If you're lacking the know-how or motivation to tackle your home, this cleaning book is a must-read
How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind by Dana K. White is a book I cannot recommend enough! It's ideal for those of us who daily feel overwhelmed by the huge task of maintaining a home and family and don’t even know where to begin! It is so down-to-earth, real, practical with a very healthy dose of humour.
I love that the author starts (and mostly stays) on little tasks and habits which make all the difference and keep you sane. The kitchen is an all-important topic throughout the book and real life. It’s the one place where if we let things go for a single day, they just pile up and up. We eat three times a day, five if you’re my kids, and can’t escape the reality of needing to work at keeping it functional.
Through the book I've come to appreciate the notion of basic, non-negotiable tasks in maintaining a home. As a result, the dishes now actually get done every night. The dishwasher is regularly run. Laundry is washed and put away (on the same day!) once a week. I admittedly didn’t think these habits would stick at all, but I’m utterly surprised to say I’ve been doing them for a good 8 months now! I think the main reasons are a change of perspective and having now experienced the benefits of being proactive with housekeeping. Even if it means going to bed 10 minutes later, I’d rather wake up to an empty countertop and start the day without yesterday’s tasks looming over my head.
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| Things I don't hate anymore. |
Real-life tips
Here is a summary of what personally helped me in the book:
- It’s OK to look around your house and admit you’re a slob! Recognising the problem is the start of the solution.
- I need to go over this one more time for my own sake: the kitchen is key! It’s the place where all the tasty food comes from (on a successful day), gets consumed and where plates pile up no end. Get into the habit of keeping the kitchen under control and your house will instantly feel more manageable practically, visually and emotionally.For me, the decisive moment happened one evening when I spent almost an hour washing up every dish that was in the washing up queue. The following day I resolved to wash up or put things straight into the dishwasher after every meal. As cheesy as it sounds, I haven’t looked back since. It is so much more pleasant to prepare meals in a tidy kitchen. Of course, there are days that are trickier than others, but each night every last dish gets washed up.
- Habits start one at a time and need discipline and repetition. Change doesn’t come overnight. But, change is still attainable, one tiny habit at a time. Similarly, maintaining a home is not a one-off project. It’ll never end, but it will get easier if I let fewer things pile up every day. Referring to tackling a problem area in your house that causes you the most stress, e.g. books that never get put away, Dana writes, “Solve your chosen problem today. Then, and this is the key, solve it again tomorrow, before it’s a problem again.”
- Start introducing regular cleaning habits and you’ll be utterly surprised at how your family will follow. My husband now helps make sure everything is washed up by the end of the day and my one- and three-year-olds bring their plates to the dishwasher after they’ve eaten. The little ones need a bit of coaxing, but they know the drill!
- Have a set laundry day each week; or a set time every day, if that works for you. The chapter on laundry was such an eye-opener for me. Perhaps these things are obvious to most people, but I needed to have the laundry routine spelt out for me! Now I have a single, full day of laundry loads, timed around the hours I work outside the house and everyone has clean clothes for the week. No more panicking that my preschooler will have to wear that dreaded top with two holes and a paint stain that shouts neglectful mother. You know the one.
- Decluttering is very much linked to daily and weekly habits. If you keep up with routines, you’ll know how many things you regularly use and what to get rid of.
Cleaning book links
I had never read a cleaning book as bedtime reading before. I was convinced I’d get stressed out of my mind and not be able to sleep, but instead I was thoroughly entertained and relieved to find that so many other women have the same struggles and confusion I have with housework. There is a wealth of sensible and attainable advice in there. If you constantly feel overwhelmed by the state of your house, go ahead and read it for yourself!
In addition to How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind, I also recently bought Dana K. White’s book Decluttering at the Speed of Life and am looking forward to more, practical nuggets of wisdom. You can purchase both on Amazon UK and Amazon USA. I haven’t been asked or paid to endorse these, by the way! I’ve just found them to be genuinely useful.
Lastly, here’s an interview podcast of the author’s that I'd listened to before buying How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind. It gives a good preview of the kind of real-life advice that’s in her books.