How to Keep House While Drowning

For me, the biggest takeaway from this book is the idea that households (partners) should focus more on splitting REST more equally, and let the chips (work) fall where it may. Most times, we are obsessed with making sure that we are doing equal amounts of work, and that leaves one or more people chronically tired and constantly falling further behind, becoming more irritated, and resentful. The shift to prioritizing rest, and then tackling the tasks that are most important to making our lives easier and more functional will lead to improved mindsets. I also appreciated the author's specific outlining of what counts as rest or freedom from responsibility, and what does not. Time to yourself is not necessarily rest if you are “on call”.

Another thing this book did a good job of was stating that it is okay to not do it all. Many other books in this realm try to solve the problem of not doing it all (i.e. it's okay that you don't do it all, because now you have my book; here's how to do it all), but I found this book stopped after saying it is okay. There is a very basic guide for how to improve the situation (gather trash, gather dishes, gather laundry, gather misplaced items, action the four previous steps), but the author acknowledges you may still have a mess on your hands after; and, she reiterates that it's okay.

The focus on mental health, no matter the physical state of your environment, is usually absent or a footnote in other books; it was nice to see the spotlight on it, here.

Había leído una reseña anterior y, estoy de acuerdo con una oración de esta; es un libro más teórico que práctico. Sí es verdad que te da ciertos consejos, pero lo que más te llevas de esta lectura es que la limpieza es un acto de amabilidad hacia ti mismo, no uno moral.
Como alguien que creció con una madre que es un tanto obsesiva con la limpieza, este libro se sintio como algo fresco. En mi opinión fue una agradable lectura, que recomiendaria demasiado, pero depende un tanto de tu preferencia con respecto a los libros de auto ayuda. Como dije esta es una lectura más teorica, y no te da demasiados consejos implícitos. De todas maneras el enfoque que le dio K.C fue perfecto para mi.

"Remember that anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed"

This is short and so sweet. I am a perfectionist that can be self-critical when things don't meet my standards, and this book is like a hug. It focuses on cleaning, organizing, and self-care for people with depression, ADHD, autism, and those generally struggling with executive functioning. She also discusses race, class, and gender when talking about the culture of cleanliness.

I related to K.C. on a few things, like needing to put a timer on for laundry or I will inevitably forget about it (although recently I still forgot my clothes in the drier for over an hour after the timer went off because I got distracted), throwing clothes in bins without folding them, being messy but organized, and the not-quite-clean-not-quite-dirty laundry pile chair (f it works, it works!). I couldn't relate to some other aspects of the book, like having to clean up big messes made by two kids everyday, or not being able to keep up with personal hygiene habits (and therefore didn't find value in her advice in those sections), but that's ok. Even if you can't relate to all the struggles in this book, it will allow you to become more empathetic to those who do, and that's so valuable.

I only wish there was more practical advice to those of us that have the capability to execute them. I think that would expand the target audience and allow more people to walk away from the experience with more than just kind words.

Loved it. It really is a gentle approach to cleaning and organising. This is the best self help book i've read. It's short and it has a lot of actionable steps. it really focuses on you doing what is best for you to make your space functional. There are no hard set rules to cleaning and organising there is no shame or morality tied to doing chores. You do not live to serve your home, your home is there to serve you.

This book was just O.K.

I think that there are some good tidbits within here that can help people to clean and organize in a new way. However, with that said, this book goes out of its way to be “accessible”. I understand that this is in line with the premise of a “gentle approach”, it makes it hard to stay interested in the book, especially as an audiobook.

I also think this book is laid out somewhat weirdly. I feel like the 1st part could have been the entire book, because there's a point in which she just goes back more in depth into the specific rooms she has. While this can be useful, a lot of those later chapters include fluff that was already covered in the first part of the book, where she talks over cleaning as a whole. This was why it took me a while to read this book, it was hard for me to turn on just to listen to the same thing again and again as I got closer to the end.

If you're struggling with cleaning because you get overwhelmed, I think this book is great. But I am unsure if you need to read the entire book to get what you need to out of it.

How to Keep House While Drowning

Overall Rating: ⭐ ⭐ (2/5) or 4.42/10 overall

Credibility/Research - 6

Authenticity/Uniqueness - 4

Writing - 5

Personal Impact - 4

Intrigue - 4

Logic/Informativeness - 5

Enjoyment - 3

Overall Thoughts:

This book wasn't helpful to me. Nothing stuck out as deeply original, informative, or unique. I felt like I got nothing out of it, and that's a crappy feeling to have after finishing a non-fiction self-help book. I can't say I really took away anything from this book, nor did I have any epiphany like "oh, so I can use that technique to improve such and such task!" I wish I could say I even got one new idea to test with my care task routines from this book, but no. :/

Book 1/n of my self-help book clean up; Self help books are everywhere, and every so often I see one and can't help but think: “Maybe there's actually some good advice in there?” So I'll try to get through as many as quickly as I can.

Review:

Thankfully, I don't have nearly as many barriers to functioning as some others among the target audience of this book. So, much of the advice geared towards compassionate self-talk wasn't super relevant for me specifically. But I'm still a sucker for a good, practical and honest housekeeping tip that acknowledges your limitations and instead of fighting them accepts them and basically turns that into a judo move for dealing with your chores–and there are some good ones like that in here!

So for me, specifically, it was a 3/5 read. But for everyone struggling with keeping house from an emotional standpoint, I think this is a 5/5 starting point for decreasing that load. So 4/5 overall.