Rachel Hoffman's "Unf*ck Your Habitat" is as much about self-empowerment as it is about taking care of your home.
As in: Your bedroom doesn't have to look like your most neurotically organized friend's bedroom. You don't have to spend every weekend vacuuming to be a successful adult. You do you!
But — and this is important — you can still feel good about inviting people over; you can still eat dinner without the stench of overflowing trash wafting over you. Hoffman shows you how to get there without losing your sanity.
Below, we've rounded up six of our favorite tips from the book, all of which you can use in the next 20 minutes.
Use 20/10s
This strategy is simple: You clean for 20 minutes and then take a 10-minute break. Hoffman says you can tweak the exact times, so you clean for 45 minutes and take a 15-minute break, for example.
That's enough time to put away a clean load of laundry or take the level of grossness down a notch in your bathroom.
The idea is to avoid what Hoffman calls "marathon cleaning" — i.e., you let your home get messier and messier (and messier) until it reaches the point where you can barely breathe. Then you spend a few days "cleaning like a maniac until it's livable again."
By using your version of 20/10s, you'll see cleaning as a more manageable project — as Hoffman writes, "a series of smaller chunks of time that each has a definite beginning and a definite end."
'Gamify' the tasks
Hoffman's book features several "challenges" that make cleaning more like a game than a chore. For example: "Look around. Find ten things that aren't where they belong. Put them away."
Or: "Take ten minutes and reset as much as you can back to clean. Put items away, throw trash out, and hang up or put away your clothes until the timer goes off."
Consider it the Mary Poppins version of being a responsible adult.
Take before and after photos
Hoffman shares an insight about cleaning that applies just as well to life in general: "The trouble with cleaning up your own mess is that sometimes when you're in the middle of it, it's really difficult to see any progress that you've made." Deep, right?
Here's the practical solution: Take a picture right before you start, at different stages throughout the cleaning process, and then once you've finished. Seeing how far you've come will likely motivate you to do even better.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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