how to keep house while drowning

I read a book on cleaning that left me impressed. I was impressed because the author was able to share how to approach cleaning in such a gentle way. A lot of authors talk about self acceptance, but few nail the voice.

The author has been through the wringer - at one point, she had 3 kids, postpartum, and ADHD. She learned the skill of kindness through all that.

The book isn't really about cleaning. On closer examination, you see it's about life. Any part of life that you could take a gentler approach to.

The first main point the author shares is that not doing your chores (or care tasks, as she calls them) is not a moral failing. Like, you're not less of a person, less worthy, or less loved if you don't make your bed, or do the dishes. It's important to remember that. In a similar vein, I know sometimes not performing at work can feel like a moral failing, to me.

After you realize this, then you can see that everything is not a moral failing, but instead a behavior change problem.

I love how that works with the next point, which is also the main point of Atomic Habits - if you aren't able to stick to a habit or get a task done, make the habit smaller. The author of this cleaning book gives a great example. She tried making the task smaller for exercise. In the end, the task was 5 minutes on her bike. She couldn't even do that though and felt like giving up. But eventually she made the task 3 minutes and was able to stick to it. We have all tasks that are really hard for us personally. I feel this way with cooking where making it a regular habit has felt so impossible. But this author made me think, wow, even our most challenging habits for a person can be overcome if we scope down the habit enough.

She also brought up in a chapter how people have different individual capacities. Writing might come really easily to this author, but to the author's friend cleaning comes easy. I might find socializing easy, where someone else finds exercise easy. We all have our gifts and weaknesses. We have certain upbringings and patterns and proclivities. We gotta make space for all that. Again, I think about work - people come at product management from different backgrounds and everyone's got different strengths and weaknesses, are on a different journey etc. Separately, I believe everyone has something to add to the social ecosystem - whether you're thoughtful or spontaneous, a napper or a yapper, etc

The author also brought up a great prioritization visual from Nora Roberts:

The key to juggling is to know that some of the balls you have in the air are made of plastic and some are made of glass. And if you drop a plastic ball, it bounces, no harm done. If you drop a glass ball, it shatters, so you have to know which balls are glass and which are plastic and prioritize catching the glass ones.

-Nora Roberts

I thought this was a redundant point, like prioritize, duh. But the visual of glass balls and plastic balls is so concrete to me, in a way that P0, P1, P2 is not. So it's been helpful. In another part of the book, she shares how kids with ADHD can be time blind and visual timers help. Maybe I'm priority blind and glass balls/plastic balls help?

Related to prioritization, she brought up how care tasks have 3 tiers - some are for health/safety, some are for comfort, some are for cherry on top/happiness. Of course, the health/safety ones are the most mandatory! But the others might be more negotiable.

Ultimately the home is there to serve you, not to sit pretty. Focus on function~

Another point - do things for future you. Really the point of a lot of these care tasks is to be good to your future self. That's who you're doing it for. So appreciate and notice that. I ate my meal prep today and gave thanks to my past self. I did dishes today not for my today self but for my future self. Pay it forward.

Anyway, lots of kindness. Check out this book!