Review: Unf*ck Your Habitat
Unf*ck Your Habitat: You’re Better Than Your Mess by Rachel Hoffman
My rating: [rating=3]
Blurb:
Finally, a housekeeping and organizational system developed for those of us who’d describe our current living situation as a “f*cking mess” that we’re desperate to fix. Unf*ck Your Habitat is for anyone who has been left behind by traditional aspirational systems. The ones that ignore single people with full-time jobs; people without kids but living with roommates; and people with mental illnesses or physical limitations. Most organizational books are aimed at traditional homemakers, DIYers, and people who seem to have unimaginable amounts of free time. They assume we all iron our sheets, have linen napkins to match our table runners, and can keep plants alive for longer than a week. Basically, they ignore most of us living here in the real world.
Interspersed with lists and challenges, this practical, no-nonsense advice relies on a 20/10 system (20 minutes of cleaning followed by a 10-minute break; no marathon cleaning allowed) to help you develop lifelong habits. It motivates you to embrace a new lifestyle in manageable sections so you can actually start applying the tactics as you progress. For everyone stuck between The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Adulting, this philosophy is decidedly more realistic than aspirational, but the goal is the same: not everyone will have a showcase of a home, but whatever your habitat, you deserve for it to bring you happiness, not stress.
Review:
(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)
Not exactly what I expected, but a definitely interesting book full of advice about how to keep your place clean (or how to take it from a “very messy” level to a “manageable” one).
I definitely appreciated the author’s light tone, and the fact that she acknowledges how different we all are, and therefore how different our circumstances as well. Looking at some “household” blogs and magazines, it’s so true that we’re shown perfect homes, without any clutter… yet when you have a full-time job, and children to boot… or when you’re disabled and cannot move like you’d like to… all these “perfect places” are more guilt-inducing than anything else. And there are so many other reasons why house chores aren’t or can’t be a priority for so many people. It’s difficult to care about your place all day long when you have to study for your exams, or are suffering from chronic pain—but this doesn’t make you less of a person.
This book helps by listing various tips and tricks, along with advice for basically everybody involved, whether that person is the one in need of decluttering their place, or the one who’s been asked for help. It tells you how it’s totally OK not to go on cleaning marathons, which are exhausting and can even leave you kind of disgusted (and not feeling like doing anything for some time, leading to more mess and to another marathon later). Besides, it also provides examples of what you can use to clean, ideas to start organising short cleaning sessions (start from the top, wash the floor last…)… Basically, if you don’t know where to start, it takes you by the hand.
As far as I’m concerned, though, I feel that the book may be more helpful to someone who really has to deal with a lot of mess, and not so helpful to someone who’s on the fence, a bit like me: I dislike housework, I’m lazy as hell, but my laziness also makes me instinctively clean after myself in order to avoid generating a lot of mess… so basically I was already applying a lot of the principles here, which fall into the realm of “common sense” for me. Well, I guess it’s still good to feel validated, so it’s not such a downside! Possibly I was just expecting something else, something that’d be more directly useful to me specifically?
Conclusion: Depending on how badly you’re struggling with keeping your place OK, this book can provide a pretty good starting point. Perfect homes are overrated anyway. 3.5 stars.