When you would have told me a few years ago that I'd be living in a clean and ordered house without having hired help, I'd have thought you're crazy. And everybody else would have thought so too! I was the most unorganized person in the world. I wouldn't call myself lazy exactly, but house keeping was not my strongest point.
Then I met the FlyLady.
FlyLady
FlyLady is a system that teaches you how to keep your home and life organized by creating habits. She starts off by telling us to shine our kitchen sinks. The philosophy is that when the kitchen sink is shining, you'll want to make the rest of the kitchen neat too, and from there it radiates through the whole house. And when the house is neat, we feel neat too!We shouldn't accomplish all this within 1 day. The FlyLady set up a 31 day plan to start FLYing. Everything goes in baby steps! So it starts with shining the sink, next up are making the beds and putting on lace up shoes first thing in the morning.
27 fling boogies
FlyLady's way to get rid of clutter, is by doing 27 fling boogies. Tackling 1 area of the house at a time, she tells us to take a garbage bag and fling 27 things that we want to throw out. Next we need to take another bag and collect 27 things that we want to give away. Do this a few times, and the house will be clutter free in very little time.
But the big question is, does it actually work? And surprisingly enough, yes it does! At least it did for me. I always loved living in an ordered and clean space, I just had no clue how to accomplish that and more importantly: keep it that way. What FlyLady did was teach me simple and easy tools to tackle every-day household tasks without starting to loathe them. The thing that works best for me I think is the fact that she tells me not to do it all at once.
On the contrary, she doesn't allow doing it all at once!
Doing everything all at once causes us to crash and burn, and we won't touch household tasks again any time soon. So that accomplishes nothing. Anyway, it works for me.
And guess what? I even enjoy it! Well, scrubbing the toilet will never be my favorite job, but I sure like the results.
Clean home, peaceful Shabat
Now I finished cleaning (or blessing my home, as FlyLady says), and I feel so accomplished! No matter that it will be mess again without 5 minutes after the kids come home from school, but that's easy mess that can get cleaned up again in no time. I know that my home is cleaned and I am not embarrassed to let the Shabat Queen into my house tomorrow evening!Do you have any tips and tricks to share to make cleaning a bit easier?
Fly Lady is such a great resource. There really is something peaceful about an orderly home. Great post!
ReplyDeleteA wonderfully well written blog!! Keep up the great writing and very informative tips! I look forward to your next post!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
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Oh I love Flylady!! She has helped me a lot - though, I still have a ways to go! :)
ReplyDeleteI have a hard time "jumping in where I am". I like to go backwards and try to catch up. Somehow I haven't learned yet that it only frustrates and discourages me to do that, LOL.
Christin
joyfulmothering.net
Now that's the thing with household - it goes around in circles. Days of the week repeat themselves, a new month comes around every 30 or so days, the year goes round and round. That's why you can jump in wherever you are, because it goes around like a merry-go-round with no beginning and no end. Trying to catch up is running around like a doggy chasing its tail.
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