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.

Morning. I am on my last day of holiday here so flying slowly. My list of have done/to do:

Done
Quiet cup of tea!
Unload/reload dishwasher
Washing done overnight & into tumble drier this morning
Another load on - bed sheets
Quick once over of kitchen and shined sink

To Do
Soft play to tire out my energetic 18 m DS
Lunch & tidy up
Groceries and trying to find e-cloths. Any other good cleaning product reccs welcome!
Put washing into tumble drier
Sort out clean washing
Sort out work filing

Thanks for the home routine app recommendation - it's great and I like getting stars as I go!

Hello simply!!! Will pm you in a second just need tortoise now....

I have my 4yo tornado of a nephew coming today for a sleepover. So need to tie everything on sight down and bomb-proof the entire house. Love him to bits but he is rather energetic.

Zone this week is the dining room but as I don't have one (dd2 has taken it over) I will work in the utility room instead. Which is BADLY in need of decluttering and organising. Will wait until my lovely whirlwind nephew has left before I start it tomorrow.

List for today:

Up and dress - done
Wash - done
Swish and swipe bathroom - done
Swish and swipe downstairs bathroom
Load and put on dw
Empty dw
Hoover
Dust
Wipe floors (quickly)
Make my bed
Hang 1st load of washing
Put 2 loads on
Hang 2 loads
Clean fridge

That's all I'm planning on doing today. Anything else will be a bonus. Also got my lovely mum coming for dinner so hoping to sit and watch 'the king's speech' together.

Oh my, so many pages.. What am I supposed to be doing today? Other than laundry (started). Am overwhelmed already :(

simply forgot I can't pm from my phone. Will do it when I get on the computer later.

smile why not start with the mission for today?

Zone 1: Mission #1 Monday

Dear Friends,

We are in the Front Porch, Entrance Area and Dining Room Zone.

Let's have a Fire Drill in the Dining Room! Go get the hotspots cleared out!
All those stacks of serving pieces to put away. The piles of holiday items that
we put on the dining room table to get to later, later is now!

Take 15 minutes and put things away where they belong you will be so glad you did!

Just bought the HomeRoutines app. I am quite excited

I had a quick look through the first few baby steps. Is each one a different job to add day by day or are some of them just thoughts/ ways to get you in the right frame of mind?

How long do I do baby steps for before I can declutter etc?

Smile - don't be downhearted. Just look out for my posts (highlighted if using new style MN) and I will tell you what to do each day. Today's babystep is to get dressed to shoes. If you have already completed the 31 babysteps and established your routines, you can start on 15-minutes a day decluttering and then daily missions. Actually, I do the missions when I can even though I certainly haven't finished decluttering, so you can fit the system in with what you want.

Bubbles - I wish someone gave me stars as I did housework .

Openyerlugholes - good luck with the whirlwind nephew. He reminds me of DS1 when he was little (used to have to lock all the cupboards etc). Sounds like you have a lovely day planned with your mum. We watched 'The King's Speech' with my MIL at Xmas and she loved it. She even coped with the f*words (she's very proper!).

Morning! We have another week of holidays so I am enjoying the time off and doing housework in between setting up a marble run and playing vets with DD

Done:
Up and dressed to my slippers shoes
Breakfast dishes done & away
Swish & swipe
Washing on
Beds made
Bath cleaned

To do:
Hoover downstairs
15 minutes in hall/entryway
figure out what to have for dinner
do rough meal plan for rest of week and next week
start the online tesco order

Have a good day!

Hello, can a forced by disability to only ever be a part timer, join in as best I can?
(I spent yesterday absorbing the basics and optimistically shined a sink.)

I?ve been trying to create a personalised parallel system, one for when I can?t physically get up to do housework but can do all sorts of things brought to me, (which results in more piled up mess!) and one for when I can.

Dalrymps - some of the babysteps are meant to be motivational, eg there's one where Flylady suggests you write affirmative statements in your control journal. Personally, I ignore these. The usefulness of the babysteps, for me, was establishing my own routine at home, which I now stick to every day.

You are meant to finish the 31 babysteps before starting decluttering, I think, but it's up to you. If you are raring to go, I would just get cracking. 15 minutes a day of decluttering makes a surprising difference.

Ah I see Toffee, thanks!

Redlac - am trying to decide if it is a good thing or not for you that you have another week of holidays . Honestly, I'm quite looking forward to getting the boys back to school and getting back into my normal routines. On the other hand, it is lovely to hang around in PJs and watch telly.

Justgettingonwithit - welcome to the thread. Your parallel system sounds like an excellent idea for your circumstances. The thing is to focus on what you are achieving, rather than get downhearted about what you haven't done.

DH wants the computer. Honestly, doesn't he know I'm doing important work here?

Will check back later.

Can I just ask a really basic question toffee or others?

When you do the swish swipe thing each morning and other bits in the kitchen what do you do about cloths? Do you put used cloths in washing basket each night and use different every day? Do you dry them somewhere before putting in wash basket? I want to get set up with cloths and whatever else I need before I get too deep in to a routine

Tks

Mint - I use an e-cloth to swish and swipe the bathroom sink and surfaces every morning, then rinse it out and hang it on the bathroom radiator. I wash it now and again, when I remember. I never put wet cloths in the washing basket because it makes the clothes all mildewy.

I use an e-cloth in the kitchen too, but often have a J-cloth laid out too, partly because I've realised that family and visitors never seem to recognise the e-cloth as a kitchen cloth and ignore it and use my scourers to wipe the surfaces, which I hate.

Linzer did a good link to e-cloths above.

I am feeling dead proud of my sparkly sink right now.

Woe betide dh anyone who dares to think about messing it up with dirty dishes.

For swish and swipe I use loo roll and spray for the toilet, I then use the handtowel to wipe bath and basin the put out a fresh towel. For proper cleaning I keep a load of e cloths, I do most cleaning on a Monday and put all the dirty cloths in a 60 degree wash with towels that day. The daily hand towels just go in the daily clothes washing

mint I use either kitchen roll and cleaner and throw it away, or disposable wipes.

Not very environmentally friendly though and I need to look at using cloths. I would buy a whole pack, one for each day, and wash them every day if I used reusable ones.

toffee thanks .

My dad died 3 weeks ago so my sisters and I are making sure that mum has plenty of company. She has coped fairly well so far. Has been a hard year for us all (dad had cancer) and are hoping that this year will be better.

Tentatively joining in too, though not sure how feasible fly lady is with a job....

Sorry to hear that open.

Thanks prof . It helps that my family all live nearby. We will be fine.

Cheers Toffee, that's exactly what I know I need to do, and manage it quite well until I get criticised for all I haven't managed, hence wanting to be around others who understand it's about what has been achieved. :-)

We're also on holiday for another week yet. (I work from home)
I'm doing babysteps plus an 'improve the situation any way possible' daily, and when I physically can't get dressed, replacing it with an act of self care. (something as neglected as housework!)
Today's going to be mainly a paperwork, mending, and planning day. :-)

Openyerlugholes also sorry to hear. Hope this is a kind year for you all.

Professor I think it's a case of adapting it to fit?

Felt fab - cleaned kitchen and had even made lunches for tomorrow.

Just joined in to see what my target for today was. I am still in pjs (they are xmas dkny ones) boo hoo.

Off to find e cloths.

I'm bogged down already!
I haven't done any cleaning (other than sort out 6 loads if washing - first load in) because I can't find the links to what I should be doing as I get distracted and start reading the thread.
Is there another thread somewhere just telling me what to do or just links?
I'm sinking before I've even got in the water!
Thanks

Hi Membership, the OP (Toffeewhirl) is posting links to the relevant parts of Flylady every day, if you have MN new view enabled you should have her post highlighted, just need to scroll up to her first post of the day.

If I were youI would just do what you need to today and have a good look at the Flylady website, especially the babysteps, then start properly when you have got a bit more of an idea how it all works. The idea is to break it all down into small manageable chunks so you don't feel overwhelmed.