Welcome to the November Flylady thread Fledglings! All are welcome here. A few of us have been around a while but everyone, newbie and lurking, is welcome to join in.
This is my first time running the thread so I hope other fledglings will alert me when I’ve got things confused or if I’ve left something out!! A busy month for us all with the holiday season looming next month…
Very simply Flylady is a zone-based cleaning system which we loosely follow. Everyone is different and has different rooms and life demands. There are five zones and at the beginning and the end of the month we usually straddle Zone 1 and zone 5.
(amend rooms to suit your house – I do the living and dining room together as it’s all one room in my house)
November
Zone 1 Hall, entrance/dining room (Fri 1 – Sat 2)
Zone 2 Kitchen (Sun 3- Sat 9)
Zone 3 Bathroom and another room (Sun 10- Sat 16)
Zone 4 Master bedroom/closet (Sun 17 – sat 23)
Zone 5 Living room (Sun 24 – Sat 30)
Pop onto the Flylady website to have a closer look but signing up for emails will probably lead to very many landing in your inbox. Also there has been some concern about securely downloading pdfs from the site. here
Flylady has an introductory scheme for newbies called Babysteps which is a light 31 day introduction to the system – dressing to shoes, shining your sink etc. What I like about Flylady is her emphasis on self care, her abhorrence of perfectionism and her adage that you’re never being behind in the system - just jump in. No need to completely clean your house before you start – phew! here
There is a morning routine and an evening routine to keep things ticking over and a weekly home cleaning hour to change bed sheets, mop, hoover, take out rubbish etc. The system isn’t brilliant for major decluttering so you might want to supplement with Kondo or another decluttering system. Flylady doesn’t want us cleaning all day so she is very keen on using a timer. Clean then stop!
In addition each day has a purpose: see the daily focus here
Monday: Weekly home cleaning hour (can be split into ten minute sections and spread over week) here
Tuesday: Plan and play (Menu planning, family event planning)
Wednesday: Anti-procrastination day
Thursday: Errand day
Friday: Clear out bags, fill car with petrol, date night
Saturday: Family fun
Sunday: Lift your spirit
Launch pad for guidance every day! launch pad
Habit of the month of November is meal planning. This is my Achilles heel! here
We have a lovely virtual naughty corner where we can all retreat – there are all manner of lovely things left there by thread members including fluffy pillows, warm blankets, tea, coffee, wine, delicious foods. This month there are plenty of candles to brighten the darker days.
There may be mention of Ned who started life as an autocorrection on the thread but who has now morphed into a virtual helper with a specialism in putting away laundry. Ned is borrowed by thread members from time to time when the going gets tough on Mount Washmore.
Most days we pop on to post our ta da list of what we’ve managed to do and have a bit of a natter.