[QUOTE=Zsofia]
Because you’re going to stay in your pajamas with your three hundred babies in diapers otherwise, and you won’t “do your face” or “fix your hair”. And you’ll never catch a man that way.[/QUOTE
I’m thinking if you have “three hundred babies in diapers” you probably have already figured out how to catch a man. 
When I was on it years ago, her explanation for the shoes was that a) having shoes on “tells your brain it’s time for work” and b) having tie shoes instead of slip-ons prevents you crawling into the bed and napping all day.
Yep, there is a certain “honey, if FlyLady rings too true to you, you should probably talk to your doctor” truth to FlyLady. Not that her hints aren’t bad - I give my kids grocery bags and tell them to find 20 things to throw away. And I’ll use the 15 minute timer trick too. But I’m not wearing shoes.
FlyLady was enormously helpful to me once I took all the good bits, bought the book to refer to and unsubscribed from the damn e-mails. I even keep a control journal, do a morning and night routine and so on. And yep I’m a stay-at-home mom with 2 kids under 5.
Her style completely drives me right out of my tree, but the underlying concepts work, if you need some direction to keep your house from sliding into a clutter nightmare. I can’t remember the last time I shined my sink, but Monday is my Living Room day, Tuesday is my Kitchen day, Wednesday is my Bathroom day and so on.
For me the best part of having a cleaning system is that it allows me to forgive myself filth the rest of the week. If I see big cleaning jobs that need doing in the bathroom, but it isn’t Wednesday then screw it - it can wait.
Lord knows her style isn’t for everyone. It isn’t even for me. But a checklisty thing with the stuff I need to get done each week to stay on top of the mess? You bet.
Wow. I read this out loud to my husband and we spent a good 5 minutes laughing hysterically. He was actually doubled over on the floor. So, congratulations on a fabulous rant. It is an inspiration to those of us who would rant in the future!
I don’t know if this bit of housecleaning advice would help at all. I have been a rather messy person for most of my life. I’m a “packrat” kind of person who keeps boxes of old letters and crap like that–and, as a result, I get so overwhelmed by my own stuff. Last year my husband did the majority of the cleaning. It’s just hard for me, when I have to clean, to persevere. I get overwhelmed very easily because of all that stuff.
So over Winter break, I did something rather novel. I got rid of a bunch of shit. I mean, a ton. I saved only the most important letters. I got rid of all that crap I’ve been keeping out of guilt because it was a gift – my husband helped in this regard, he can literally get rid of something he doesn’t want within hours of receiving it, guilt free. The idea, if you struggle with the pack-rat tendency, is to just get rid of anything you aren’t ever going to use or don’t want–no matter how guilty that might make you feel. I had to let go of my attachment to stuff. It was difficult. I had about seven large plastic bins stacked in the corner of our only bedroom (1-bedroom apartment, very small space)–in one day, I narrowed it down to a solitary bin. We had an overflow of books so we bought some new bookcases. The key was GETTING RID of stuff --some we donated, some sold on e-bay, and the junk we just threw away.
My point is, once all that extraneous crap was gone, we were left with a very small amount of stuff to organize. It made cleaning SO much easier, and much less overwhelming. So we cleaned the house to spotless-- EVERYTHING has it’s place, which isn’t as hard because there’s at least 50% less stuff than we started with.
Next: the challenging/weird part. You have to seriously pick up after yourself EVERY TIME. If you use a glass, you don’t leave the room until you’ve taken care of the glass and put it in the dishwasher/hand-washed it and put it away. If you buy something new, the first thing you have to do when you get home is find a place for it. As someone who is perpetually lazy, this part SUCKS. Make the bed every morning, first thing when you wake up. If you read a book, don’t leave it sitting somewhere–put it back on the bookshelf. After the first few times doing this, you come to realize it doesn’t take much time at all. Making the bed every morning is a pain in the ass but it takes 30 seconds. Pretty much all this “picking up after yourself as you go” shit takes like 30 seconds per event.
Believe me, it’s WORTH it. Our house has been spotless for nearly a month. I don’t mean it gets messy and then we clean it again–I mean it still, after a month, looks as clean and organized as it did one month ago, and it has day after day. Every weekend we vacuum and dust and clean the bathroom and all that odd stuff–but because there’s nothing to pick up off the floors, this takes approximately 1 hour to complete. So if you can take those odd 30-second events of always taking care of shit immediately when you’re done with it, you can look forward to spending maybe an hour a week on upkeep. No shit.
I’m only suggesting this because I feel like a miracle must have happened. You would cry if you knew how much junk I had and how cluttered this house–all of my living spaces, throughout history, ever–used to be. I wouldn’t believe this were a possibility if I hadn’t seen it happen myself. So if I can do it, anybody can.
Step 1: Get rid of everything you own that is not fundamental or necessary to who you are as a person. Don’t second guess yourself-if you thought for a moment it would be good to get rid of, you’re right. (I don’t know if you suffer from pack-rat syndrome or not–but that’s where it started for me.)
Step 2: Find a place for everything. EVERYTHING.
Step 3: Never let anything get out of place for longer than you’re using it.
Hope that helps in some way, at least. If it doesn’t, please don’t pit me.
Olives,
Christy
Olive, that’s exactly how my wife and I live. The amount of stuff that we don’t have compared to other people is stunning… and yet we’re always complimented on how clean our house is.
Hmm, if someone suggested to her that wearing shoes in the house would likely add to the filth and clutter than otherwise, do you think she’d be pissed?
I could have written this post. I hated the website and the emails, but I got the book and used the ideas. Having a structure and days to get the jobs done helped me a lot. And I even know that if I miss doing the bathroom this Thursday, I’ll be doing it next Thursday, and it won’t be that bad in between.
My mother is a slob and a packrat and I took after her, never learning how to clean or to take any pride in my home. I truly didn’t have a clue yet wanted a presentable home and didn’t know where to start.
Pre-internet a good friend introduced me to The Side Tracked Home Executive because I was moaning about my nasty house yet again. I devoured the book, learned a lot, implemented a few routines and started decluttering but something was still missing.
Then I heard about Don Aslett and bought his books Clutter’s Last Stand and Is There Life After Housework? Hungrily read them and decluttered a bit more.
Flylady came along and I subscribed because although I knew what I was supposed to do, I just wasn’t doing it on a regular basis and I thought her reminders would help. That was back in her early days and she was helpful in getting routines established. Then I went to work outside of our home and the house went to hell in a hand basket.
Somewhere along the line, I took everything I’d learned from all three systems and modified them to fit our home. First I used an index card system similar to Pam and Peggy’s. Then, I tried to design something using Outlook’s task reminder. Finally, I just put all of the tasks I wanted to get done into a weekly table with chores divided into daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi annually, and annually and laminated that sucker and taped it to the front of my refrigerator. That’s what has worked most consistently.
A few months ago we moved into a new house that perfectly suits my soul. I was determined to get rid of everything I absolutely didn’t love before we moved in and keep up with my routines. I resubscribed to Flylady as a checkpoint to see if daily reminders would help me keep on top of things in the new place, but have recently decided to unsubscribe because of all the touchy feeling stuff that she’s incorporated - blech! I don’t need no freaking purple puddles of tears to inspire me, TYVM.
Anyway, what has worked consistently over the years for me is to make a master list of what HAS to be done year round and dividing it into manageable daily list that are arranged in a weekly calendar format. It’s been tweaked a few times depending on my working status. I also visit Organized Home fairly often to get inspiration. I’m in the process of retweaking my weekly cleaning calendar because the AdoptaKids are older and taking on more responsibilities now, and frankly the chores have changed to suit the new house.
Best of luck in figuring out what works for YOU. Some folks are born organized (not me!), some find success with a system designed by someone else (definitely had it’s time in my life when I was learning) and some of us use a system uniquely our own that we’ve designed based on what we learn from others. Whatever works - the journey is worth it. Clean and decluttered is infinitely better than messy and embarrassing - I should know - I’ve been on both sides 
She recommends shoes. They don’t have to be outside shoes. She suggests if you’re worried about tracking in dirt that you keep a pair of house shoes for wear indoors only.
My mother* gave me her book several years ago, and I signed up for the emails. It was the “Shine your Sink!” bit that got me.
My sink is 60 years old and cast iron - you know, that white porcelein over iron? It’s old and chipped, and the shiny finish is worn off on the bottom, so it’s a permanent shade of off-white. Scrubbing it makes no difference. I was stopped before I even started.
The constant barrage of perky reminders drove me nuts.
*Yeah, thanks, Mom. What were you trying to say?
My mom could be FlyLady. She loves doing housework and has a ‘system’ for everything.
I signed up once and then fled without reading many e-mails, just because the freaking volume of messages was obnoxious. How am I to shine my sink when I spend 80% of my time decluttering my inbox?
Honestly, my house is not very neat, because I’m kind of lazy. I complete some project (such as cooking dinner) that takes energy and leaves a mess, and I can’t bring myself to expend more energy right after to clean it up. However, I do know some good tips that have helped elevate us from “total dump” to “a bit of a mess.”
#1. THROW SHIT OUT. I used to be a packrat, and it was very liberating to finally just trash stuff. It makes it so much easier to keep things tidy and find things!
#2. Make a home for everything. Still working on the practical application of this, but it’s huge. So much of our clutter has been free-floating detritus that has no coherent storage place. So it gets moved from countertop to desk to stuck on the fridge, and so on.
#3. Before cooking, make sure the dishwasher and drainer are empty, and fill (one half, if you’ve got two) your sink with hot soapy water. This makes it infinitely more likely that I’ll clean up after cooking, and that is the mess that is most likely to get away from me.
#4. Have an all-purpose cleaner at hand. I use a recipe from the ammonia bottle, with ammonia, rubbing alcohol, detergent, and water. Cleans counters, helps kill germs, and you can use it on the bathroom mirror or windows, too.
#5. Have one of those Scrubbing Bubbles flushable-pad toilet scrubbers in every bathroom. I realized I was postponing cleaning toilets because it was so icky to use the brush. Now I will just pop in and clean the bowl, takes about 60 seconds.
Numbers 3 and 4 I got from Confessions of an Organized Homemaker, which despite its name I think would be useful to anyone. Some good, concrete ideas and organizational techniques in there.
There’s also The Well-Ordered Home: Organizing Techniques for Inviting Serenity into Your Life, by Kathleen Kendall-Tackett. I have not read this at all, but I have met the author, and she is smart as a whip and very down to earth. She is also a research psychologist, and she has lupus, so getting things done with a minimum of time and energy is vital for her.
I subscribed to Flylady for two years and spent most of that time leaning on the delete key. I would have been happy with her e-mails if they stuck to the reminders. It was the “God Breezes” and barely conceled sales efforts and gushy testimonials that drove me crazy. I couldn’t stand them and stopped even reading the reminders.
I did recently stumble upon a service that sounds like what you are looking for Motivated Moms. It’s a PDF calendar/checklist. You do have to pay $8 for it, but it wasn’t much and worth it to me. She’s got daily chores and weekly chores. It’s all in a list with little boxes you check when you finish it. You can print it up and hang it on your fridge or whatever. I’m still only doing about half the chores but it’s been much more helpful than Flylady. (who should be shot for just trying to push that Saving Dinner chick on everyone. those dinners are nasty!)
btw, I registered just so I could make this post.
And with a great username. Welcome aboard.
thank you. 
Oy, Flylady.
I went on her website a few years back, when our 3rd child was born. We live in a smallish house and with kids–there was a lot of clutter.
First off, I dislike perky people on general principle. If I had to choose between Katie Couric and Louis Black, I’ll go with Mr Black, everytime.
I was also put off by the whole sexist crap. I do not derive meaning in my life from a tidy house. End of story.
I, too, was overwhelmed by the emails–I can only imagine chained acolytes, drones, really–genetically programmed to do Her bidding…
I told my pastor’s wife about the site. She loved, loved, loved it–but she also loves sweatshirts with puppies on them. I think it’s designed for a certain demographic, really.
But, Flylady DOES have some good ideas. I use her “one drawer” approach. Sometimes I do “one thing”, but often I’ll tidy just one drawer. Most times that spurs me to do more, but the commitment to only do one drawer stops the work from being so overwhelming.
And I completely agree with olives --get rid of the clutter! I have been actively working on this for a few years (as the kids outgrow the larger toys etc). Each time I send something to Vietnam Vets or Salvation Army, I feel like I lost weight.
We are still cluttered, but not nearly so badly. Also (not related to Flylady), having 2 people die in 6 months, and one person move, all using your house as a clearing center for items to be disbursed to others etc, makes for an end to ANY attachement to material goods. I am cured of being a pack rat.
My mom loves FlyLady, and I figured, what the heck, I’d give it a try. Ye gods and little goldfish! Didn’t take me long to unsubscribe from that. An added drawback to the glurgefest was being on Hawai’i time, so I had a mailbox stuffed with an East-coast morning’s worth of crap that made me feel behind the eightball before I could even get started.
I did use Pam and Peggy’s Sidetracked system in the early 80s (and remained curiously unscarred by the horrible poetry. I think I must have skipped it, because I didn’t even remember it being there.) and it worked really well until I had a baby and everything went to hell and gone. I’ve considered re-vamping it in some form to get back on the wagon. The house is reasonable, but what I liked best was that you only had to do one huge unholy bout of thinking and then you pretty much didn’t have to think again. You just did it.
Regarding the shoe thing, I seem to recall that the suggestion started out as a joke in one of their workshops. They kidded that everyone should run out and get “professional homemaker” white uniforms with hairnets and support hose and nurse-type work shoes. One woman did just that, and came back complaining about the hairnet, but raving about the shoes. They picked some up themselves, found it helped their stamina and honestly recommend them now for that reason.
Since, as has been noted, I live in Hawai’i, I don’t even wear shoes outside the house and I’m sure as heck not gonna wear 'em inside. But that did sound more reasonable than FlyLady’s draconian approach and idiotic reasoning.
And actually, this is a good bit of advice. Shoes that fit well and give support really do help one to feel better about physical activity. When I worked in retail, I frequently wore support hose and a “control panty” even under slacks, because this helped me cope with long hours on my feet. However, to simply say that EVERYONE has to wear laceup shoes because the Authority Figure said so just won’t fly with me. One size does NOT fit all. One remedy does NOT cure all.
As for the hairnets…I do pull my long hair back in a ponytail when I clean, but I don’t put it in a hairnet. I suppose I might put it up in a bandanna or scarf if it were shorter, just to keep it out of the way.
Just a reminder - the shoes aren’t for cleaning. The shoes are for living. Wearing shoes to clean your house is one thing. Wearing shoes because you otherwise might crawl back into bed, or assuming I don’t ever wear shoes because I’m a woman is quite another.
Today I put on my shoes, just like the FlyLady said! Then I put on my nametag and went to work, like I do every day. Thanks, FlyLady, for the help. Without you I might have stepped on a nail or something!
I, uh, got a card box last night. I’m going to try a two pronged approach - SHE for long term, FlyLady for cleaning up now. And actually I’ve been beating the FlyLady at her own game - now I’m two rooms reasonably clean, and I think by now I’m supposed to be lacing up my shoes, shining my sink, and loving myself. (Note to self - new vibrator time!)
I have got to admit, however, I do kinda like looking at the sink. I mean, I didn’t Windex it (are you crazy?) and I DEFINITELY didn’t use car polish (I mean REALLY crazy?) but I did scrub it. And last night after I poured a bunch of half-wine bottles out, I did in fact wipe it out again and felt pretty good about that.
Seriously low blow, however - yesterday was trash pickup day, and somebody stole my empty trash can and left me their full one! Asshole behavior any day, but when I’m trying to clean?! I’mna call the city and see if there’s any numbers or something on those things, and then when I get home I’mna see if it’s got any mail in it. Because if it does, I’m so diming the po po.
I work full-time and am a single mom of two. The first thing I normally do when I come home is take my shoes off and not put them on again until I’m ready to leave the house again.
I have noticed that when I DON’T take off my shoes I am more likely to stay active and do things around the house. I guess because I associate not having shoes on with relaxing and having shoes on with doing something. I’ve even noticed that if I get dressed first, including shoes, the morning routine goes a lot faster. I think I just slow down when I don’t wear shoes.
So her way of expressing the idea of wearing shoes at home may be sexist but it does have an effect even on people who work outside the home.