I second the recommendation of How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis for fellow neurodivergent folks! So many great ideas and mindset shifts. I also LOVE the Lazy Genius podcast and Kendra Adachi's book, the Lazy Genius Way. Not just cleaning focused, but she does have lots of episodes and parts of the book that apply to cleaning and keeping house.
I love following GoCleanCo’s method of rotating which rooms get a thorough clean each week which makes it much less overwhelming. We ended up outsourcing the deep cleaning last year though and love not having to do that part anymore. Podcasts and audio books are great for laundry and tidying up though!
That's a GREAT idea! We have cleaning people who come in every other week for big mops, dusting, etc. but I love the idea of rotating rooms each day for common areas.
I recently got a pair of bluetooth headphones and I love how it's improved my cleaning and meal prep experience! I've always listened to music, but having good headphones has made listening to podcasts so much easier. I have the noise cancelling on passive, so it blocks most, but I can still hear if my partner if he calls my name from the other room (I put the full block on when vacuuming).
I love The Recipe with Deb & Kenji for meal prep and Midnight Burger (time traveling diner story) when cleaning. Normal Gossip and She Explores (rip) are my gym podcasts.
One of my favorite things I got from organizing TikTok (it might have actually been from KC!) was to stop folding clothes that don’t matter if they’re wrinkly. Like my 8 year old son’s tees, which will end up with something spilled on them nearly every day, so wrinkles don’t matter. Or my workout clothes, because I don’t care if I go on a walk around the neighborhood with wrinkly joggers. Now, if it doesn’t need to get folded, it just goes in a basket in a cube shelf - I’ve saved myself 10-15 minutes per load of laundry by not folding, and it usually gets put away much quicker after coming out of the dryer.
YES. I do still roughly fold, but I no longer hang stuff that doesn't need to be hanged, and my tights are sometimes just tossed in the drawer because it's a workout and NOBODY CARES.
A surprising amount of my legitimate childhood trauma comes from being forced to clean and then being told it wasn’t done right and to do it again. The bathrooms, especially. I am very tidy (VERY) but I resist cleaning. Like hardcore resist. So, every few months I have a cleaning lady come in and clean the house.
I suppose I should address that in EMDR at some point.
Tangentially, I slipped in water on my bathroom floor last Thursday, pinned my left leg under me, bent my big toe all the way back and slammed my knee into the porcelain tile floor. Went to the podiatrist today and I’m in a boot for 6-8 weeks. He said the plantar fascii is likely not ruptured but could be torn. So, two weeks and we’ll see if I need an MRI. 🙄 At least I have a good reason/excuse for not cleaning for a bit. 😬
OH NO! 100% of this is a serious bummer, Kris, I'm so sorry. Fingers crossed for a good result on the MRI, and yes, if you can hire someone to come in and tidy, do that! XO
I love this! I like to save podcasts for cooking and cleaning and before I know it, I’ve done more than I may have anticipated (or had the motivation for!)
As a fellow New Englander, I appreciate your use of “wicked” (also as someone who has wicked ADHD myself hahaha)
I also love audiobooks and will add podcasts to the suggestions. Sometimes audiobooks feel like a commitment, but podcasts are short. I use and highly recommend the Jaybird Vista earbuds, which I think you recommended a while back, and which have dramatically changed my life for the better-I work out and take care of chores so much more now! I love that you can use one at a time so you can still be aware of your surroundings (so no one sneaks up on me, I can hear my kids if they need me, etc.) I also have very small ears and they have different sizes of rubbery things to fit your ears.
I used to be super overwhelmed with clutter and cleaning tasks. I highly recommend Dana K. White of A Slob Comes Clean. I have been reading cleaning and decluttering books for most of my adult life, and her suggestions are the only ones that have truly made a difference for me. Some of them sound wild or counterproductive, but everything I’ve tried from her has worked really well. I still have clutter and sometimes struggle with cleaning tasks, but I feel like I will get through them now, when before I felt hopeless. My house is better than it ever has been, even with two small kids.
Thank you for the book suggestion! I'm always on the lookout for resources that can add to my already extensive list of suggestions from books, podcasts, and cleaning/organizing TikTok.
When I get restless, you’ll find me moving decor around the house or decluttering. When I’m outside, I love the sounds of nature, so I don’t listen to music or anything. Plus I want to be aware of my surroundings as we live in a bit of a sketchy area. I don’t want to be lost in an audiobook while someone sneaks up from behind me.
I LOVED Wrong Place, Wrong Time. I just finished The Upstairs Wife and it was pretty good! Any of the Will Trent/Karin Slaughter books are good too, but you have to read in order.
Totally agree about the audiobooks! I HAVE to be doing something and I love that wanting to listen motivates me to go for a walk or fold some laundry (now if I could just get myself to put it away...) I also take a moment to appreciate my past self-- like when I wake up to a clean kitchen! Doesn't happen every day so I make sure to pause and feel how nice it is.
I second the recommendation of How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis for fellow neurodivergent folks! So many great ideas and mindset shifts. I also LOVE the Lazy Genius podcast and Kendra Adachi's book, the Lazy Genius Way. Not just cleaning focused, but she does have lots of episodes and parts of the book that apply to cleaning and keeping house.
I listened to How to Keep House, and even as a neurotypical, I found a lot of great strategies in there!
I just put HTKHWD on hold at the library. Have you read The Art of Swedish Death Cleaning? That’s also on my tbr.
I love following GoCleanCo’s method of rotating which rooms get a thorough clean each week which makes it much less overwhelming. We ended up outsourcing the deep cleaning last year though and love not having to do that part anymore. Podcasts and audio books are great for laundry and tidying up though!
That's a GREAT idea! We have cleaning people who come in every other week for big mops, dusting, etc. but I love the idea of rotating rooms each day for common areas.
I recently got a pair of bluetooth headphones and I love how it's improved my cleaning and meal prep experience! I've always listened to music, but having good headphones has made listening to podcasts so much easier. I have the noise cancelling on passive, so it blocks most, but I can still hear if my partner if he calls my name from the other room (I put the full block on when vacuuming).
I love The Recipe with Deb & Kenji for meal prep and Midnight Burger (time traveling diner story) when cleaning. Normal Gossip and She Explores (rip) are my gym podcasts.
One of my favorite things I got from organizing TikTok (it might have actually been from KC!) was to stop folding clothes that don’t matter if they’re wrinkly. Like my 8 year old son’s tees, which will end up with something spilled on them nearly every day, so wrinkles don’t matter. Or my workout clothes, because I don’t care if I go on a walk around the neighborhood with wrinkly joggers. Now, if it doesn’t need to get folded, it just goes in a basket in a cube shelf - I’ve saved myself 10-15 minutes per load of laundry by not folding, and it usually gets put away much quicker after coming out of the dryer.
YES. I do still roughly fold, but I no longer hang stuff that doesn't need to be hanged, and my tights are sometimes just tossed in the drawer because it's a workout and NOBODY CARES.
A surprising amount of my legitimate childhood trauma comes from being forced to clean and then being told it wasn’t done right and to do it again. The bathrooms, especially. I am very tidy (VERY) but I resist cleaning. Like hardcore resist. So, every few months I have a cleaning lady come in and clean the house.
I suppose I should address that in EMDR at some point.
Tangentially, I slipped in water on my bathroom floor last Thursday, pinned my left leg under me, bent my big toe all the way back and slammed my knee into the porcelain tile floor. Went to the podiatrist today and I’m in a boot for 6-8 weeks. He said the plantar fascii is likely not ruptured but could be torn. So, two weeks and we’ll see if I need an MRI. 🙄 At least I have a good reason/excuse for not cleaning for a bit. 😬
OH NO! 100% of this is a serious bummer, Kris, I'm so sorry. Fingers crossed for a good result on the MRI, and yes, if you can hire someone to come in and tidy, do that! XO
She’s coming next Tuesday. Yay!
I love this! I like to save podcasts for cooking and cleaning and before I know it, I’ve done more than I may have anticipated (or had the motivation for!)
I totally agree!
As a fellow New Englander, I appreciate your use of “wicked” (also as someone who has wicked ADHD myself hahaha)
I also love audiobooks and will add podcasts to the suggestions. Sometimes audiobooks feel like a commitment, but podcasts are short. I use and highly recommend the Jaybird Vista earbuds, which I think you recommended a while back, and which have dramatically changed my life for the better-I work out and take care of chores so much more now! I love that you can use one at a time so you can still be aware of your surroundings (so no one sneaks up on me, I can hear my kids if they need me, etc.) I also have very small ears and they have different sizes of rubbery things to fit your ears.
I used to be super overwhelmed with clutter and cleaning tasks. I highly recommend Dana K. White of A Slob Comes Clean. I have been reading cleaning and decluttering books for most of my adult life, and her suggestions are the only ones that have truly made a difference for me. Some of them sound wild or counterproductive, but everything I’ve tried from her has worked really well. I still have clutter and sometimes struggle with cleaning tasks, but I feel like I will get through them now, when before I felt hopeless. My house is better than it ever has been, even with two small kids.
Thank you for the book suggestion! I'm always on the lookout for resources that can add to my already extensive list of suggestions from books, podcasts, and cleaning/organizing TikTok.
When I get restless, you’ll find me moving decor around the house or decluttering. When I’m outside, I love the sounds of nature, so I don’t listen to music or anything. Plus I want to be aware of my surroundings as we live in a bit of a sketchy area. I don’t want to be lost in an audiobook while someone sneaks up from behind me.
FAIR. I bring my bluetooth speaker into the backyard as I do stuff, but it's totally fenced in, so I feel safe doing that.
I love this, and do the exact same! I’d love some thrilled suggestions… not something over explored and would love that for my cleaning tasks!
I LOVED Wrong Place, Wrong Time. I just finished The Upstairs Wife and it was pretty good! Any of the Will Trent/Karin Slaughter books are good too, but you have to read in order.
Totally agree about the audiobooks! I HAVE to be doing something and I love that wanting to listen motivates me to go for a walk or fold some laundry (now if I could just get myself to put it away...) I also take a moment to appreciate my past self-- like when I wake up to a clean kitchen! Doesn't happen every day so I make sure to pause and feel how nice it is.
I think that is such a smart and nice thing to do! A gift to Future You, and gratitude for Past You for thinking ahead.
Audiobooks have been a game changer! The way I look forward to folding the laundry!
SAME! To think I'd been sleeping on these for so long!