The most-loved lines from Barbara Costello, drawn from 1 book in the library.
Lines labelled “HourLife takeaway” are our wording of the book’s ideas and may paraphrase it. Only lines in quotation marks are the author’s own words, with where they appear. Check the book for exact wording before you quote it. Spot an error?
Homemaking is about how a house makes people feel; keeping it clean is only one part of that.
Babs separates homemaking from housekeeping. Housekeeping is the tidying and scrubbing. Homemaking is the larger aim of a place where the people who live there feel cared for, and the chores serve that aim rather than the other way round.
Fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen at night beat a weekend cleaning marathon.
Her Clean in 15 routine, which she also calls the Babs Method, splits upkeep into two short sessions a day. Steady small habits keep the house from sliding, so the big catch-up days stop being needed.
If you only have time for one thing, do the dishes, so the sink never becomes a catch-all.
Her rhythm is to load the dishwasher from the sink at night and empty it in the morning. An empty dishwasher means the day's dishes have somewhere to go, and a clear sink keeps the kitchen from piling up. She pairs it with an easy morning win, making the bed.
Trying to overhaul the whole house at once is the fastest way back to your old habits.
Babs warns that a big burst of effort tends to end in burnout. Start small, keep it going, and let consistency do the work that one heroic weekend cannot.
Sort before you put away, and finish one room before you start the next.
When she launched the book, Babs described decluttering with five labelled bins: trash, recycle, donate, relocate and resell. Things that belong elsewhere go in the relocate bin instead of drifting room to room, and the trash and donations leave the house the same day.
A home runs better when everyone who lives in it has a job.
Kids, partners and roommates all get a share, which Babs sees as a source of pride and belonging, not only a way to split the work. She suggests a chore chart and starting children with a few tasks, and has older children teach younger ones.
Aim for a happy home, not a perfect one.
Comparing your rooms with homes on the internet or in magazines sets you up to fall short. Every household is different, and the right choices are the ones that suit the people living in yours.
Small chunks work because everyone can find fifteen minutes.
Babs was a teacher and started her own preschool before she was known online, and the habit of breaking work into short pieces suits that background. She has said she once kept a detailed index-card system for chores and dropped it when it became overwhelming.
Plan for repairs before the house asks for them.
Beyond daily cleaning, the book covers home maintenance: seasonal checklists room by room, planning for repairs and setting money aside in a maintenance fund. Upkeep you expect is a job on the calendar instead of a crisis.
HourLife turns these ideas into a daily system — goals, habits, focus, and reflection in one private place.
