July 2014: fledglings follow Flylady's tuition (don't forget your pamper mission)

[ToffeeWhirl]

A big thank you to slackcabbage for superb thread leadership throughout June, as well as a great intro which I am going to shamelessly borrow from now.

Struggling with C.H.A.O.S. (can't have anyone over syndrome) and S.T.U.F.F. (something that undermines family fun)? In that case, you need Flylady.

Flylady is a system for managing housework. Starting with babysteps, it builds up into a routine which becomes second nature. In theory, once you are used to the system, you will have a tidy house you are not embarrassed by and plenty of time to get on with more interesting things.

Flylady banishes the panicky "rabbit in headlights" feeling when you are overwhelmed and everything needs doing all at once. If you fall off the Flylady bandwagon, it’s no problem: you just jump back in where you are and carry on.

Don't sign up for the Flylady emails as you will be inundated! All the information you need will be linked here on this thread on a daily basis.

From the first of the month, Flylady's steps and routines will be listed here on this thread.

Flylady uses a three-pronged approach (dependent on the stage everyone is at):

1. start or repeat baby steps

1. repeat baby steps + do 15 mins a day decluttering in the current zone

1. reinforce babysteps and do daily missions if you have finished decluttering.

(And detailed deep cleaning in each zone for those who have made real progress – not sure if anyone has reached this pinnacle yet…? I certainly haven’t).

More info here on getting started (but ignore step one!) and Flying lessons. Here's the launch pad for more experienced fledglings.

Try to ignore Flylady’s purple prose (hard, I know) - the underlying system is sound!

Three key points to keep in mind:

1. No perfectionism allowed - this is harder than you would imagine.

1. You are never behind - just start where you are and anything you do is progress.

1. It didn't get into a mess overnight, it won't get tidy overnight - accept it will take time to get on top of things and you will be happier.

If you are new, then trying to spend 15 mins decluttering and doing the babysteps is the most you should expect of yourself. Lots of us here like posting our ‘to do’ or ‘ta da’ lists and they can look quite scary. Don’t be put off.

If all else fails, try the power of three – just pick three things that most need doing and focus on those.

And if you have visitors coming over this afternoon and need a quick fix NOW, try Flylady's crisis clean.

We all know each other pretty well on this thread and some of us have been around for a long time, but all lurkers, oldies and newcomers are very welcome!

Spent the afternoon in the sun rather than working thanks to a fire in the basement. Finally sent home at 4.30 ("go in get what you need and go home")
Cup of tea then will make a start

So I actually make it here on the first of the month and I find we're already on the third page! for thread leaders with many thanks.

I am seriously drowning in paper clutter here - I look at it, am totally overwhelmed, and give up. I think I am getting depressed by it and have a 'rabbit in headlights' feeling towards it. The trouble is, I can't just pick up one bit and deal with it because I know it has several precursors lurking further down the pile. The thought of sorting the whole lot into its umpteen piles is just too big a deal, and requires a timeslot so large I just can't commit to.

There are at least 20 different categories so the only strategy I can think of is to abandon any idea of 'touch only once' or even 'touch only twice' and sort into 5 piles - category A, category B, category C, category D, Everything else. Then put E into a v large box, A,B,C,D into smaller piles. Deal with A. Then B,C,D. Then start again by splitting E (now smaller than the original chaos) into 5 piles .....

Be honest, do you think this might work? Does anyone have a better idea?

Pretty much got my list done (including sweeping the fireplace finally!), but I didn't do the painting. Too lazy.

Still on holiday (nice and relaxing!) and thus not flying, although helping out MIL with emptying DW, hanging washing etc.

Got the rest of this week and then I'll be back to normal come Monday morning.

Away to catch up on the thread now!

Honu, what sort of paperwork are you talking about? I can recommend some strategies dependent on the sort of stuff if you like?

Omg I forgot how much you lot like to chatter.... Need to have a proper read instead of the skim read I just did!

As well as getting the house organised, we're also tackling our finances. Actual income vs out goings is not the problem, but we are very disorganised and as a result this is costing is more than it should. We've decided that every Tuesday (because that was payday this month!) we will draw out our spends for the week in cash. No debit cards, no withdrawing cash in dribs and drabs, but actually paying with real hard cash and keeping an eye on exactly how much we are spending.

First step in all that was trying the new lidl which is past 3 other supermarkets on the way but I'm hoping it will save us a little bit and let the weekly budget stretch a bit further.

ellie it's great to be back! how are you? Have I missed any news?

swan is that the one in Maidenhead? Ds2 likes to go there with a friend. :)

engels congratulations on the pregnancy how lovely :)

blue I think bi of our boys' schools are about to become academies. Hands have been forced by poor ofsted inspections. I can't help but think this was the plan all along. (By Gove not the schools).

I have delegated the mission to my lovely cleaner when she comes tomorrow morning!

Big waves to *PA droitwich SC toffee whoknows feet pmpy dizzy bitchy Alice castle mercury and everyone else I've probably missed.

Honu I have the exact same issue downstairs in our lounge, we attacked the last dozen or so boxes from three house moves which hadn't ever made it to getting unpacked and the leftovers are lying on the floor.

I need to work in there and have this enormous urge to go in and just throw away absolutely everything but there is important paperwork in there which needs correctly filing. It is getting me down though ans I need to fix it as we have guests coming in the next few months.

I have a confession - I was so tired today I fell asleep in the DCs tent in the playroom, not once but twice the first time dd1 woke me up by telling me she needed a wee (!) And the second time I woke up to find baby dd2 had climbed onto the sofa and was happily crawling along the back!

I am now off to work but so far have;
Put away all laundry
Done white wash
Hung out white wash
Put on dark wash
Gathered up all charity clothing to leave out tomorrow
Emptied kitchen bins
Harvested my first carrots, courgettes and green beans
swept kitchen floor
Made 3 beds and a cot, changed nappies and wiped bums, cooked three balanced meals and served two snacks, and drunk a bucketload of coffee.

If weather is nice this weekend I'm hoping I'll manage to weed the veg bed and borders, why do the weeds grow so much faster than my veg?!

honu I think it was Whoknows who said she sorted her paperwork in the evening in front of the telly.

Whenever I have sorted paperwork, what throws me is the actionable stuff ie: bills to pay, nos to ring, follow-ups. If if wasn't for those it would be straightforward, but the minute I see those I get completely panicked and feel I should be dealing with that lot instead of sorting the rest.

When you have found an answer please tell me what it is! Atm I think the most important thing is to have a proper place to put all the files, so that they can be labelled clearly. Which I don't have.

What does work for me are the boxes marked Car, House, Boiler/Electrics, Insurance, Bank, Medical (self), Tax, and then the giant Memorabilia file which is a bit of place to put anything I don't know what to do with So far I have always found the car stuff and the boiler instructions [yay!]

All the children's letters from school which are pending info trips etc go on a nail in the kitchen as if I put them individual files they get forgotten. The same nail has medical appt letters for whole familly. That works moderately well. Dh keeps passports in his filing cabinet. I cannot remember where the birth certs are, but I think both he and I have them buried somewhere in a very SAFE place. Sometimes I go through my filing and think oh never knew I had that - it makes perfect sense where I filed it, but if I had tried to actually find it, I never would have...ifysim. That's why a nice shelf with marked files is so helpful.

done
went to Staples bought boring protractors and clipboards!
picked up ds2 on foot from Tube
cooked supper (baked chicken and noodles)
shower
rushed back to school to Ds1's Belgian meeting. It's a choir/History/chocoholic trip. Not much fun sitting on a hard school chair - I felt my mind wander immediately.
Ds1 being tiresome and talks only of food and DVDs
drove home
lying down now. Thank goodness for the football so I don't have to interact with anyone for the next hour at least...
hung out clothes
loaded dw
gave instructions for more washing to be done

eyelet you need a medal for all that. Hope tonight you can get a bit more sleep. Even 10 minutes nap helps in the afternoon though. Does baby dd have a nap time usually you could institute as quiet time for dd1?

Evening all

Quietish day today, saw parents off at train station, not too sniffly this time as we go down to see them in just over 3 weeks. Then had a walk round the city looking at "arty" stuff as I'm running the craft part of a Woodcraft Stall at the Mandela Day Celebration at the Tramway / The Hidden Gardens on the 19th.

We saw How to Train your Dragon 2 yesterday, it's really good.

Done
Laundry hung out
Dry laundry away
Laundry in
Ironing
Dinner
Washing up/SS

Will fully embrace the flying tomorrow possibly

Honu That is the sort of system that I have when I tackle paperwork. I have several wallet files:

1. Needs urgent action
2. needs action
3. Financial
4. medical

etc plus a box for recycle, a box for burn/shredding and a box for the I can't be fucking arsed/have no idea/can't face.

It takes longer in the short term but means for me that i actually get stuff done because it doesn't matter if i don't get it done. Currently on my to do list is to file the financial stuff. It means one day i will sort. One day i will file. Urgent paperwork file is contantly updated and looked at (eg bills, letter from school/hospital etc). For me it really works. I have shifted around 12 boxes of random paperwork this year. Still have another 5 plus to go but progress is progress.

I have not done much flying, but have done much prep for teenagehood of ds. Like discussing hygiene and why cleaning teeth and having a bath is important. I suspect I will bore myself with having to repeat myself on this but hey ho.

So lovely to see the thread so full of fledglings! Looks like everyone is trying to get organised for summer!

Well we are on school holidays here. Today was the first proper day! I am doing an inservice course until Sat. It's a really lovely one which includes a field trip into the national park each afternoon, but today's was a 2-hour hike over rocky terrain in afternoon heat. I slept like a baby when I got home!

Still tired, so setting the bar low this evening...

To Do
Wash dishes and shine sink
Reboot laundry
Ring landlady to give notice....eek!

SC there are two months left. Had a panic when I read your message!

New house currently has no running water, heating is not connected up, septic tank has not been installed, kitchen has not been chosen/design finalised, no floors, nothing painted, no bathrooms fitted, doors need to be chosen and hung, ditto all other wooden finishes....argh! You get the picture!!!! Would you know I am married to the plumber? hmmmmm

goth i want to go see that. Ds is not convinced. So will probably wait til it gets to dvd.

Honu I am also drowning in paper clutter ...

Me too - paperwork is my nemesis. I have 2 huge boxes to sort through - yuck! In desperation today I've googled filing systems and looked at gtd (get things done). Looks so bloody complicated I had run out of energy just by reading about it!

Sometimes I get them down at the same time, but usually they tag team me, I can cope most days but I did struggle today!

Spurred into action I've just spent forty minutes tackling the floor of filing, now I can eat dinner in peace

Evening all.

Just sat down for the first time tonight. Have read thread but am that knackered, the only thing i can remember is that i am shit at paperwork like many others.

No flying to report at all. Been to work, been to dh's to talk finances (can 't quite bring myself to type STBX yet) which went as well as could be expected and had tea there with DC's. Pleasant evening in a bizarre way, underlining the fact that we could happily co-exist for the next 10 years but not as husband and wife.

Positive aspect of living with one's retired yet still active DM is that the housework was done when I got in as was my washing plus she has a dishwasher, every cloud has a silver lining and that.

Busy week ahead, visiting sil in hospital tomorrow night in a town 30 miles away (she has developed mental health issues) and then year 6 transition evening at ds's secondary on thursday which also happens to be my school so will be attending as parent not teacher! Weird!

Have a lovely evening everyone!

Bitchy not as good as the first, but some really funny bits and the obligatory bit where I had something in my eye sobbed Thank god it's dark in the cinema, I am such a wuss with animations, Toy Story 3 turned my into a wreck.

Ugh, filing is my nemesis too, always has been. For a while I had a system of dealing with it every anti-procrastination day, but that's been let slide along with everything else. Might need to get back to it.

Thanks for all the and general support over the last six months of school madness. NickNacks, yes, the politicisation of Ofsted is absolutely terrifying and Gove's agenda is undoubtedly to push as many schools into academies as soon as possible in case they lose the next election, and then get the rest if they win it. feet - DS2 will be going into year 3 and DS1 into reception next year, so they're right at the start really. May have to move house to get away from it - which is playing into Gove's hands as it removes resistance if there's ever the opportunity to change back (if law changes or whatever)...

Have done protest, been on telly (getting blasé about that now), been in paper, squeezed in some actual work, got an interesting new project for next week... but no flying. Oh, and had on a Tuesday! but felt it was earned.

Big waves all round. Night!

another fledgling checking back in - I didn't do very well in June (where did June go?!). Had a good start this morning tidying and cleaning for 40 mins downstairs as a friend was coming for coffee (nothing like a visitor as a motivator). I now feel inspired to do some more tomorrow but have too much marking to do in between Week 9 of my jogging course after the school drop off and helping with reading at school before pick up so there goes my July resolution...

Good evening, fledglings. Here are the links for tomorrow:

Babystep No 2 is a controversial one: get dressed to lace-up shoes when you first get up in the morning. Flylady believes that wearing shoes helps you be more productive; the laces are there to stop you slipping the shoes off and sliding back into unproductive mode again. Lots of us ignore this step which is why we spend more time chatting online than Flying.

Also remember to shine your sink again before you go to bed.

Wednesday is anti-procrastination day. More on that here.

Wednesday's mission is to sweep your front porch area around your front door. Shake out your welcome mat and wipe down your front door. Spend 15 minutes taking care of this. Sneak peek here.

The detailed cleaning list, for advanced fledlings, is here. We are in Zone 1 (front porch, entrance area and dining room) for the rest of the week.

Wednesday's flight plan is here.

Back in a moment with a round up.

I think I will be investing in a really good shredder. That should help with the paper clutter.

Well, total fail on getting the chores finished earlier, finished about half an hour ago but I've still got to put clean bedding on my bed.

My filing is somewhat out of control too, but I am confident I can find anything if I really need to. My best paperwork buy has been a stamp that obliterates confidential info, so I no longer shred (couldn't keep it out or plugged in because of the DCs so it used to mount up). I keep this stamp on the kitchen counter and go through all my mail stamping and straight into the recycling, gets rid of a lot, fast.

Honu - yes, Swan has a good memory! When I first started Flying, getting on for 5 years ago, I was out of work and had a little time on my hands. I decided to tackle a 20 year backlog of paperwork decluttering and did it over about 3 weeks, in front of the telly. I got each box from the loft, sorted it into shredding, keeping and recycling, one box each side of my armchair and one in front, glass of wine on the side. The shredding took weeks too, but I got there in the end. I then created a system of about 10 box files (work, pensions, health, children, house insurance etc, cars, tax stuff, other financial, you get the drift). When each one gets full I have a throwout, tax stuff gets saved and some of the other bits. but a lot can be got rid of after a year or two. However I am not very good at maintaining my system, I tend to just generate a huge filing pile and sort it about twice a year.

On the decluttering front - I was very good this afternoon, grabbed a handful of carrier bags, filled 5 of them and took them straight to the charity shop. Not much actual cleaning, but I tried a new tactic for tidying with the DCs, they were allowed a bit of extra TV on while they tidied the living room but the minute one of them stopped moving the telly went off, a sort of reverse musical statues. Worked quite well!

Other than that:

Two loads of washing done and dried on line
Various emails, cheques written, online payments etc
Several birthday cards bought, one posted
Pilates class (cycled and went for a bit more of a ride afterwards)
Lunch
School runs
DD to dance class
DS to Cubs
20 mins at the allotment with DD while DS was at cubs, she loves it up there, we then picked up DS and his friends and distributed them all home, so were out walking for another 45 mins after the allotment, lovely evening for it
One eye on the football all evening - play up Belgium!

My new notebook to-do list is working really well. Every night I take it up to bed with me, also my phone as that has my calender on it, go through the day's list and carry stuff forward to tomorrow, then take it all down in the morning to my handbag and off we go. Better go, night night Fledglings.

Rollcall of July fledglings (so far): PA, Engels, feet, digger, SC, NickNacks, Who, droit, Mercury, ellie, Blue, Goth, Kia, Misfit, castle, Alice, Still, Eyelet, Swan, Bitchy, Fraggle, pushme, dizzy, jacks, Honu, Carpe and newlark.

(With apologies for lack of bold type for the names, but I'll be here all night if I do that!)

We had a guest of honour today: PA visited us ! Great to see you back here, PA, and glad to hear you and your family are all together again, even if you are having to dodge pigeon ammunition.

The bad news for Engels was that she woke up thinking it was the weekend. The good news is that she has finally had some assurance that she will be removed from the work activity that’s tipping her over the edge .

Feet is facing a busy few weeks. She’s hoping to get a cleaner for July .

Digger is hanging on to the bandwagon and trying not to fall off again.

Has anyone seen SC since she ventured in to her boudoir to declutter? . She may be buried under piles of clothes or else is possibly drowning in Hama beads. She needs to get herself out from under the clutter to take her DD to her ballet workshop tomorrow.

NickNacks is back ! She forgot how much we like to chat (how could she?) and is busy decluttering house and finances.

WhoKnows is overwhelmed with things to do and considering giving up the PTA. The overwhelming concensus amongst the fledglings is yes, the PTA has to go.

Welcome back, droit - glad to see you managed to get home early, but sorry to hear about the fire at work.

Mercury has a ta da list before most of us are even out of bed . She is fed up about returning to old part-time job and night shifts .

Ellie is being stalwart about changes in life and has been tackling finances with her ex. She luffs us all (and we luff her).

Blue – Wishing you all the best for your peaceful protest tomorrow. It’s just not fair. Nobody can say you didn’t try your hardest.

Goth is waving off her parents tomorrow.

Kia is joining us. She’s planning a carpet shampoo and has reminded me to sort something out for our own carpets (friend has promised to lend me her carpet cleaner thingy).

Misfit has friends who sit in the garden and read . Maybe they are advanced fledglings.

Castle is jumping in for a productive July, as she’s preparing to move house in August.

Alice has cleverly talked herself out of today’s mission. She is planning to spend more time crafting in the evenings.

Still is despairing at towering DVDs.

Eyelet is exhausted by small children. Sympathies – it’s unbelievably hard work.

Swan had an incredibly busy day ahead of her and, understandably, didn’t make it back to us today. As if she didn’t have enough to do, she was even planning to go for a swim!

Bitchy and Goth discussed ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’. My DS2 would love to see that – he couldn’t put the books down.

Bitchy has been training her DS in matters of hygiene. Good luck with that. Years of reminders have turned my DS1 into some sort of wolf child.

Fraggle did too much! Flylady says only take out what you can put away in half an hour, or something like that. Hope you got the mess sorted.

Pushme didn’t come back after going to Ikea .

Dizzy dealt with frustration over DH leaving his job by swimming 100 lengths! Hope your DH finds another job without too much trouble, dizzy, but I know it can’t be easy for either of you.

Jacks is in the naughty corner .

Honu is drowning in paper clutter. I can’t help because I still keep all my papers in carrier bags, unsorted.

Carpe is enjoying a much-needed holiday.

Newlark did a crisis clean, inspired by a visitor.

DH, DS2 and I are off to London tomorrow to visit art galleries and take DS2 on a surprise boat trip . Will be back for round ups in the evening. Hope you all have a lovely day.