Elements of Flylady

One of my big things is that keeping up your house should not have to be the focus of your life. But yet, if you just say “I’ve got better things to be doing,” soon you’ll end up not able to do those things because you can’t find clean underwear or a pot to make macaroni and cheese in. Doom, in other words. So anyone who holds these ideas in mind is going to stumble across FlyLady. I’ve listened to and read a lot of her stuff, and, a lot of it makes good sense.

Favorite Flylady Shtick

15 minutes at a time. The idea is that you can do anything for 15 minutes. If you have a ton of work to do and the kitchen looks like you should just go throw yourself in front of the TV and come back at it tomorrow, you should set a timer and work for 15 minutes. You can get *a ton* done in 15 minutes, but so often we figure, gosh, this is going to take me 3 hours and I don’t have 3 hours. Just do something for 15 minutes.

Zones. “Never spring clean again,” says the Fly. This means breaking your home up into 1) entry way, front porch and dining area; 2) kitchen; 3) bathroom and 1 estra room; 4) master bedroom; and 5) living room. The idea is that you spend 15 minutes a day doing a deep cleaning task in what ever zone is assigned for a given week. I like zones because if you see something that needs to be cleaned thoroughly, you can do it under this rubric and not worry that you should be spending the time doing something more urgent.

Perfectionism makes you procrastinate. I do agree with this. One of her catchphrases is “housework done imperfectly still blesses your home.” What I get from this is “just do something.” This is represented, for example, in my approach to loading the dishwasher: don’t fuss with achieving the optimumest configuration of dishes. Just fill it up, and, most important, start it!

Get dressed to shoes. The Fly says that you should do this so you feel ready to tackle things. This is a good habit to get into. I know that I tend to want to have my shoes off a lot at home, but having them on removes impediments you might not think about: if the trash needs emptied, you can run it right out. If you need to get something in the garage, there’s nothing stopping you. It keeps things moving along. The other thing I notice is I’ll sit down to relax or something and I’ll have my shoes on. I’ll go to take them off and I’ll think “oh, yeah, I’ve got more stuff to do.” So it keeps up my momentum.

Flylady stuff I don’t quite get.

Flylady’s probably not for everyone. She excels at helping people who are approaching pathological levels of untidiness. If that’s you, have her bring it. If you just have the work-a-day I haven’t had time to clean in a week or two, you’ll not get the same degree of improvement. Some things of hers I’ve found not helpful:

Weekly Routines. Her idea is that you have a day to do each thing, i.e. Monday is “daily home blessing hour,” Tuesday is Free, Wednesday is zone and desk, Thursday is shopping and errands, Friday is paperwork, etc. Personally, I am too list oriented to do things this way, and it also doesn’t leave you free to grab opportunities that come along to say, get an errand done.

Control Journal. For me, this would be a recipe for disaster. Why? I would never look at the thing. I struggle constantly with how to organize my lists and so forth: when I was home full time, it was my pad; now that I’m at work I’ve gone back to my Google Calendars and online lists. As far as the household routine stuff, I just can’t see keeping track of a binder and keeping it updated. If I need to, I put notes on the wall or fridge. Not perfect, as I say, but better for me.

The List. I do subscribe to Flylady’s listserv, and I have for quite some time. It is overwhelming. I know they know that some people have this reaction to it. I can’t keep up with it and end up deleting most of the emails. The thing it does have is little suggestions on “missions,” which are designed to get you jump started on a task.

Scattered. The FlyLady approach is scattered. It could be clearer and organized more accessibly. I know when I sit down to figure out some tricky self-help problem, I like neat tables and checklists. Flylady doesn’t offer enough of this kind of stuff in my opinion.

Avoiding Doom

I think FlyLady’s approach is very good for what I call “avoiding doom.” It’s very important to run your home well enough and find the right ROI–because we all know that you could work around the house endlessly and there would still be something else to do. I’ve used elements of FlyLady to help me figure out the right balance.