How to Keep House While Drowning

A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing

By: KC Davis LPC

Narrated by: KC Davis LPC, Dr. Raquel Martin

Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

An NPR Best Book of 2022
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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 by KC Davis, 2022 by Katherine Davis. All rights reserved (P)2022 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Pleasantly surprised

I have read/listenef to what feels like a gazillion self-help books. There are very few that hit home with me but this one does. I first got the audiobook and enjoyed it so much, I am getting the book version as well. I have already implemented some of her ideas into my daily life and I am so much happier than I was before I started listening to it. My house however still messy, is much more manageable and I can actually find things now faster when I want them. She also took away most of that negative, ‘I am just broken’, belief. I’m sure my family has heard it before, “this book is good and I feel like it’s going to help me change”. So I told them again but it was different for me this time. I feel like I’m making changes and it’s not as hard so I’m hoping they will stick.
Now time to listen to it again!

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.

[ADD, anxiety, depression] So glad I found this.

As someone fighting to crawl out of a 4-year wallow of anxiety and depression related to my ADD, I am struggling with feeling overwhelming guilt and self-disgust at not being the income-earner I had been up until I couldn't handle the thought of going to my professional job in the mornings and quit with no back-up plan.
I was struggling with immense guilt over the past 2 years I've spent trying to piece myself back together while only being able to fulfill my "emotionally available" mom duties, and having very little extra energy to help my partner to keep up with the house.
I needed to hear what KC had to say in this book.
If you're feeling like a real piece of crap because you feel like you're not doing enough in your life roles, and you actually want to mathematically improve the realistic chances that you'll stumble into the occasional illusive wave of productivity, you probably will get a ton from this book.

really insightful

I found this very insightful. It really helped me view my mess as something I needed to work on to feel better and less of a personal failure. My mom died right at the beginning of covid just before I started a two year nursing school journey. I just graduated with honors but I found that both my grief and stress had caused both my self care activities and my living environment to spiral out of control. I had two years worth of clutter and poor health habits to fix and intense guilt at how I had failed myself and my family. The narrator/author had a very soothing voice as well as some great insights into organization and motivation for a person who may suffer from depression, adhd, post traumatic stress or some other difficulty.

I follow domestic blisters on tt

So, I follow KC on tt and really fell in love with her gentle way of caring. I saw that she wrote a book and struggled with buying it cuz it’s not very long and I try to use my credits for long expansive books so my $ goes further (e.g. read time vs. cost/credit). I bought it and Buddy, was it worth it! I struggle with everything she’s talking about. And have over the past few years tried to learn to be gentle with myself in the way KC it talking about. So….. it’s been a long road and I haven’t gotten very far (kinda) I have become more gentle with my self talk but have struggled with my executive function and task initiation. She really gives very good lil pointers to help. Today I decided to listen to her book and work on my front hall which was full of boxes and basically unlivable and unusable. I treated myself gently and took breaks and listened as I worked through the area making it functional. It’s still not perfect but it is perfectly functional and I’m proud of it and myself. Next the front room. I will be just as gentle and careful and give myself permission to stop at anytime. It’s morally neutral. Thank you KC (aka domestic blisters) you are helping me be the kind supportive unconditionally loving parent to myself that I needed. It’s never too late. It’s been weirdly emotional and that ok.

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!

meh

if you really struggle with keeping your house clean then this is for you. if you keep a semi clean house but we're looking for tips.... not for you.

This book was a game changer!

Due to degenerative health problems I'd been challenged with care tasks, house cleaning, and lived with the depressing negative self talk. Since listing to the book, I've reframed how I see myself and my living space for the better.

excellent

just what this world needs. thank you.

imagine exactly what you hope this book will be. it's exactly that but better.

Compassionate perspective and full of helpful tips

This was the first book I’ve read on this subject that did not make me feel guilty for my struggles with care tasks. I feel optimistic about trying some of the ideas that the author offers.