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.

Well, I have done the baby steps in my own way - flip flops not lace ups, as we don't wear shoes in the house, but the sink is sparkling!

Have also done a load of laundry, and am just waiting for a second load to finish. Spent fifteen minutes trying to declutter our bedroom, did a quick tidy up in the kitchen, and did my meal plan for the next couple of weeks. Am surprised at how much better the house looks already, though there is still lots to do.

Hope everyone else has had a productive day!

Ooh, that would be so wonderful! I'll give it a go as well. I work four days a week, I have two small kids and two elderly in-laws who contribute to the mess more than to the cleaning....DH does chores for about half an hour a week. As a result the house is in constant chaos. I feel like I spend most of my time at home doing housework but I never seem to get anywhere!! I wish I could find a more efficient and organised way to do this. Maybe this FlyLady thing will help although I've just read her morning routine and wanted to cry!

Hello, I'd also like to join!

I have too much stuff and need to declutter. The baby steps seem like a good way to get the house in order. I'm not sure how it'll go yet as I'm 39+1 with DC1 so life is about to get more hectic. I vacuumed, dusted and cleaned the skirting boards in the bedroom earlier tonight which set off a bad bump ache - I've spent the rest of the evening curled on the sofa!

Oh Moobee take it easy, i lived in a less clean house when heavily pregnant its more than allowed.

Usual morning routine,
No home blessing here, preschool closed sigh.
Declutter front porch 5 min
Detail clean back porch 15 mins
Clean kitchen windows 10 mins
Usual Evening routine mop not hoover.

I know kitchen windows are not in the zone but toddlers and glass! a room looks filthy if windows are.

Question about windows, do they fall into any zone? Externally that is.

Windows I delegate to a window cleaner (who is brill and worth his weight in good as he waves at DS from every window )

I've never seen them mentioned by FlyLady - although they may be a "mission", but I'd bung them into a zone where it makes sense for you - obviously weather permitting!

Thank you, i might add them to this zone as it sort of fits in.

Window cleaner once caught me partly clothed so no window cleaners here.

I think that the zones can be flexible - I've put my car in zone 1 .

Have shined my sink, done 2 loads of washing, made my bed and declutered my bedroom side board. These are my baby steps but have also done, bathroom, hoovered downstairs and changed bed sheets.

Molly If we ever make ift past babysteps and decluttering, windows are on the detailed cleaning lists.

All of it is flexible- we follow the steps taking the bits that work for us and our circumstances. My front entrance, dining room and whatever else is in zone 1 in this house consists of the front door! So I put a bedroom in zone one.

Today I dug out all my old FLY lists and routines, and have almost finished working out new ones, along with sorting out bill payment paperwork into a workable plan so I don't keep forgetting to pay things and getting charged extra.

recursivemoon genius idea re the car - I have copied :)

Hello to all.

openyerlugholes I'm sorry to hear of your loss.

JustGettingOnWithIt I had a disability for several years so I can empathise with you. You are absolutely right to focus on what you have done in any one day rather than what you have been unable to do. My top tip is "Be kind to yourself". I explain that by saying that you should talk to yourself as you would talk to your friend if s/he was in that position.

Good to see you Jas. I spotted my FLY file the other day, too. I think I made it up and got no further! One day I'll have a routine too (maybe!)

Re: window cleaning dh did ours on the outside this morning. I happened to mention that they were pretty dirty and he is on hols atm so he offered to do them. Now, of course, all the cat nose marks show up terribly on the inside so I'd best do those soon.

Ok i will try them in this zone, the car yes not got that in a zone yet or the animals or the garden or...this could go on.
I think that is why i have delayed zone cleaning so much, you can't cherry pick so much and it much more daunting.

I might need 20 zones.

Evening you high achieving lot. I've caught up with the laundry today and am about to shine my sink. Had awkward visitors who needed entertaining so not much else here.

Question, for those with tiny DCs, how much of the morning routine do you get done before they wake, and how much after? I aim to get dressed, reboot laundry, do dishwasher and plan my day before the blighters wake at 7ish, which seems a bit extreme, but does get the day off to a functional start. It really hurts when DS, 7m, has a half hour feed at 5.30...Adding a shower to that pre 7am workload makes it all go tits up. I'm about to start a morning jog with the dog too...eurgh. It's just that if you leave this stuff until after they wake up, they seem not to happen (velcro baby, insane toddler).

Recursivemoon, thank you, I'm going to add my car to a zone too. It's worse than my handbag.

So, swishing and swiping, e cloths for shower, bath and 3 basins, and pack of wipes for the 3 toilets. It's a lot of swishing, not sure I'll manage that!

Happy flying ladies.

1 zone or 20 zones, the principle is still to do them in order so that you have a clean house.

You just do a zone a week, and then crisis clean (FlyLady's description of a quick dust/wipe and hoover in the centre of the room) to keep the other rooms tidy - or at least that's how I see it.

I would suggest a maximum of 8 zones so that each zone is deep cleaned once every two months which is more than mine is done at the moment

I'm new on here too and started reading this thread full of optimism but it all seems a bit overwhelming. Doesn't help that my house is a mess and needs decluttering, as well as needing to get on top of the housework . So I'm joining you but think I've got a looooong year of decluttering/cleaning ahead .

I have shined my sink today and it is looking lovely - showed it off to DP and 2DDs who were all very impressed!

I also got dressed to zipped up boots today (only ankle boots - nothing exciting!)

DP put away lots of laundry and I have almost finished all of the laundry piles that were waiting to be caught up with after being away over the holidays.

Tomorrow will really show us what I can do - DP is back to work and I have the girls by myself and have to go into work too. Then I am back to work properly on Wednesday.

i am hoping to start getting up earlier in the morning - DP gets up at 5 - 5.30am each day and leaves for work at 6.30am, which is when girls and I usually get up. We have to be out of the house just after 7.30am.

I am going to start off trying to get up at 6am and get myself ready before waking girls - I am NOT a morning person; I would be nocturnal by choice (but that wouldn't work with RL) so will probably have to think about getting to bed earlier too.

I have put on washing machine, hung washing, washed up, DH emptied dishwasher ( about the only useful thing he does). scoured the house for recycling and put bin out, harangued children til they sorted their bags and clothes for school tomorrow, cooked dinner, forced children to bath/shower/wash hair.

Still to do: ironing, put dishwasher on, wash pots.

will start shining sink when everyone back at school/ work (DH home til Thursday) as they always complain about smells of cleaning products.

The task ahead seems immense.....

Back home after a festive break, and the house is a tip! Haven't done a thing yet so will shine my sink tomorrow. Happy New Year to everyone

As mentioned before i have been ill recently and in and out of hospital. This means i can be in extreme pain at anytime

Today i managed to...
Dressed to shoes
wash up after breakfast
Half swish and swipe bathroom
then i was half dead in pain for the rest of the day until around 8pm, dont want to start again just incase, il just shine the sink before bed then thats it!

A lot less than i did yesterday but hey ho il start again tomorrow, would go sit in naughty corner but i think il just go to bed :(

Interesting that you have put the car into the zones. Fly lady actually has this as a task to do every friday.

Monday: home blessing
Tuesday: planning (including meal planning)
Wednesday: antiprocrastination
Thursday: Errand day
Friday: car and purse clearout
Saturday: family fun
Sunday: renew your spirit.

But this is additional to the babysteps so dont worry about it if you are just starting the babysteps. I happen to like these daily focuses and quite amused by the fact that fly lady insists that fri should be date night. in an ideal world perhaps

Tuesday: babystep 3

Today you practise your two new habits: keeping your sink shiny and getting dressed first thing in the morning, including wearing shoes. The third babystep is one that most of us ignore: explore Flylady's Big Tent group.

Today's mission is to clean the walls and windows in your dining room. (Tip: Magic Erasers are brilliant at getting rid of any marks.)

Tuesday is a free day. Reminders are here (more of that 'loving movement', RecursiveMoon ).

Sorry for not rounding up or answering anyone personally, but it's already past my 'bedtime at a decent hour' and it's an early start in the morning.

Correction: Tuesday is not a free day after all - it's the day you plan your week.

Off to work for a rare day in the office leaving DH to hold the fort/look after DS, so no flying here today other than the massive tidy I'll have to do to sort out the devastation they can wreak when left alone !

Thanks for this Toffee
Keep on trucking I say to myself perhaps it should be Keep on Flying!
good luck today everyone as life starts to go back to normal (?)after holidays.
We can do this

Morning all,

Was hoping to have a bit of time to catch up with my MNing this morning as DH has gone to the DIY store, but the DC already seem to be back on Austrian time and DD2 and DS are both up. I finally caught up on all the posts on this thread last night when I was in bed, but typing on my iPod is a bit fiddly.

Anyway, I was just going to say that I noticed a few of you had added the car to your zones but that according to FlyLady's system, Friday is the day for cleaning out your car (and handbag [which FlyLady, being American, calls purse]) but see that Bitchy has already beaten me to it. You don't need to worry too much about the daily focus if you've only just started on baby steps, but the link to Friday is here.