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Unf*ck Your Habitat – You’re Better Than your Mess!

unf*ck-your-habitat

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Are you planning on starting the new year with a new approach to your surroundings? We all know that the start of the year is a popular time for people to take a look at their surroundings and plan to make changes, whether that be in their personal life, home life or work life. 

Home Organisation

Personally, I’ve been on a home organisation mission for the past year or so, my aim is to get rid of around 80% of our possessions. Currently, I’m doing well but our garage is my next mission. It seems to of become a dumping ground for all sorts of random items.

Unf*ck Your Habitat

If you feel that you are currently living in a mess and are new to home organisation then I have just read the perfect book for you. It’s called *Unf*ck Your Habitat: You’re Better Than Your Mess by Rachel Hoffman.

unf*ck you habitat book review

Rachel is also the author behind the popular Tumblr blog which has over 80,000 followers. Her blog originally started as a resource for the younger generation with tips and tricks for daily and weekly cleaning challenges to help them stay on top of their home environment.

‘Marie Kondo meets Thug Kitchen in this practical, no-holds-barred approach to decluttering that you’ve been waiting for – the clean-up guide that will motivate you to get off your arse and tidy up’.

Have you already read Marie Kondo’s, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up or Bea Johnson’s Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying your Life and come away feeling like you’ll never be able to achieve what they suggest. Then Unf*ck your Habitat is definitely the book for you!

Rachel addresses the issues that surround living in a cluttered space and how that can affect your emotional and mental health. She wants her readers to adopt a practical and realistic approach to home organisation.

unf*ck your habitat you're better than your mess

Targeted Audience

This book in intended for ‘normal people’, the sort of people who would describe their living situation as a ‘f*cking mess’ that they will get sorted one day. Rachel’s aim is to give you a housekeeping and home organisation book that doesn’t require you to learn sock origami or create a harmonious decluttering environment.

This book is particularly good for students, young people, people with housemates, people with full-time jobs and people with mental or chronic illnesses. In the past I have found that a lot of home organisation books are generally targeted towards stay at home mothers, DIY-ers and people with far too much free time on their hands.

This book is definitely targeted for people that are starting out on their home organisation journey. Personally, I’m slightly past that stage now as I’ve been (slowly) decluttering our life for the past year although I still found a lot of Rachel’s tips very useful.

Chapters

The book is broken down into sections including…

  • Nice Ass, Now Get Off of It
  • Mental Health and your Mess
  • Building Habits
  • More Stuff than Storage
  • Cleaning Basics
  • Small Spaces
  • How to Deal with Roommates, Spouses and Significant Others
  • Asking for Help
  • Emergency Unf*cking
  • Cleaning Checklist
  • Resources

Marathon Cleaning

I was particularly interested in Rachel’s section on ‘marathon cleaning‘ which is basically when you let your home get into an absolute state and then spend an entire day manically cleaning the whole place once a month. This is something that I feel a lot of people can relate too.

Rachel explains why marathon cleaning is not the answer and can even cause mental health issues and create negative associations to cleaning.

The Dark Side of Minimalism

Another section that caught my interest was ‘The Dark Side of Minimalism‘. It seems everywhere you look these days there is someone telling you that you should throw away every possession in your home and embrace minimalism.

Rachel notes the downsides to the latest craze including leaving you feeling like a failure and causing extreme behaviours both of which aren’t good for your general wellbeing.

The 20/10 System

This no-nonsense advice book is interspersed with lists, challenges and other how-to’s which rely on the Unf*ck you Habitat’s 20/10 system (20 minutes of cleaning followed by a 10-minute break; no marathon cleaning allowed).

Rather than dealing with the immediate mess this book focuses on helping you to develop lifelong habits that will make your life easier.  The whole idea is to encourage you, the reader, to embrace a new lifestyle in manageable sections.

In Conclusion

I enjoyed reading this book and picked up some good tips although I do feel it’s better suited for people that are just starting out on their home organisation journey. I believe it’s particularly good for students and people with physical disabilities or people that are struggling to get motivated.

*Unf*ck Your Habitat: You’re Better Than Your Mess is due for release on the 2nd January 2017.

Unf*ck your Habitat- You're better than your mess book review

About the Author: Rachel Hoffman launched the Unf*ck your Habitat blog in 2011 to motivate the lazy to get up and start cleaning. Her columns have appeared in Persephone magazine, xoJane and Glamour. Rachel lives in New York.

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You may also like: Home & Wardrobe Organisation + Simple Living Challenge: Edit your Stuff

13 thoughts on “Unf*ck Your Habitat – You’re Better Than your Mess!”

    1. Hi Emily, there is a whole section on moving in the book, including the stages at which you should do certain things.
      Moving home is a great time to get organised, we should know we’ve moved enough times!
      Let me know if you get the book, I’d love to know what you think 🙂

  1. This sounds good – no sock origami in our house – I’m lucky to find two that match coming out of the washing machine! We have just moved house and had a massive declutter but there is still too much stuff. Thank you for the review.

  2. The title sections had me sniggering! We are in the process of attempting to move house so I am having a massive sort at the moment, there is a growing pile of carboot stuff in my lounge (my OH is grumbling about it already). I have not heard of marathon cleaning before but that is definitely me…its chaos all week then Fridays on my da off I just spend the whole day cleaning..it saves on a gym membership I suppose! Lovely write up xx

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