How to Keep House While Drowning

A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing

By: KC Davis LPC LPC

Narrated by: KC Davis LPC LPC, Dr. Raquel Martin

An NPR Best Book of the Year | USA TODAY Bestseller

This revolutionary approach to cleaning and organizing helps free you from feeling ashamed or overwhelmed by a messy home.

If you’re struggling to stay on top of your to-do list, you probably have a good reason: anxiety, fatigue, depression, ADHD, or lack of support. For therapist KC Davis, the birth of her second child triggered a stress-mess cycle. The more behind she felt, the less motivated she was to start. She didn’t fold a single piece of laundry for seven months. One life-changing realization restored her sanity—and the functionality of her home: You don’t work for your home; your home works for you.

In other words, messiness is not a moral failing. A new sense of calm washed over her as she let go of the shame-based messaging that interpreted a pile of dirty laundry as “I can never keep up” and a chaotic kitchen as “I’m a bad mother.” Instead, she looked at unwashed clothes and thought, “I am alive,” and at stacks of dishes and thought, “I cooked my family dinner three nights in a row.”

Building on this foundation of self-compassion, KC devised the powerful practical approach that has exploded in popularity through her TikTok account, @domesticblisters. The secret is to simplify your to-do list and to find creative workarounds that accommodate your limited time and energy. In this book, you’ll learn exactly how to customize your cleaning strategy and rebuild your relationship with your home, including:

-How to see chores as kindnesses to your future self, not as a reflection of your worth
-How to start by setting priorities
-How to stagger tasks so you won’t procrastinate
-How to clean in quick bursts within your existing daily routine
-How to use creative shortcuts to transform a room from messy to functional

With KC’s help, your home will feel like a sanctuary again. It will become a place to rest, even when things aren’t finished. You will move with ease, and peace and calm will edge out guilt, self-criticism, and endless checklists. They have no place here.

Critic reviews

"With compassion, hard-earned insights, and touches of humor, therapist KC Davis offers relief to the overwhelmed. Her voice is warm and understanding; whether listeners are struggling with the pandemic’s aftermath or depression, Davis offers supportive ways to care for the home — and the self. With exhausted listeners in mind, Davis keeps chapters short and maintains a pace that can be readily absorbed. As she provides shortcuts and helpful recaps of main points, Davis throws a lifeline to listeners who are drowning in piles of dishes or laundry. Having been there herself while experiencing postpartum depression with a toddler, she offers advice that rings with the conviction of lived experience and is packed with creative work-arounds that will help listeners to challenge negative self-talk."

lifechanging

i thought this was going to be another organizational book about how to stay organized when you are busy. But something about it made me buy it anyway.

this book is so much more than i thought it would be. i cried a number of times because I felt like KC was talking only to me. this book is about being kind to yourself, about divorcing self worth from how messy your space is, about aknowledging that a person is still worthy of love and respect even if their home is a mess, even if they struggle with executive function because of neurodivergence, even if they are too depressed to wash the dishes, even if they have trauma and ptsd and other barriers to care tasks that means some tasks go undone.

this book gave me permission to stop serving my space and instead let it serve me. and if that means i dont vaccume every week or fold all the clothes, thats ok.

i am going to have to listen to it again because i lost some of the practical tips in the midst of all the emotional epiphanies.

This is a must have for all overwhelmed individuals not just moms!

I LOVED every second of this audible book! I have been generally overwhelmed for such a long time and I never felt seen like this! KC really knocked it out if the park! I feel much much better about myself now and I have a lot of tools and ideas to get me through this! Thank you so much!

OCD & ADHD and this book helped me

This book is a must listen. My only regret is not listening to it sooner! Also definitely follow the author on Instagram :)

wish i had this in my teen years

While I find myself in a place where I already do many of the things detailed in this book, KC Davis brings up some emotionally intelligent ways of thinking and useful strategies that I wish I had been taught rather than learned the hard way. There were many moments in which she would address harmful sentiments towards the self that I hadn’t realized I was doing. As a neurodivergent person, the format and length of this book was perfect in keeping me engaged.

Phenomenal

This book is mind blowing for anyone struggling with domestic care tasks, especially this of us who are Neurodivergent. Thank you for helping us learn to be kind to ourselves while finding the rhythm, rituals and patterns that work for our lives.

Life. Changing.

A concise guide to taking the shame and guilt out of running your home.

Just what I needed

I am blown away by how helpful this book has been for me. I listened front to back in a day and it was very easy on the ears and great feeling in it. I highly recommend for any person that wants to optimize their home environment and systems to make life easier and better.

Brilliant!!!

This book is BRILLIANT and most definitely just changed my life. Thank you for sharing this with the world!

Fantastic

This book was both validating for my struggles and helpful for my needs. I will absolutely be listening to this again.

Gentle, life changing behaviors

A simple thank you to Kc Davis. Life changing revelations on simple daily tasks so we can carry on and actually enjoy life and not dread it