How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind: Dealing with Your House's Dirty Little Secrets

by Dana K. White

crazy thing happens when you realize the most basic home management stuff isn’t a project.

underwhelming as possible. I was desperate not to fail this time. I decided to do the dishes. Here was my rationale: Every time I got a burst of cleaning energy, I had to start in the kitchen. A house isn’t clean if the kitchen isn’t clean. But my kitchen was a whole-day project. By the time I was done, my elusive cleaning energy had vanished, and I never moved on to the rest of the house. If I did make it past the kitchen, the kitchen (quite rudely) got messy again while I worked elsewhere. It was a never-ending cycle. I had to get this figured out.

Not that I didn’t know how to do them before. I knew how to squirt soap and wash a skillet, but I didn’t know how to do dishes as a habit.

Most things that look easy are skills. Skills can be learned.

Not only do routines magically free up time for decluttering, they show me what to declutter, and this removes decluttering angst. I know all about decluttering angst. As the queen of what-if scenarios, I can come up with a logical reason to keep almost any item I pull out of a pile.