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.

please can I rejoin? Hello to everyone who has name changed so that I don't recognise them but might remember me from previous flylady threads.

It works so well when I can be bothered to stick to it!
Drowning in new toys but have found homes for most of them today. At least I can see the carpet in the children's rooms again now.

I'll offer round the sherry with the christmas cake today and look forward to starting on the 1st

Marking place but running scared of so many people on here all of a sudden! Won't be around properly till Jan though...

Broom - No, you are supposed to be waiting until the first babystep, in January, so relax and enjoy the new year (in your pjs)

I've almost definitely come across you somewhere then Ice cold. I've not been around much recently but first found MN in 2005, and was a regular for a few years. Feeling very old now.

I know a shouldbe......

Oh hellooooooo shouldbe!!!

I have namechanged but will pm you to let you know who I am when I get on the computer. So lovely to see so many oldies here

bitchy after the madness of Christmas I believe we need calm and soothing in the naughty corner this month. Maybe some whale music and wind chimes. I quite fancy some hammocks.

Is it me or does this thread feel like an amalgamation of a number of seperate long running threads? Good grief we'll end up needing to declutter ourselves at this rate .

Right so far we have a collection of old established flyers who had the original fly threads by the sounds of it

Flyers from other parts or not posting on a thread thus fairly experienced

Flyers from the other fly threads

And complete newbies to the system.

I must confess that few of us on the fledgling thread haven't got out of the decluttering and mission phase into the deep cleaning zone section. But we have all come from complete chaos and have worked our ways to less cluttered houses, so the newbies need to take note that this is not about a quick fix.

I am hoping that some of the more experienced flyers will be able to help with the questions of newbies and less experienced flyers as the thread seems to have exploded exponetially population wise and as a regular it is a little overwhelming so whilst we try to do a round up each day I am going to suggest to toffee that she just sticks to posting the links and key aspects. I know having lead the thread in previous months that the rounds up can be incredibly intimidating during a busy month. However, if you feel that you have a few moments to summarise what people have been up to please feel free to do so, we like to embolden the name of the person we are talking to/about just to help with quick flicking through. Sorry if this seems a little harsh but the size of the thread is going to mean a completely different approach to the previous ones otherwise poor toffee will end up having a nervous breakdown.

Good thinking Ellie - hammocks and palm trees, sun and sand too?

Yes, Bitchy - your summary sounds about right, but from past experience, trying to spilt the groups into seperate threads just kills it all off.

I'm new to the leading a thread thing. We had daily threads started by whoever was up first in the past, with relevant links in the OP, so everyone just looked for the new thread each day (or week once we got quieter). In fact I think the seperate housekeeping topic was devised so non-FLYers could hide the huge number of threads we seemed to start.

I'm fairly sure that I'm not the only old FLYer who is back because it works better with chat and support, and who also never quite made it to the deep cleaning zone bit.

And some waves lapping on the beach please. A good book, a vat of that wine you gave to toffee and a sunlounger as well.

Get to it. I am relying on you bitchy to make my naughty corner experience that bit more relaxing to assuage the guilt from doing fuck all.

I didn't sugest trying to split it up just suggested there were too many people to do a thread round up each day which we have had the luxary of previously except when i have been leading cos i is crap

I suspect that the thread will self limit and settle down as the month progresses however, don't expect it can continue in its previous formate which was more suitable for a smaller thread. I mean we werent even filling one thread up in a month most most and this thread already has over 150 posts before the 1st. It is fabulous so many people want to get flying to work for them, but it will take me forever to figure out who is who doing what and where iyswim. And tbh i am pretty crap at anything other then dumping list, rambling and running normally.

Meh will just go with the flow and see what happens. besides am fucking off out for training later and back to full training schedule hopefully this month so wont be about too much anyway. it will be an exciting start to the year in fledgling land.

Fly newbie marking my place.... am feeling inspired having read the thread and know I have a lot to learn - housework and tidiness are not 'within' me iykwim....but am hoping that learning a manageable routine etc will help...

And now off to clean the sink :)

Thanks for all the advice etc, already feeling inspired!

Consider it done Ellie. Shall i meet you in the naughty corner say about 7pm on the 1st? Start the year as we mean to go on?

Marking my place ready for the New Year! I have an 8 week old and am definitely feeling overwhelmed about keeping on top of the house maintenance so am looking forward to establishing a routine... and being a domestic goddess of course!

It's a date.

Can you make it 8 in the naughty corner?

Got a DS to put to bed and I don't want to miss the and hammocks

OOh I could never do a daily thread roundup if there were more than about four people on the thread.
I've only just worked out the naughty corner.....I may be booking myself a permanent seat there. Can I have a nice squishy bean bag please?

With pleasure Jas. Yeah sounds more realistic when ds gets back 8pm it is Flying

I'm back on my phone and works looking fairly quiet for the next month or so so I'll try with personals to help toffee and bitchy!

Also with questions...I know the basics at least

Good grief. Just checked and was on the FLYing threads from 2087 but was FLYing long before that. Scary how time flies (no pun intended).

Errmm not 2087... 2007!

Something tells me that its the habits that we are going to find the hardest to put into place that'll make the most difference....

Pray tell me - what does one do with a DH who,after I've washed up twice in the evening to leave the kitchen tidy,shuffles in at 11pm-ish from his snooze,makes something to eat (and in the process makes a mess) then buggers off back to bed leaving it all for the fairies to tidy????And that,sadly,is a regular,and much rowed over,habit.....

Waving hello

Thursday before Christmas I took the whole day off work. I cleaned, polished, tidied, scrubbed, washed, wept, and collapsed into a tiny little heap. House looked lovely though. After that I established a number of rules and to my total amazement the house still looks tidy 'ish', still clean and no paperwork in the kitchen. What has helped is explaining to DH that the house was at baseline stage, and each evening it needs to get back to baseline.

We both work full time (thou i do wed-sat) I'd like to develop a house schedule with chores each day, DD is almost 18 months and terrified of the Hoover which makes it hard to do the carpet as often as it needs. I also have a 'study' full of paperwork, craft things and my phd work much of which needs to be filed so I have space to do my phd and to craft! It often gets used as a dumping room and I avoid it most of the time.

So, I'll try flying!

I would like to post regularly. Last month I started shining the sink and started to feel a lot better. Still can't quite believe the two are linked.

I move house on Tuesday and most of our belongings are in the bin instead of coming with us! I think I may have gone overboard with the de-cluttering...