If tidying your home is your New Year's resolution, Flying with us could be the solution

[ToffeeWhirl]

Welcome to the January Fledgling Flyers' thread. A very big thank you to BlueEyeshadow and IceColdBitch for guiding us through the busy Christmas month.

Are you living in CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome)? We know the feeling. We follow Flylady's routines, which aim to help you take control of your home, tidying and decluttering and setting up daily and weekly routines that keep your home looking presentable. We also chat quite a lot and swap tips on coping with housework and mess.

From the first of the month, we will be following Flylady's tips on restoring order to our homes. There are three methods, depending on whether you are new to the system or have been following it for a while:

1. Babysteps
2. Babysteps + 15 mins daily decluttering in current zone
3. Babysteps + daily missions

Following the babysteps helps to establish daily routines and build a weekly plan.

If you are overwhelmed by the mess in your home, start with just one thing: shine your sink.

Oh, and don't - really, really ^don't^ - sign up to Flylady's emails.

The first babystep will be posted on 1st January 2012.

Happy New Year.

So today's TO DO list
(morning routine)
Shower and dress
Swish and swipe
Boys to get dressed
Clear away breakfast stuff
Take out rubbish
(afternoon routine)
washing machine on
Start dinner and load sink
Take vitamins
Sort dry washing
Non iron away
More ironing
clean kitchen
boys in the bath
lay out boys clothes
defrost for tomorrows dinner
(before bed routine)
shine sink
lay out tomorrows clothes
check diary
remove make up
(weekend jobs)
sweep
mop
dust
stray items away

That'll do.
The boys want to take their new bikes to the park later.
They are watching Toy Story 3 atm, whilst playing with their toy story toys.
I'm off to soak in the bath with my book for a bit (pamper sunday)

Can't believe it is 2012! Next year I will have a 20 year old aaaaarrrrgggggghhhhh!

Out for run - done
Shower and dress - done
Swish and swipe bathroom - done
Shine sink - done
Unload and reload dw - to do
Make my bed - to do now that dh has finally emerged

That's it for today as house is looking great, washing all up to date and going to my sis this aft for dinner. So lazy day yay!

Have a good day all.

Sink Shinny.

What's everyone doing with children's toys ?

Happy 2012!

Rose We had a mini de-clutter of toys before Christmas and I took a lot of them to work (I work at a special needs school), but think that next time we are in that zone, I will de-clutter and see if the local doctors surgery wants them.

Most of ours are all just stacked up in the spare bedroom at the moment Rosemary, we have a guest staying just now so once he goes home (later today) we will have to re-think the toy storage.

Silvery - I too often falter at the mission vs detailed cleaning part of FLying. What I try and do, is look at my diary on a Sunday night, together with my detailed cleaning list for that zone and make a plan to do some detailed cleaning in the current zone every day that week, depending how busy the rest of the day is (I do the bigger jobs on my non-work days for example). I check the Sneak Peek page on a Monday and stick the missions in to my weekly plan if I think they are needed (they aren't always). I just write all the planned jobs into the diary and tick off as I go. Some weeks I fail to do any of it though, even the planning

Slow start for me today, I have so far got up and swept the kitchen floor. I will shine the sink in a minute and then start thinking about a proper list. For me today is a day for making lists and plans for Jan, clearing some paperwork and getting my brain gradually back into term time mode.

WhoKnows I have a list of detailed jobs for each zone in my control journal, all set out in a table so that I cantick things off as they are done, so the next month, I know to start on something that wasn't done last month iyswim.

I really need to crack on now or these kids won't get to take their bikes out. It is 11am and all I've done is some ironing!

DD was on children's cancer ward. They accept toys that can be wiped clean and that are in good condition. Also, if you have any unwanted gifts, they often keep a cupboard of things to give to the children as rewards when they have procedures done. DD 'earned' herself a full set of 16 nail varnishes, 1 at a time, last year as they gave her one each time she had a needle. Teenage unit like new books, unwanted DVDs, games.

Right, I didn't think I would be one for posting lists, but I'm pretty pleased with myself so far (although it's probably a poor effort by most standards!)

The sink is in the process of being shined (the hour wait with the bleach), and whilst DS has been napping I have also:

Swiped 2 bathrooms
Cleaned the kitchen
Hoovered downstairs
Put a load of laundry on
Folded the clean nappies

Actually, that list is a bit short compared to the time it took me. Bugger! Although I did use a timer to do the kitchen & downstairs loo - I was surprised how much more satisfying it is to find I could get a surprising load of stuff done in "just" 15 minutes!

I'm only planning on finishing the sink & generally keeping the kitchen/dining area to its present state for the rest of the day.

Go me

Really pleased to find this thread. I used to come on flying threads years a while ago and have been trying to get going again for a few months. Definately helps to have a MN thread to spur you on.

I'm all ready to do my sink for the first time - small boy at a friends, big one on computer, DH working - all happy.

But I've found there is no bleach in house!!! Aaah, I even have the sink "ready" free of dirty and drying dishes. I don't have a lemon either- will just bicarbonate of soda do? Any one knows how I adapt shining sink job without bleach? I really can't be arsed to get in car and go to shop.

Might vinegar work on sink ?

Oh I don't know- would it? We are in a rented house for a few months and I don't want to risk doing anything that would spoil the sink - but it is very manky so sure anything would help.

It's the hour soak that I'm not sure how to replace. I think I'll wait till I'm out collected DS2 and pop to shop then. Tks!

So far I have shined the sink and washed up. Fitting it in around looking after DS (9 mths) is v tricky. Have finally prised H out of bed to help with DS. I'm back to work later this month and really hope that flying is going to help me get on top if all of it. Worried.

Just a little jaded this morning, DD has been going down at some funny times and luckily it was DH's turn last night so my head isn't as bad as it could have been given I was left alone with a bottle of baileys, nuts, crisps and a bottle of champers.

So.
Up, showered and dressed
Breakfast
Dark wash on (White wash done yesterday)
Tea consumed
bathroom tidied and shower plug hole de haired
Kitchen sink swishes and plug holes emptied of toast
Chores list updated, we recycled one of my work whiteboards to keep us all in line, DH has been amazed at how much nicer it is living in a clean house and is so far a week into picking his socks up and generally keeping the house nice

My mission is my study which is more than a hotspot. Its a culmination of hotspots which as I have tidied each room the crap things I haven't sorted have all been put in my study. Given it has a door which closes then we hide a vast amount of junk in there

The playroom is the next place to declutter, I'm going to be getting some ikea storage in a few weeks, sigh of relief.

Right, I'm posting this in here in the vague hope that it will help some other Flybabies.

As you know or you may not, the FlyLady splits the month into "zones", obviously she does one per week and the missions usually relate to these zones.
The zones are:
Zone 1: The Entrance, Front Porch, and Dining Room
Zone 2: The Kitchen
Zone 3: The Bathroom and One Extra Room
Zone 4: The Master Bedroom
Zone 5: The Living Room, Family Room, or Den

She does advise no deep cleaning until you have decluttered each room, which I would agree with ^^

But here's the nifty thing... you can rearrange the zones to suit yourself. For example, my bedroom is really tidy (otherwise I can't sleep), so I've moved the living room (also reasonable) into zone 4, but replaced it with my spare room/study as I know it's absolutely horrible as it's used as a dumping ground for all the junk so that I have more time to concentrate on it. Similarly, if you only have a hall with no storage and no dining room - don't give yourself a free week - move a "bad" room into this zone so that you have more time to fly in that room.

FlyLady is all about you - so when you see Zone 1, do what you need to do in your zone to get organised and CHAOS-free!

oh everyone's so organised and awake! I've just got up

I've changed it for me too flying
I've removed the bathroom from zone 3 and shifted it to zone 1. As I have a small bathroom, the daily swish and swipe seem to be enough.
Zone 3 is now just the boys bedroom, and I have a small hallway so made sense to make that little adjustment.
I have just posted all about my control journal on the other thread, but maybe it might be useful here????? or maybe it'd be too overwhelming for the very newbies to this way.
Will leave it there, can always copy and paste as people get to that stage (it took me 2 years to get there though!)

ooo just what i need!

Morning shouldbe

Thanks flying (have pm'd you). I no longer have a dining room as it is being used as a bedroom (thanks dd2!) so zone 1 will be the utility room. Which BADLY needs tackling.

The zones in my journal are different to these zones so can't remember if I shuffled them around myself or if flylady has changed the order of the zones. Will synch my journal to be the same order as flylady.

Openyerlugholes Our dining room is also now dd2s bedroom!
When rejigging the zones, it is worth remembering 2,3,and 4 are the only ones that get a full week every month. The others depend on when in the week a month starts/finishes, so I think for example we will move on to zone 2 tomorrow...

Or I could be completely wrong again All next week is zone 1.

ok i am a real newbie - need to get mess sorted and into a routine so this sounds great - but getting a bit overwhelmed in here - i need clear outline of where to start and what to do each day?? can anyone help?
thanks :)

fairmum I'm feeling abit daunted too.
All of these lists that some of you are managing to get through are very impressive.

I did my sink last night and just hoping that by the end of today christmas will be back in boxes in the cupboard and thank you letters are written.

You're right Jas, it depends where in the week the month starts but often Zones 1 and 5 get half a week each. I have got the following zones:

1. Hall/landing/dining room (no porch here)
2. Kitchen
3. Bathroom (only 1) and DD's bedroom
4. Our room, DS's room
5. Lounge

Fairymum - have you looked at the Flylady website? There are 30 babysteps, which you are meant to do every day, one is introduced each day of the month this is repeated on the website every month. Then the house is divided into weekly zones, when you start out you are supposed to spend 15 mins every day decluttering in that week's zone. Once decluttering is complete there are detailed cleaning instructions also for that zone, most people do a bit of both. Flylady issues a daily zone mission, which is a short cleaning or tidying task.

Today is Sunday, so there are no missions or detailed cleaning required, but you are supposed to do babystep 1, which is to shine your sink.

Babystep 1. Start today with that and have a good browse round the Flylady website.

I didn't know about the zones. They make sense. We moved house six months ago and much of the mess we brought with us (DD was seriously ill in HDU a few weeks to moving) we paid the removals men to simply empty the house, garden and shed. They only broke a few things, nothing irreplaceable but the tut rubbish brought with us beggars belief.

The study is almost beating me. I have grand plans to work and craft in there when it is done so must continue. Looking in at the kitchen in passing it seems DH and DD did their worst before both heading for a nap while I slave. Sigh.

I shall consider my zones. The Dining room is a playroom and it needs it's storage!