FlyLady

FlyLady…do you know about her? If not, check her out. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Ok. So you want to get your home decluttered. You want more control over the endless housework. You can name a hundred other things that you would rather do all day than clean the bathroom.The laundry never stops. You’d like to stop trying to drop dead of embarrassment when the doorbell rings.

FlyLady may help.

“I tried FlyLady and it just wasn’t for me.”
“All those emails…I just couldn’t get past all those emails!”
“Dividing your home into zones? Hmm. That’s kind of sick.”

Yes, I’ve heard them all. True, FlyLady isn’t for everybody, and yes, there are a lot of emails.As for the zones – well, they work.I thought I’d take the time to explain a little more about FlyLady.

A shiny sink and other daily routines
FlyLady is big on daily routines. She starts you out shining your kitchen sink every day. Go to her website to find out exactly how and why.Shine your sink every day for a week and it’ll become a habit. No matter what chaos is going on in the rest of your house, your kitchen sink will smile happily at you. You’ll start feeling better about things.You’ll realize that if you can manage to just shine that sink every day, maybe you really can get the house under control.This is your first Baby Step in developing a daily routine. You will then work on the rest of your routine, one piece at a time. Eventually, you will find yourself getting dressed every day, making your bed, planning for dinner, doing laundry and whatever else is important in keeping your home running.

“I could never be that organized”, you’re thinking.Of course you can! You don’t just get there overnight. You add one thing to your routine at a time. FlyLady will even tell you which one to work on during any given month. Last month it was making your bed. That’s all you need to add to your routine that month – just do all the things you’ve already been doing, and then make your bed. Next thing you know, you don’t even needing reminding. See how easy it is?

All those emails
Yes, FlyLady sends a lot of emails.They are divided into a few categories:Reminders, Zone Missions, Testimonials and Other. The Reminder Emails are not supposed to be read. Just look at the title, let’s say “Where’s Your Laundry?” and answer the question.If the answer is, I’m not doing any laundry today, then delete the email. If the answer is “sitting in a cold heap in the washer, waiting to be dried” then get up, go take care of the laundry, come back and delete the email.That’s all.Address the issue, then delete.

Testimonials.I set up my email program to filter all the testimonials into one folder.I read them if and when I have time.At the end of the day, if I haven’t read them, I delete them all. Testimonials are emails sent in by other FlyBabies. They are meant to be inspirational, but even email can be clutter.That’s why I give myself one day to read them.Sometimes I’m in the mood, sometimes I’m not. Sometimes FlyLady wants to address a particular area or has a little more to say about something. These usually come once a day. Again, read it, absorb it, delete it.

Zone Missions are the “extras” you do in each zone once that area is clutter free. I read the missions and if it is something I want or need to do in that room, I add it to my To Do list for the day. Then I delete the email.If I don’t want to do that mission, I delete the email.  FlyLady has divided up the house by zones. You can read about which rooms go into which zones on her website.You work on one zone each week.This does not mean during the bedroom week that you go into your bedroom, tear the whole thing apart in an afternoon, create an even bigger mess, and then abandon the whole thing in frustration. Baby steps, remember? FlyLady has come up with a number of ways to attack a room, all of which take about 15 minutes.(Again, read more about these methods on her website.) She encourages the use of a timer. Choose which de-cluttering method you want to use, set the timer and get going. It is amazing what you can accomplish in such a short amount of time. It’s also amazing how fast those 15 minutes fly by. This is encouraging to me as a busy homeschooling mom. I rarely have large blocks of time to work, but I can squeeze 15 minutes in here and there. I try to get two 15 minute blocks of time per day for each zone. Thirty minutes a day, 5 days a week – that’s 2 ½ hours of de-cluttering a week!! And it’s not overwhelming or tiring. Then the week is over. Maybe you have more work to do in that area. That’s ok. That zone will come up again next month and you can attack it with renewed vigor.

Home Blessing
This is how FlyLady refers to those weekly chores that just have to get done. She does all of her “home blessing” in one day for one hour. I don’t know how she does it. It takes me 30 minutes just to change sheets. (She says to have your children change their own sheets. Um, good theory. My children are 9 months, 5 and 7. The older two need a lot of help changing their sheets. I am training them to do it, but for now it’s a good 30 minute project.) I have tried doing all the weekly chores in one day and get tired just thinking about all that housework. And frankly, it doesn’t get done because I just can’t, or won’t, devote a half a day or more to do housework. Instead, what I have done is assign each day of the week, Monday through Friday, a zone according to FlyLady’s monthly zones. So Monday is Zone 1 (entrance/front porch), Tuesday is Zone 2 (Kitchen), etc. I spend 30 minutes or less doing weekly chores in the zone of the day. This is part of my daily routine and is in addition to my Monthly Zone de-cluttering.

Little by little I have seen my house become a sanctuary and place I can be proud of. It’s not perfect and never will be, but I’m good with that. I don’t spend my whole day cleaning and I don’t fret that I will never get everything done. FlyLady has brought a lot of peace to our home. Give her a try. Remember that it’s going to take time because you are building new habits. Her system may seem overwhelming at first because it’s a lot of information coming at you at once and you’re not sure where to start. That’s why I wrote this. Hopefully it makes things a little clearer. If you try her program and like her, stop by and tell me. If you’re already a FlyBaby, leave me a comment about how it’s working for you. I’d especially like to hear how others have adjusted FlyLady’s plan to suit their own circumstances.

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