How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organising

by K.C. Davis

Although men may struggle with completing care tasks, they are less likely to receive the message from society that they are not worthy of love or not valid as a human if they are not good at these tasks.

The goal should not be to make the work equal but to ensure that the rest is fair.

But the moral issue is not that that partner is not contributing enough—it’s that they feel more entitled to rest than their partner and are exploiting their partner’s labor to get it.

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.

Tear this out and hang it in your home: “This is a safe home and I am safe in it.”

If you have a particularly rude or pushy person in your life, you can use my favorite boundary phrase, which is “thank you for your concern, but I am not taking any feedback on this issue right now.”

“The key for me being able to begin to run a functioning home was when I stopped talking to myself the way you are talking to me right now.”

This lets me block out everything else and gives me a way forward so my brain can go on autopilot. By virtually eliminating the decision-making of where to start or what to do next I can move from task to task with virtually no time in between. The momentum it creates circumvents a lot of executive functioning issues I experience.

If a system never becomes easy or automatic for you, then it just means either the system isn’t the right one for you

motivation builds motivation.

The schedule isn’t for telling me what I must do or reminding me about what I haven’t done. The way it serves me each day is by taking the burden of decision-making away.

the reality is there is no finish line.

You can enjoy your day and then spend two hours bringing things into functional order so you can enjoy your upcoming week as well.

you do not exist to serve your space, your space exists to serve you.