It's Not Your Fault

We don't want to write a manifesto, but that would probably make sense given how much people blame themselves for things they didn't cause. (Spoiler alert: it turned into a manifesto)

What if the mess isn't really the problem?

If you came here for help with cleaning, it may seem obvious that cleaning is the thing you need help tackling. But years of helping people with cleaning have changed our perspective. It's likely your main problem isn't your stuff, it's your guilt, expectations, and/or internalized ableism.

If you're here because you've been injured by collapsing piles of stuff, or you can't find anything you need and it's ruining your life, the mess might be the main problem. But if you find yourself thinking things like, "If anyone saw my house, they'd think I was so lazy and awful," or "Why can't I just get my act together like a normal person?!" that's a different situation. It's not that you don't need to clean, it's that you're not going to make much progress if you don't stop accidentally making it much harder for yourself.

Imagine cleaning your house takes 5 motivation points. A hypothetical well-adjusted tidy person might have about 10 motivation points most of the time, with occasional low days. Staying on top of regular cleaning isn't going to be too hard unless something goes awry. Someone with ADHD might average 0-3 points most of the time, with occasional spikes to 35. Their housekeeping will be more erratic, which makes it more complex and difficult work, so their house is usually messy. But every so often they go on a huge spree of cleaning ALL the things, so things don't get too far out of hand.

But what if that person stops having high-motivation days because of depression or burnout, or they need to put all their energy into work or dealing with a crisis? Things get worse, they start to accumulate layers of clutter, which makes things harder to find. They can't deal with sorting things out, so they buy new things to replace the lost things, and the clutter builds. They start to feel bad about their surroundings, possibly experience sensory overwhelm, and guilt and shame start to creep in.

One of the biggest revelations of our years of cleaning for others is that shame and self-blame can take you into negative motivation. Now, instead of needing to rally together two more points, or even five, you might need 37. And your cleaning job is much harder than the tidy person's, and you're less practiced so it's harder still. The truth is that we're very, very good at cleaning, but we couldn't handle it either, if we were in this situation. Needing help in this exact scenario is how we formed this company.

It sounds a little backwards, and it's very difficult, but the best thing you can do to clean up your house, if things are really bad, is try to give yourself a break. Be kind to yourself. If it's hard, ask a friend for help. The people who care will love you until it's easier to love yourself. You truly deserve it, and it really will help you do the things you think you "should," but it can feel like self-care instead of torture.

More than any specific technique or product to clean things, or any routine or strategy to organize tasks, this is our main advice to almost everyone. Some people struggle with this constantly, some only once in a crisis, but everyone struggles with their space sometimes. Living in a weird, sterile box full of things that you labor to buy to serve your needs, but somehow you end up serving them... the way we live is complicated and weird for mammals that lived in trees until recently, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with you if you find it hard to care about keeping up with it.

Okay, say I believe you... how do I do all that?

Questioning all your priorities, overcoming internalized ableism, and liberating yourself from shame isn't easy or something you can do in an afternoon. We assume we'll be struggling with ours for the rest of our lives. But every little bit of questioning and challenging our thoughts, assumptions, and expectations has helped make living easier and loving ourselves more possible. Do therapy if you can, read anything that appeals to you about disability rights and acceptance. We find unpacking WHY you believe certain things about cleanliness to be powerful, as it often traces back to something from the 1800s or earlier that is rooted in racist colonialism or extremely anti-immigrant rhetoric, or theories about disease coming from bad smells. Usually both. When I think about the British Empire subjugating indigenous people and justifying it as "purifying," it starts to feel good that my living room looks like a tornado just hit. Take that, imperialism!

In all seriousness, this is a difficult topic, but try to notice how easing up on your negative self-talk changes how you feel about doing tasks and yourself. Be patient, and give yourself a lot of time. It took thousands of people hundreds of years to get you into this mess, it's unfair to expect yourself to fix it overnight.

Getting started: Do you actually want to clean that? Do you need to?

There's a good chance you're making life harder for yourself with silly expectations. Almost everyone does this, including us. Your expectations aren't silly because they're unrealistic, although they probably are, but rather because they don't make sense for you as goals. A huge portion of posts on cleaning advice forums are people asking "what am I not cleaning that I should be?" It took years to see what a weird question that is... if a task is so obscure that you don't even notice it's not being done, and it has zero noticeable effect on your life in any way, why would you want to do it? There's no obvious reason that doesn't boil down to "an attempt to be virtuous in a way that no one will see, and rather than making me feel good it just delays shame at best, and now it's a new thing to feel guilty about."

Sonya has a really cool aunt who's vocal about being a terrible housekeeper. She has supplies for dozens of crafts and the classic "chaotic hippie lady with ADHD" customs of constantly misplacing things around the house and spilling water hilariously often (Sonya does this, too). But the interesting thing is, she's not actually bad at keeping her house. The paths that she regularly traverses are always clear, she knows where most things are, aside from those easy-to-lose satellite obects like glasses and headphones. Every single bowl and plate for her growing army of semi-feral cats is sparkling every day, and occasionally she's motivated to tackle bigger tasks like breaking down the stash of cardboard on the porch. But dusting? What's the point? The corners slowly fill with fluffy piles of dust bunnies, and every couple years Sonya brings over her vacuum and has tremendous fun chasing them.

It took me some time to appreciate, but I think she's the ideal goal for all of us. She does what she actually needs to do, the things she's motivated to stick with because she wants the results. She lets go of the things that don't matter, and doesn't stress about it. I realized this one day when she said, "I've learned to accept myself and not worry about the things I don't really care about." I already admired her, but that's one of the smartest things I've ever heard about cleaning, and I've read a bunch of books and tons of blogs and forums. Thanks for letting me quote you on my site, Mary. You're the absolute best. Love you!

I hope you can figure out what really matters to you, what gives you joy and makes your life better, and give yourself a pass on everything else. If it helps in the short term, you have our permission, blessing, and encouragement to let it slide if you don't care. Nobody will notice, and everyone else is mental about cleaning, too.

Wait, do you seriously not have any actual cleaning advice? I was promised tips!

This was originally conceived as a huge collection of resources, but ultimately this is what we think is important, and also what's not often said. When it comes to specific cleaning advice and also handling the logistical, mental, and emotional aspects of cleaning, there are already so many good resources that exist, it would be a waste of everyone's time to try to add something new. Instead, we're putting together a collection of resources with lots of advice for all types of cleaning struggle, as well as sharing the secrets we've learned over the years.

Please bear with us as we build up this collection, and please send us any resources you find helpful, and questions that you'd like answered here. Thanks!