How to Keep House While Drowning

by K.C. Davis

In my work as a therapist I have seen hundreds of clients who struggle with these issues, and I am convinced now more than ever of one simple truth: they are not lazy. In fact, I do not think laziness exists.

You know what does exist? Executive dysfunction, procrastination, feeling overwhelmed, perfectionism, trauma, amotivation, chronic pain, energy fatigue, depression, lack of skills, lack of support, and differing priorities. ADHD, autism, depression, traumatic brain injury, and bipolar and anxiety disorders are just some of the conditions that affect executive function, making planning, time management, working memory, and organization more difficult, and tasks with multiple steps intimidating or boring.

When barriers to functioning make completing care tasks difficult, a person can experience an immense amount of shame. “How can I be failing at something so simple?” they think to themselves. The critical internal dialogue quickly forms a vicious cycle, paralyzing the person even further.

As shame and isolation increase, mental health plummets. Self-loathing sets in and motivation vanishes. Sadly, this is often compounded by critical and cruel comments that friends and family make. Being labeled as lazy cements the belief that struggling to complete these simple tasks is, at its core, a moral failure.

You are not lazy or dirty or gross. You are not a failure. You just need nonjudgmental and compassionate help.

your space exists to serve you.

Internalizing this belief will help you a) shift your perspective of care tasks from a moral obligation to a functional errand, b) see what changes you actually want to make, and c) weave them into your life with minimal effort, relying not on self-loathing but on self-compassion.

Even a very real experience of religious faith was hijacked by my need to fill this hole. After becoming a missionary and attending seminary, I was quietly ashamed to discover that a majority of my motivation for doing so was again to become a person who was seen as good enough by those around me.

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.

I’ll say it again: you don’t exist to serve your space; your space exists to serve you. In this book,

As you embark on this journey I invite you to remember these words: “slow,” “quiet,” “gentle.” You are already worthy of love and belonging.

Executive functioning skills include focusing, planning, organizing, following directions, and more.

Lots of decisions are moral decisions, but cleaning your car regularly is not one of them.

If you are completing care tasks from a motivation of shame, you are probably also relaxing in shame too—because care tasks never end and you view rest as a reward for good boys and girls.

Care tasks are morally neutral. Being good or bad at them has nothing to do with being a good person, parent, man, woman, spouse, friend. Literally nothing. You are not a failure because you can’t keep up with laundry. Laundry is morally neutral.

Next time you are trying to talk yourself into doing a care task, what would it be like to replace the voice that says, “Ugh, I should really go clean my house right now because it’s a disaster,” with “It would be such a kindness to future me if I were to get up right now and do _______. That task will allow me to experience comfort, convenience, and pleasure later.”

No one ever shamed themselves into better mental health.

Someone who is affected by serious mental illness or systemic oppression has a lot more standing in the way of a happy life than a simple attitude adjustment.

Take a few minutes to speak some compassionate words to yourself and take a deep breath.

Although it looks like a lot, there are actually only five things in any room: (1) trash, (2) dishes, (3) laundry, (4) things that have a place and are not in their place, and (5) things that do not have a place.

The first step is to take a trash bag and pick up all the trash. Throw it away into the bag. Take large trash items like boxes and stack them together and place the ...

Next gather all of the dishes and place them in your sink or on your counter...

Take a laundry basket and pick up all the clothes and shoes. Place the laundry basket next to the trash pile.

Next pick a space in the room like a corner or a desk and put all the items there that have a place back in their place. Then put the items that have no place in a pile. Move to the next space and repeat until all things are back in their spots.

Now you will have a pile of things that do not have a place. It will be easier now that the space is clear to tackle this category. You may choose to get rid of some items that have no place and are contributing to clutter...

Take out your trash to the bin; throw laundry into the wash or laundry room. Now your space is livable. I always ...

The Five Things Tidying Method helps the brain know exactly what it is looking for, so instead of seeing a sea of clutter and being paralyzed, it can start to see individual items.

Lastly, completing a category gives you a little dopamine reward. No more spending hours trying to clean and seeing no progress. Our brains need to see progress or they get discouraged. Category cleaning gives your brain multiple, quick finish lines to feel good about.

There may be other complex and contextual reasons why your family or community gave you the messages they did about care tasks. You

Begin to notice how you speak to yourself on days when you feel you have fallen behind. You can set up the best systems in the world and they won’t change your life if you still hate yourself on days when you can’t keep up.

You do not need to be good at care tasks to learn how to develop a compassionate inner dialogue. You deserve kindness and love regardless of how good you are at care tasks.

is one thing to feel the pleasure of having a functional space

and quite another to feel the satisfaction of having met a moral standard

The good news is that you can simply choose to assign your chronic laundry pile a completely different meaning.

Let me tell you what the mess in my home means. It means I’m alive.

Scattered hobby supplies mean I am creative. Scattered toys and mess mean I am a fun mom. The stacked boxes in the hall mean I was thoughtful enough to order what we need. The clothes strewn on the floor mean I had a full day.

And occasionally mess means I’m struggling with depression or stress. But those aren’t moral failings either—and neither is that moldy coffe...

Chores → care tasks Chores are obligations. Care tasks are kindness to self. Cleaning → resetting the space Cleaning is endless. Resetting the space has a goal. It’s so messy in here! → this space has reached the end of its functional cycle It’s so messy in here feels like failure. This space has reached the end of its functional cycle is morally neutral. Good enough is good enough → good enough is perfect Good enough is good e...

your home is an inanimate object—it’s building materials and paint. It might need maintenance, but it doesn’t deserve to be cared for. You are a person. You deserve to be cared for. I want your home to care for you. How do we do that? By focusing on function.

care tasks have the basic function of keeping your body or space safe and healthy.

The icing on the cake, so to say, is things that increase your comfort.

The cherry on top is just things that m...

The health and safety aspects of care tasks are pretty universal, but the comfort and happiness layers are unique to each individual.

Try writing down your various care tasks and isolating the functional reason for doing each of them.

challenge yourself to find a functional reason to clean the floors.

with a functional rather than moral view, my brain may go, “Let’s sweep a path from the bedroom to the kitchen because I deserve to walk that path without tripping or getting dirt on my feet.”

A moral message I may have is “a good wife keeps her kitchen clean.” This will cause me to either stress out unless the whole kitchen is spotless or be so overwhelmed with the idea that I must clean the whole kitchen that I feel paralyzed and do nothing. Either way I am exhausted.

When I ask myself what makes my kitchen function for me I can begin to identify concrete needs such as having enough clean dishes for the day, enough clear counter space to prepare food safely, access to my sink and a stove burner, and an empty trash can.

can do a few things to feel like I have cared for my ne...

It does make sense on paper that putting something away right after you use it or cleaning up a mess right after you make it is the quickest way to maintain a tidy home. But the quickest way to do something may not be the most functional way for every person.