“The house is a machine for living in.” - Le Corbusier
Hi, I’m Rebecca! I write about using systems to simplify your home and life.
Lots of organizing content, TV shows, Instagram accounts, and blogs talk about:
How to do a weekend closet purge
How to organize your belongings by color so they photograph well
Which stuff to buy at the Container store
But very few talk about how to:
Maintain order with very little effort
Feel peaceful when you’re in your home
Get more time back in your daily life
Reduce your mental load
That’s where I come in! Systems can help with all these things, but it takes practice to start thinking in systems. People dedicate their lives to studying this stuff. There’s a whole field called systems engineering and method called systems thinking.
This happens to be how my brain works so I’m here to help you apply systems thinking to your life (generally using bullet lists to save time). The right systems can change everything—I really believe that.
A little more about me: I live in the Pacific Northwest with my husband, two young kids, and dog. I used to work in product management and data science at Airbnb. I helped technical teams build tools and products, and my job was to increase the effectiveness of my teams. I think in systems and loved doing this work.
Now I’m ready to bring my tools home and increase the effectiveness of my house. Since really, a house is a machine and we are all its engineers (see Le Corbusier quote above).
Laura Fenton wrote a lovely overview of my home and approach to organizing if you’d like to learn more:
On Being a Paid Newsletter
There is a paid subscription level, at $5/month or $50/year.
The Substack platform I use has created a seamless mechanism for writers to get paid, and they’re remaking media and culture in the process. Back in the early days of blogging, writers had to gum up their blogs with ads in order to get paid — we all hated that. Then came the affiliate partnerships, which were time consuming to establish and created skewed incentives (and which the FTC later cracked down on). But on Substack, the financial arrangement is pure: readers pay for content they value. Writers don’t have to resort to selling other stuff to fund their writing.
If you’re not in a position to pay, that is completely fine.* You’ll still receive my free newsletters, along with previews of other newsletters. And if you do upgrade to a paid subscription, you’ll receive all issues plus full access to the wealth of advice in the archives. Paid subscribers also will get a $50 discount towards consulting with me, making your subscription “free.”
(*If you have financial constraints that don’t make it possible to pay, just reach out and I’m happy to comp you, no questions asked.)
One last thing — for even more reading, here are the books that have most shaped my House Machine worldview.
Getting Things Done - David Allen
Simplicity Parenting - Kim John Payne
It’s All Too Much - Peter Walsh
Make Space for Happiness - Tracy McCubbin
How to Keep House While Drowning - KC Davis
