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

Davis discusses the cyclical nature of care tasks and reassures readers that having dirty laundry or a messy house is not a failure. She emphasizes that the goal is to ensure clean clothes are available when needed, not to avoid dirty laundry entirely. Davis explains that cleanliness isn't an absolute state, and it's unrealistic to expect all areas of a home to be tidy simultaneously.

She highlights the importance of maintaining functionality rather than striving for constant perfection, noting that different parts of the house can be clean at different times. Addressing the common frustration of repeated messes, Davis argues that the point of cleaning is to keep spaces functional. By regularly resetting areas to maintain order, rather than viewing messiness as inherently bad, one can create a more manageable and less stressful home environment.

Davis refers to times when the demands of work, relationships, activism, hobbies, and parenting exceed available time and energy. To help prioritize tasks effectively, she introduces the “9 square” tool. This tool involves listing self-care tasks and categorizing them based on their impact on mental health (high, medium, low) and the effort they require (low, medium, high). By placing these tasks in a 3x3 grid, individuals can visually determine which tasks to focus on and which to de-prioritize without guilt.