September Flylady: Fledglings inspired to make a fresh start at the beginning of a brand new term!

[mixedpeel]

Whether you're starting to build a new routine, stuck in a rut, or been around for years, join us on the monthly Flylady thread! Flylady has created a series of daily and weekly prompts to help anyone who finds it tricky to get or keep their house clean and tidy. She totally gets it if you feel overwhelmed or don't even know where to start - as do we! The best thing about Flylady is that you are never behind - just jump in at whatever point you are at, and do what you can.

This is a long running thread, but as a newbie myself I can confirm everyone is very friendly and all are welcome to join in. We spur each other on, but also commiserate when life gets in the way and we don't get as much done as we might have wanted to.

There are 5 zones that we will rotate through:
☀️Entryway, porch and dining room
☀️Bathroom & one other room
☀️Kitchen
☀️Master bedroom & master bathroom
☀️Living room
We usually link to the daily missions (jobs to do in whichever zone we're in) every day, but the new website doesn't seem to be working for me right now. I will keep trying, but they should update every day so you can click the link yourself to check. We will post the missions in the thread too so don't worry about missing anything. Most importantly, don't worry about finishing it all this month, it'll come around again next month! Flylady is NOT about perfectionism!

Do NOT sign up for the Flylady emails - it's an excessive amount sent every day. I have taken one for the team but use a junk email address. I will check them periodically and report anything interesting / useful

Flylady also tries to help us get into habits so that eventually we do things without even having to think about them. She has 31 baby steps to gradually pick up (on the previous website, since the link isn't working on the new site yet): https://mymerrymessylife.com/flylady-31-baby-steps/

Daily focus: each day of the week has a different focus. It's not all jobs jobs jobs by the way.
Monday: Home Blessing (or as we call it, home bleugh)
Tuesday: plan & play
Wednesday: anti-procrastination
Thursday: errand day
Friday: clean car & purse out day. It's also date night (with your significant other, or friends, or yourself!)
Saturday: family fun day
Sunday: renew your spirit

If you can, it's worth downloading the app (link on the flylady website), you can even have it send you notifications. You can also modify the tick lists to suit your home & lifestyle. There is a paid version and a free version, though the missions haven't been updating on the free app.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have, some posters here have been doing Flylady for a very long time, and others are just starting out. We may have other things to add that we have found works for us that could help you too!

Common acronyms we use:
LOL: load of laundry (washing is certainly NOT funny!)
DW: dishwasher, we are not rotating wives by any means, although an extra pair of hands could come in handy sometimes 😆
S&S: Swish & Swipe (wipe the bathroom sink & toilet)
LMS: lose/lost my shit
DNLMS: did not lose my shit
There are probably more, feel free to ask us to explain something!

@Alwaysgrowing hope your DS feels better soon. You do right to take the chance to have cuddles with him.

I've completed my first home blessing this evening. Between 5:15 and 6:15 I . . .
💛 wiped down shelves and surfaces
💛 brisk clean of bathroom
💛 Vacuumed
💛 Changed DD's bedding
💛 10 minute tidy up of DD's floordrobe

Then had a break, ate some food and then at 7pm I . . .
💛 washed dishes
💛 put recycling out
💛 wiped down surfaces
💛 cleaned hob
💛 wiped cupboard doors
💛 sweet kitchen floor
That took about half an hour.

Then DD wanted ti do some colouring together so did that for a bit and now we are settled on sofa together with one of the cats.

Monday is quite a good day for me to do a bit of extra cleaning. Don't have any other commitments and it tends to be a leftovers for tea night.

I have managed my home blessing tonight so feel happier than yesterday.

For detailed cleaning sheets, I found these when looking at another website. I have no idea if they are originally from flylady or someone's own interpretation but I find them useful
dianedenmark.com/printables/

The organised mum Christmas has been popping up on my Instagram, I don't like the organised mum method (I have tried it before and flylady is suiting me much better) but I do like the idea of starting to think about Christmas now so might try and include that a bit in my planning.

I am plodding ahead. I put my study into this zone so spent a lot of time on that on Sunday. Today I worked a lot on the kitchen and it looks amazing but I do need to work on the insides of the cupboards! A lot of crap there, but today I concentrated on the bigger picture. I think I have the upstairs airing cupboard in this zone, so will do that tomorrow.

@HedgehogNotes and @Frumpyunicorn, congrats on both achieving a Home Blessing! Glad Mondays will work out for you generally, Hedgehog, and definitely good to read that you’re feeling happier today, Unicorn. I’m pretty sure the merrymessyhouse woman in the link I found actually references your Diane Denmark person, so I think she’s another one to take Flylady as inspiration.

@KitsyWitsy for a so-called plodding approach you’ve managed loads more than me over the past couple of days. Fantastic work on the kitchen by the sound of things.

Here are Tuesday’s things:

Babystep 8: start creating a Control Journal
https://mymerrymessylife.com/flylady-31-baby-steps/8/

I’m too much of a newbie to say much about this, as I haven’t started such a thing yet, so you can read more in the link or ask others on the thread whether they think it’s useful. I think the idea is to have all your relevant info in one place, so as you develop a morning routine you write it down, likewise evening routine and before bed routine. This will build to have all sorts of notes and lists, I guess for example you can create your own version of the detailed cleaning lists we’ve been discussing, to suit your house.

Tuesday is Plan and Play Day. Look ahead in your calendar so you don’t get caught out by last minute things you should have had on your radar. Plan in some fun stuff too. Planning doesn’t always have to be grindingly dull - make plans that fill you with excitement! Or take a leaf out of @Frumpyunicorn’s book and start planning ahead for Christmas.

Zone 2: Kitchen: Mission 2
Clean out your cutlery drawer. Where do all those crumbs come from when only clean cutlery gets put away? And what is all that Other Stuff in the odd shaped section in which the bottle opener and chopsticks have been joined all kinds of weird bits and bobs? Anything that shouldn’t be there: out out out it goes.

Sneak Peek of the rest of the week’s missions:

Zone 2: Mission #3 Wednesday
As it’s anti-procrastination day, get strict with the contents of your fridge. Chuck out anything beyond its use by date, or jars which have been open way longer than is recommended to keep them by. What recipe did you even buy that for anyway??? But in the spirit of anti-procrastination, also get rid of things that may still be in date but you just know in your heart of hearts no one is going to eat. That new salad dressing your DD begged you to buy, and it has a funny aftertaste…whatever, if you aren’t going to use it, get rid of it. You’ll know what you need to put on your shopping list when you can see what you actually have that is usable in your fridge.

Zone 2: Mission #4 Thursday
A quick and easy mission today: tidy your cling film, foil and baking paper drawer. Or wherever you store these. Is there an empty box in there, or do you keep buying foil because it gets taken out for craft projects and then there are a gazillion half-used rolls? Is your cling film impossible to use and actually just brings on rage? Do you have random plastic bags that need to be collected up into one place so they are easily reached when needed? Keep only the things you know you will use and leave the drawer looking lovely so that everything can be found by everyone who might need it.

Zone 2: Mission #5 Friday
The final day in the kitchen! Just spend 5 minutes on a quick sort of all your cleaning supplies under the sink. Again chuck out any item you never use, and make a note of essentials you’ve run out of. Stick them on your shopping list and enjoy the upcoming weekend!

Flylady had a "cruising through the holidays" on her old website. The plan was to be ready for Christmas at the beginning part of December so you could just enjoy the festivities. As if you were going on a cruise, or something to that effect.
It was nice to think about being ready and calm for Christmas. If you do a Google search it will link you some videos, but also give you a quick review of what it is. There is also a YouTube video from flylady herself.

I wish it was on the new site, I really liked it. I think she does post about it on her Facebook page, you just have to scroll for ages to get to that post. So it does make me wonder if she emails them too 🤔

I've had a busy day today (Monday).
Ta das:
🍁 rotated DW 1st thing
🍁 dressed & ready for the day
🍁 took down birthday banners
🍁 helped DH on and off throughout the day with his motorcycle
🍁 finished draining the pool
🍁 dried the pool fully
🍁 put the pool away
🍁 put the hoses away that I used for draining the pool
🍁 LOLs x2
🍁 figured out how I'm going to build a creepy fence for Halloween (I'm going to turn our front garden into a cemetery!), using scrap wood we have

I'm tired and my whole body aches. I'm glad I don't have to work tomorrow!

I love the sound of being ready for Christmas by start of December! I'm hosting this year for first time in ages and really looking forward to it. Going to look up the YouTube videos this morning.

OK so cutlery drawer today. I think I'll aim to do that whilst I'm cooking tea tonight. We had our kitchen renovated last December/January (a project that was 10 years in the waiting) and did a huge clear out back then. So actually shouldn't be too daunting to give it all a wash and wipe down the drawer.

I do like how manageable and low pressure the Flylady approach seems to be. Makes me feel like I can stay on top of things

TaDas from yesterday.
Kitchen 50% deep cleaned.
2 LOLs (dried but not put away).
More odds and sods on the dining table of doom, ready for the Anglo man.
Today's TaDas so far.
Dog blankets in the wash.
I usually wait until I'm down to one clean blanket because I do a service wash afterwards and find cleaning the filter such a faff especially as I can't get up from the floor very easily these days.
Happy flying everyone!

Just cannot log into the fly lady app today, no matter what I do. I don't understand what's going on with it. I signed up with apple but it won't let me get in or do anything. just lots of 'whoops'. It's getting really annoying.

That’s a real frustration, especially when you’ve shelled out for the paid version. I don’t know how long the app has been in existence - could it still have bugs?

Tadas:
Went to work
Posted birthday card in the very reliable post box near work
Did some planning with DH for upcoming extended family big 0 birthdays
Caught up with yesterday’s hob mission while cooking dinner (homemade chips in the oven before needed hob for veg, so used time wisely)
Also did the cutlery tray after dinner. Not much untoward in there, just a sizeable collection of pet med syringes needed to come out. And yes, some crumb-age in every section. How, just how??? However, my main lesson is that I would never have done this today were it not for Flylady.
DW on, all handwash stuff done.
Took out compost veg choppings and fed rabbit evening provisions while running a lovely hot bath.
Enjoyed bath (I like to renew my spirit more frequently than just on a Sunday!)

I finally got into the app but didn't end up managing to do anything today. Very frustrating since I only planned to do the airing cupboard but our waste disposal got blocked and we had to go out for plungers and unblocking stuff.

Good news on app access, bad news on blockage. Hope all resolved now.

Here is Flylady’s morning musing: https://flylady.net/morning-musing/time-in-a-bottle

@mixedpeel I love a restorative bath on any day of the week!

@KitsyWitsy sounds like you've had a day of annoying disruptions, hope tomorrow you have a smooth easy going day to make up for it.

Tadas
💛 Kept many plates spinning at work with only minor breakages for which I am awarding myself a ⭐️.
💛 Booked an appointment with a stylist to get my colour season analysed. I'm still not a hundred per cent sure whether this is a real thing or not, but I've been curious about it for ages so I'm just doing it.
💛 Made tea
💛 Washed cutlery drawer
💛 Went to Bible Study
💛 Washed dishes

Also tadas for DH for keeping on top of laundry, getting soaked on the rainy school run and doing bedtime reading with the child.

Here is your Wednesday info:

Babystep 9 is the 5 Minute Room Rescue
https://mymerrymessylife.com/flylady-31-baby-steps/9/
Here is another Flylady classic, up there with shining your sink or 2 minute hotspot. Set a timer for 5 minutes and just see how much you can do in one room of your choice. You’ll likely be amazed how much better it will look after five measly minutes of your time! This is a great one to do with kids too, and very easy to exploit any competitive impulses (equally good with partners) to see who can do the most in five minutes.

Have this one in mind for those times when you just don’t know where to start. Random room, set a timer and off you go. Flylady is making the point that tidying/cleaning doesn’t necessarily need to take up all our time. We can achieve visible improvement in short sharp bursts.

Wednesday is anti-procrastination day. Anything buzzing around in your brain you’ve been putting off? Just go ahead and flipping well do it. I’m going to pick up the rubbish that collects outside our house (we’re on a main road and a corner of a side road, so we have lots of places things blow into and stay). I keep seeing it every time I come home, but it’s never the right time to get gloves on and pick it up.

Zone 2: Kitchen: Mission #3
As it’s anti-procrastination day, get strict with the contents of your fridge. Chuck out anything beyond its use by date, or jars which have been open way longer than is recommended to keep them by. What recipe did you even buy that for anyway??? But in the spirit of anti-procrastination, also get rid of things that may still be in date but you just know in your heart of hearts no one is going to eat. That new salad dressing your DD begged you to buy, and it has a funny aftertaste…whatever, if you aren’t going to use it, get rid of it. You’ll know what you need to put on your shopping list when you can see what you actually have that is usable in your fridge.

Sneak peek of the rest of the week below:

Zone 2: Mission #4 Thursday
A quick and easy mission today: tidy your cling film, foil and baking paper drawer. Or wherever you store these. Is there an empty box in there, or do you keep buying foil because it gets taken out for craft projects and then there are a gazillion half-used rolls? Is your cling film impossible to use and actually just brings on rage? Do you have random plastic bags that need to be collected up into one place so they are easily reached when needed? Keep only the things you know you will use and leave the drawer looking lovely so that everything can be found by everyone who might need it.

Zone 2: Mission #5 Friday
The final day in the kitchen! Just spend 5 minutes on a quick sort of all your cleaning supplies under the sink. Again chuck out any item you never use, and make a note of essentials you’ve run out of. Stick them on your shopping list and enjoy the upcoming weekend!

Can't sleep so I've got out of bed and put my laundry away, had a little tidy up and a cup of tea.
Been on Amazon and put some dish cloths and tea towels in my basket.
Going to try to sleep now.

Christmas.... we've not decided/talked about Christmas. It's hard to agree. This year I'll be on maternity leave and I work in a hospital so don't normally have the whole holiday off. My baby will be about 3 weeks old. I'd love to just go to my parents and let them look after us. But I've not discussed it with DH yet. They're 3 hours away and rural. My DH has felt quite trapped there in the winter and prefers the summer. Plus, he'd be far from his family. So I've just put off talking about it. He may actually be keen. I think my kids would love being there on Christmas day. My parents are coming to stay with us around my due date. So we could send them up with kids Christmas presents from Santa if we do decide to go.

Housework wise.... we're barely keeping on top of the basics. Our elderly dog had a couple of no 2 accidents this week. DH has spent hours deep cleaning the carpet last night. But I do just want to rip it out. He's a downstairs dog and we have no downstairs toilet so I think I'll be living upstairs and out the house most of the time with this newborn.

I read the daily musing about time in a bottle. I do feel I've been wasting time this morning.

I've also never finished babysteps. Or maintained much more than cleaning the kitchen sink. I threw on a dress from my floor without a bra and a fleece and went quietly downstairs. I really need to focus on getting my clothes ready the night before then getting dressed first thing. But, it could wake the household and it's a good routine for us if I wake up before DH, to get dressed when he's having breakfast with DS later. It's better now he's 3 years old, but it used to be the worst thing if the 2nd person to wake was DS while I was showering.

This morning tadas
3 minute hotspots
Emptied food bin

To doSo. I have a day with ds. I was going to do the farm as he keeps talking about it, we have a term time pass so not been for ages. But I don't really want to.

Hang up washing that's just finished.

Clean dog bed

Pack novel toys for DS. I plan on taking him to a family excersice class. Last week I didn't bring toys. The other babies and toddlers sit near their mums colouring or playing toys (they happen to all be girls) while my ds pretends to run away. Sprints around giggling, climbed furniture and hit the back of his head.

Maybe the fridge mission. Allthough the fridge is DH domain. Might make some soup too.

Thanks for the flylady Christmas info @HazelNotHungryLC I will look that up. I did s&s yesterday and lol, and also sorted my cutlery drawer which really needed it. Our work on the house has now finished, although it needs redecorating, so I am going to try and have a sort out before putting stuff back. I also have a couple of things to photograph and put on marketplace so will aim to do that today.

@Alwaysgrowing, it sounds like you’re giving yourself a hard time over the babysteps. My take on them is that if they don’t serve a purpose in your life as it currently stands then you can ignore or adapt them. For example, it sounds like as a family it makes sense for you to continue how you’ve been going in terms of when you get dressed.

A poorly dog is always going to interrupt smooth running of a household. Commiserations there. It’s not great to be anticipating life with a newborn trapped upstairs or forced out of the house… probably well worth that chat about the carpet with DH as he might be horrified to think that’s the likely impact on you. If you replace it with vinyl flooring it will be much easier to clean up any future accidents. We eventually replaced all our downstairs carpets with cleanable vinyl as our dog has a house dust mite allergy. It’s honestly warm underfoot and fine for children to crawl/play on, and now the dog is older and has the occasional night time wee, it is an absolute godsend. Ours looks like wood flooring.

And look at the timestamp of your tadas - you’d already done hotspots and food bin by 6:10am!

It also sounds well worth raising the Christmas conversation with DH. This year is going to be very different from normal with a newborn, so he may well be more positive about the idea of going to your family than in past years.

edit to add your DS sounds fab, and he won’t be the only DC to have ever charged around at that exercise class. Hope you went and had a good time.

Here is Flylady’s morning musing: https://flylady.net/morning-musing/keep-it-going-while-decluttering

@mixedpeel thanks for that, very helpful perspective. I have adapted babysteps. And I went through I period of getting washed and dressed as soon as I woke up and it did make me feel good. Maybe He had a great time. I do keep saying I want rid of the carpet downstairs but my husband likes it. We have vague plans to remove part of it. We want to keep it for the rest of our dogs life though for the grip. Another thing about floors, we took some pullback cars to the class and he had a great time with them before the class started an the hard floor and they don't work on carpet.

Tadas:
Got DD to school on time.
Did excersice class, with bag of toys... jigsaw was good.
Emptied upstairs bins
Ate leftovers from the fridge for lunch (partial mission)
Put DS uneaten s
Hung up washing
Cleaned kitchen sink
Loaded some things in dw

To do
Collect DD from school
Clean and tidy kitchen sides
Clean and mop kitchen floor (optional)
Have a diary chat with DH

Anti-procrastination Tadas today all after dinner:

Filled brown bin (garden waste) in time for collection tomorrow
While garden gloves were on, picked up rubbish from verge outside house
Took out large gangly houseplant that’s done too well in the entrance hall but gets in the way and I don’t look after it well enough. Been meaning to do this for ages. Replaced with smaller houseplant that’s been getting in the way of the bathroom door on the upstairs landing.
Found garden spade behind gangly houseplant - returned it to back garden

To do:
Fridge mission. Will have time during day tomorrow as wfh.

Thursday 10th info:

Babystep 10: the power of 15 minutes https://mymerrymessylife.com/flylady-31-baby-steps/10/
Following on from the 15 minute room rescue of babystep 9 where you discovered how much you can do in 15 minutes in one room, this step just says why not set the timer and do 15 minutes through the house anywhere that needs it. Could be decluttering, could be a quick sweep or mop, could be taking @PamelaColmansMustard’s tip of essential oil on a duster making your furniture gleam and smell divine. Again it’s getting across the principle of little and often being the way forward.

Thursday is errand day. Take this how you wish: try and get as many errands done in one trip, or just run that one essential errand and feel a sense of achievement at another thing ticked off the list. If you don’t have any time today, you could at least plan when you’ll get your errands run before next Thursday.

Zone 2: Kitchen: Mission #4
A quick and easy mission today: tidy your cling film, foil and baking paper drawer. Or wherever you store these. Is there an empty box in there, or do you keep buying foil because it gets taken out for craft projects and then there are a gazillion half-used rolls? Is your cling film impossible to use and actually just brings on rage? Do you have random plastic bags that need to be collected up into one place so they are easily reached when needed? Keep only the things you know you will use and leave the drawer looking lovely so that everything can be found by everyone who might need it.

Sneak peek for tomorrow’s mission below:

Zone 2: Mission #5 Friday
The final day in the kitchen! Just spend 5 minutes on a quick sort of all your cleaning supplies under the sink. Again chuck out any item you never use, and make a note of essentials you’ve run out of. Stick them on your shopping list and enjoy the upcoming weekend!

No tadas for me yesterday, worked late and then had a committee meeting in the evening and then went to bed. Today I gotta be in work for 7am 😭 and there's lots of fiddly bits of work that need sorting out this morning that I kept waking up and thinking about in the night.

But after today, work stuff will calm down and I'm already planning to use the extra hours I'll be owed to take a Friday off at the end of the month.

Tonight's plan:
Empty fridge
Pack for weekend away (going to a family birthday party)

TaDas
Cleaned the dog room, washed all dog duvets/ vet fleeces.
Cleaned washing machine.
Mopped kitchen floor (why do coffee granules turn into concrete?)

ToDos, too many to list!