solutions are mostly “just don’t do it.”
And she just lumps everyone together. I feel like severe depression is different than ADHD. Figuring out routines and strategies for one is different than another. Full of Tiktok buzzwords and this coddling style of therapy where nothing is ever your fault and you should never force yourself to be uncomfortable or inconvenienced.
How will my house be a sanctuary if I just throw everything out and accept it looking messy? I feel mentally better when my house is clean and orderly. Is mental wellness just learning to accept your mental issues and live with them? Idk, when I talk to therapists I want solutions that improve
my life not just encourage me to continue the way I was.
Plus, why is this a book full of boring factoids about her personal problems? She gives you shortcuts and says it’s short to make it more accessible but there’s so much useless griping that isn’t as easy to skip.
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