Here, try Motivated Moms instead. It’s not a holistic approach and doesn’t expect you to dig down deep to find your inner tidy.
It’s just a manageable list of things to do every day/week, so that your place is reasonable and you’re not overwhelmed. I despise housework, but I find this doable.
Some of my girlfriends have been following it for years. It’s a WAHM business, $8 for the download (free sample available on the website).
Oops, I see Miss Wodehouse beat me to it – sorry. Just adding more testimony.
[QUOTE=SpazCat]
She recommends using car polish to shine your sink? Are you kidding me? The sink isn’t to look at, it’s to use! Useful things don’t have to be that freakin’ shiny!
My sister used to use Flylady after her first child was born. I don’t know if she still does or not, but she certainly has kicked the slob habit she had when we shared a room. I need to follow her example, but I won’t be using Flylady to do it. I’m using the “clean one room/section of the house a week” method and it seems to be going well. When I remember. :o
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I hate to admit this and your all going to think I’m nuts but I do polish my sink.
But wait!! I got a new enamel sink and according to the book you can’t use soft scrub or anything abrasive and they recommended this gel polish. I got it at Home Depot and you rub it on, wait for it to dry and rub it off. Otherwise I don’t know how I’m supposed to clean this sink.
This is the first enamel sink I’ve owned, I used to have a stainless steel sink. So If I don’t have to do this, please tell me.
[QUOTE=fessie]
Here, try Motivated Moms instead. It’s not a holistic approach and doesn’t expect you to dig down deep to find your inner tidy.
It’s just a manageable list of things to do every day/week, so that your place is reasonable and you’re not overwhelmed. I despise housework, but I find this doable.
Some of my girlfriends have been following it for years. It’s a WAHM business, $8 for the download (free sample available on the website).
[/QUOTE]
Are there any of those systems for working women? I’m a girl who needs a system. All of this stuff seems designed for a SAHM. I need a somewhat pared down and weekend-loaded schedule. I’m never going to clean the outside trashcan on a winter Wednesday in the pitch dark when I get home from work. Likewise, I’d like more tasks on Saturday than changing towels. Trying to keep up with a schedule made for a SAHM is an exersize in frustration and failure.
[QUOTE=Caridwen]
I hate to admit this and your all going to think I’m nuts but I do polish my sink.
But wait!! I got a new enamel sink and according to the book you can’t use soft scrub or anything abrasive and they recommended this gel polish. I got it at Home Depot and you rub it on, wait for it to dry and rub it off. Otherwise I don’t know how I’m supposed to clean this sink.
This is the first enamel sink I’ve owned, I used to have a stainless steel sink. So If I don’t have to do this, please tell me.
[/QUOTE]
I have a stainless steel sink, so this may not work for you. I squirt some dish soap in it, give it a good once-over with a Marvin the Martian scrubber reserved for that purpose and rinse it out. It gets everything out except the really glued-on stuff that you need a razorblade to scrape off.
[QUOTE=SpazCat]
a Marvin the Martian scrubber reserved for that purpose
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Oooooo! I want a Marvin the Martian scrubber!
[QUOTE=Obsidian]
Are there any of those systems for working women? I’m a girl who needs a system. All of this stuff seems designed for a SAHM. I need a somewhat pared down and weekend-loaded schedule. I’m never going to clean the outside trashcan on a winter Wednesday in the pitch dark when I get home from work. Likewise, I’d like more tasks on Saturday than changing towels. Trying to keep up with a schedule made for a SAHM is an exersize in frustration and failure.
[/QUOTE]
I would recommend the book Home comforts for you; it has excellent advice and is addressed to anyone at all. There is a chapter devoted to working out a schedule that suits you. Be warned, however, that she lists every single possible chore–not because she actually thinks that anyone could or should do them daily or weekly, but in order to remind you that they exist and should be put on the list every so often.
[QUOTE=Obsidian]
Are there any of those systems for working women? I’m a girl who needs a system. All of this stuff seems designed for a SAHM. I need a somewhat pared down and weekend-loaded schedule. I’m never going to clean the outside trashcan on a winter Wednesday in the pitch dark when I get home from work. Likewise, I’d like more tasks on Saturday than changing towels. Trying to keep up with a schedule made for a SAHM is an exersize in frustration and failure.
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The email reminder stuff usually does work best for people who are home through the day and can do stuff as the reminders come up. Really, though, when you cut through the motivational stuff and get right down to the brass tacks, these systems are basically checklists. A daily list, a weekly list, and a monthly list.
You can make your own lists, laminate them, and stick them someplace you can’t help seeing them. Then physically check things off as you get them done, and the next day (or week or month) wipe the chart and start over. It requires a fair bit of thought at the outset, figuring out what needs to be done and how often it ought to be done, but after that you just follow the checklists.
Personally, I try to keep the daily list pretty simple–keeping up the laundry and dishes, spending five or ten minutes throwing away crap, and another five or ten minutes doing surface tidying. If you do that, it makes the weekend cleaning so much faster and easier. It also minimizes how much I have to deal with on those days I come home feeling like I’ve been beaten with a lead pipe.
The weekly and monthly stuff I like to spread around as much as possible, so I don’t feel like I’ve just been hit with an avalanche of crap to deal with. Small jobs like dusting or pitching green leftovers or watering plants are good for weeknights. (Do the leftovers the day you take the trash out to the road, in case something smells…not so fresh.)
The other thing to keep in mind is that it’s the little jobs that make the most difference in how clean the room seems when you scan it. Totally counterintuitive, but absolutely true. Your kitchen can have all sorts of questionable substances on the floor, there can be a quarter-inch of crud on the stovetop, but if you get the dirty dishes and big chunks of stuff off the sink and counters, the room looks pretty clean at a glance. Conversely, if your floor and stove are freshly scrubbed, and you’ve got dishes on the sink and used cutting boards on the counter, the place looks filthy.
[QUOTE=dangermom]
I would recommend the book Home comforts for you; it has excellent advice and is addressed to anyone at all. There is a chapter devoted to working out a schedule that suits you. Be warned, however, that she lists every single possible chore–not because she actually thinks that anyone could or should do them daily or weekly, but in order to remind you that they exist and should be put on the list every so often.
[/QUOTE]
*Home Comforts is an awesome book. I’ve, obviously, never done the scheduling, but it’s a fantastic reference book, especially if you get it and, say, one of the Queen of Clean’s books. It’ll have all the information you need when you actually get around to saying, “Huh. Maybe I ought to actually mop.” or “Well, shit, how exactly do you hand wash a silk sweater?”
[QUOTE=Sattua]
To tell the truth, I have always wondered about what having a cat would do to one’s housekeeping. Don’t you have to either put everything away, where they can’t get at it, or resign yourself to it being destroyed? As a knitter, this question has bothered me perhaps more than it does most people.
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Yes, as a knitter I can tell you that! One of my cats loves yarn (only the good stuff, he WILL NOT ACCEPT the dollar store acrylic I tried to give him). The other cat loves everything else knitting - needles, notions, etc.
At least the yarn-loving cat isn’t generally destructive. He just picks up the ball of yarn, shakes it, puts it back down, and moves on to the next. It’s like he feels he has to kill them for me before I can knit with them.
Yep, you have to put away your yarn if you want it to stay knitted or knittable. Some cats enjoy eating yarn (very bad for their innards, they can die from it), needles, pins, threads…I have to make sure to put all this stuff in a catproof container when I’m done with it, which is good in a way. This or this might result, otherwise.
God damnit thank you! I know this post is so old, and it pisses me off even more that this bitch has been nagging people and making money of this for so long.
I downloaded the app after watching a Tiktok by someone who uses this method. It looked to serene having an organized and clean house.
I want those habits, I do, but you know what I don’t want- to be the ONLY one who cares about those habits and to be solely responsible for cleanliness because of my gender. This app is so fucking gendered it makes me sick. Do husbands or men not care about having a clean house? Why are we ENCOURAGING them not to care?
In one of her fucking zone cleaning sections she says to “put plants in shower and rinse them, but don’t forget to put them back when they are dry! You wouldn’t want DH to walk into a jungle in the morning for his shower” 
firstly, I had to google what DH was (dear husband:nauseated_face:) because I’m out of this housewife blogging loop apparently. This infuriated me- the idea that as women we are cleaning FOR someone else. No thank you. Maybe DH could do that himself or deal with it in the morning like we are dealing with his fucking messes all day. And then I immediately googled is flylady sexist? And came upon this old ass post. God forbid people want strategies for cleaning and organizing that don’t involve self worth and being the unpaid fucking custodian staff for your DH to have a pleasant shower before work. I actually think I’ve rebelled against these duties in my marriage because my husband and I are equally messy, and therefore equally forced to have to clean urgently before guests and that puts us on the same equal ground of household responsibilities. We both work, we are both messy, we both participate is emergency cleaning. But as I’ve tried to change emergency cleaning into a daily habit flylady method I realize that means I have to take on that full responsibility now. He doesn’t want to participate in zone cleaning. He’s fine being a slob. Where does that leave us? This app was not made for two working partners who have a messy home.
So fuck you flylady. I’m already in therapy for my own shit and I’m getting out of your sexist gendered cult of housewives. Maybe these women don’t need to tell themselves they are worthy and need to tell their partners to help the fuck out so they actually FEEL worthy. I’m sure no one will read this, but I needed to write it down.
Welcome to our community. 
I read it and appreciated it. You can rant like the best of us here. Welcome!
I tried FlyLady back before this post came out, probably 2005 or so. Mrs. Cheesesteak was completely disinterested in participating, so I had to do it by myself until I gave up in frustration. It’s still a bit of a sore point with me 15+ years later. I do like the idea of starting with one place you keep clean, and having a plan to attack the rest of the house, whether it’s in 15 minute bursts, or some other method.
Maybe I’ll bring it up again with the Mrs. just to see how she reacts.
Fuck you, FlyLady! Go @Jmartin10! 
I miss so many people in this thread.
Also, twice monthly housekeeping is by FAR the best system we’ve ever come up with. Works way, way better and worth every penny. Twice the pennies.
I miss my Marvin the Martian scrubber. I lost it several moves ago.
I suggest Unfuck Your Habitat as an alternative to FlyLady. As you can probably tell by the name, their tone and approach is very different. 
Tiptoed around the website. Placed a hold at my library. Thank you.