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You don’t exist to serve your space; 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.
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.
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.
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.”
Sometimes you may not get up even with the change in self-talk. But you know what? You weren’t getting up when you were being mean to yourself either, so at least you can be nice to yourself. No one ever shamed themselves into better mental health.
In addiction recovery, as in most of life, success depends not on having strong willpower, but in developing mental and emotional tools to help you experience the world differently.
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 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.
remember that because care tasks are morally neutral, mess has no inherent meaning.
The good news is that you can simply choose to assign your chronic laundry pile a completely different meaning.
Instead of… Try saying: 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 enough sounds like settling for less. Good enough is perfect means having boundaries and reasonable expectations.
You can break down care tasks into three layers. At their foundation, care tasks have the basic function of keeping your body or space safe and healthy. This is represented by the bottom layer of the cupcake. The icing on the cake, so to say, is things that increase your comfort. The cherry on top is just things that make you happy. When we understand what really matters to us in terms of safety, comfort, and happiness, we can begin to let go of others’ judgments of how our spaces must look.
challenge yourself to find a functional reason to clean the floors.
For a lot of people, finding a method that bypasses the most executive functioning barriers or that makes a task a little less intolerable is better than what’s “quickest.” In the end, the approach that you are motivated to do and enjoy doing is the most “efficient,” because you are actually doing it and not avoiding it.
The Compassionate Observer is a concept created by Kristin Neff, PhD. She has this and more exercises for cultivating self-compassion at https://self-compassion.org/.
Organization means having a place for everything in your home and having a system for getting it there.
We know that “neurons that fire together wire together” and that your brain can associate feelings with experiences. If you dance every day to the same happy song with your baby, or your pet, or a friend on FaceTime and after a week play that song while folding laundry or doing dishes, your brain will associate happiness with that song and will provide a little pleasure reward.
Instead of bullying yourself into finishing a task, instead try giving yourself permission to start a task. Let yourself get a little done. Say, “I am going to do one dish.” Often you’ll find that motivation kicks in after you have already started.
If you tend to avoid care tasks because they are boring, choose something you can enjoy during the task: a Netflix show, a podcast, an audiobook, et cetera. Don’t just limit yourself to home care tasks either.
Ask a friend to spend time with you while you do care tasks. You can even call them on the phone.
Not everything has to be clean at the same time.
One tool that can be very helpful when deciding how to prioritize and de-prioritize items is the 9 square. Pick an area of your life. School, activism, parenting, et cetera. For our example, we will use self-care. Write a list of things you think are important for your self-care. First, think of the self-care items that have the highest impact on your mental health.
But this way of thinking of priorities allows you to do the most good with the least amount of energy.
Laundry does not have to be done the way you have always been taught to do it. Here are some other questions you can ask yourself to find what works for you.
However, we can fake a closet downsize and still get all of the benefits without having to deal with the intense decision-making process real downsizing requires.
The truth is that it’s not waste if you are using something to function.
You do not need to have children for your struggles with care tasks to be valid.
Hygiene Kit: Baby wipes Dry shampoo or oil Hairbrush Toothbrush and toothpaste (or disposable wisps) Mouthwash Face lotion Deodorant Essential oil or misting spray that smells good Washcloth
You do not have to wait to care about your body to care for your body. In fact, caring for your body can often cause you to start liking it more.
So while doing a pile of laundry may feel like an accomplishment, it is valid to launder three pairs of underwear as a form of self-care. You have full permission to do a little, do it with shortcuts, and do the bare minimum. Perfectionism is debilitating. I want you to embrace adaptive imperfection. We aren’t settling for less; we are engaging in adaptive routines that help us live and function and thrive. Good enough is perfect.
You do not have to earn the right to rest, connect, or recreate. Unlearn the idea that care tasks must be totally complete before you can sit down. Care tasks are a never-ending list, and if you wait until everything is done to rest, you will never rest.
I find that the balance between rest and work seems to work itself out pretty naturally when you practice self-kindness.
The goal should not be to make the work equal but to ensure that the rest is fair.
Rest is fun. It’s a time when you engage in a recreational activity of your choosing. It can be relaxing like watching television or painting (or taking a nap!) or it can be active like hiking or shopping. Rest is not doing care tasks alone.
Rest is recharging. What you find recharging is unique to you and there are lots of different types of rest.
Rest includes time autonomy. Care tasks should be divided in such a way that there is time for everyone to rest and keep the home functioning.
Rest isn’t being on call. This means that getting to watch a TV show on a Saturday while your kids play in the living room and come in to ask you for snacks and to referee fights every ten minutes is not rest.
Rest includes responsibilities. It is your partner’s responsibility to protect your rest time but your responsibility to actually rest.
What does help is to just let yourself move as slowly as you need to. No timers. No agenda. You may not get it all done. But you get more done than you would’ve if you hadn’t done anything.
Summary: Contribution and productivity are not moral values—but nonexploitation and humility are. When someone demands the benefits of being a part of a family but refuses responsibilities to that family of which they are capable, it’s a form of entitlement that exploits the other members of that family. However, having a limited capacity is not the same as being entitled and accepting help is not the same as exploiting others.
This list is here to serve me; I do not serve this list.
2. Missing days is morally neutral. I can miss days or decide to do something different anytime I want or need to. Confession: I have never once followed through on the dusting day on my schedule.
3. I do not have to complete the whole task. I
you deserve to eat.
You can enjoy your day and then spend two hours bringing things into functional order so you can enjoy your upcoming week as well. That is the life-changing result of internalizing that you do not exist to serve your space, your space exists to serve you.
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.
Floors 1. Health and Safety: I need to remove tripping hazards and prevent bugs, mold, and bacteria from spreading or growing. 2. Comfort: I want room for kids to play; I don’t like bits of dirt sticking to my feet when I am barefoot. 3. Happiness: I like the way the room looks when the floors are clean and mopped. Feels peaceful.
