It is a battle for us because my wife is a hoarder. Not as bad as some of the ones on TV but still a hoarder. I have to just throw things away whether she likes it or not. She does not. She had a rusty bicycle that was falling apart and she hadn’t ridden it in over a decade. I had a huge battle to get it out of the garage. I often dump stuff at night before they pick up the trash. When she goes someplace for a day or 2 .I really clean up. It is a battle. Our house almost never can be neat. There just are not enough places to put stuff.
If you weren’t depressed before starting Flylady, you will be by the end of the first week or two. There’s only so long you can read multiple email forwards a day about how insanely simple it all is, no effort at all, the house just cleans itself, just like rolling off a log while you’re really struggling before you feel like the hugest fucking failure in the world and want to slit your wrists.
scifisam2009, he didn’t say all the housework could get done in 2 hours. He said the whole house could get cleaned in that time frame. And if you’ve not let it get heinous through the week, that doesn’t seem unreasonable for all the actual cleaning. Although, if you’re keeping up with the laundry and not letting it get out of hand, there really shouldn’t be more than a couple loads to deal with at a given time, so that’s still not terribly far off.
Get out an take a short walk in the sunshine, and then do *one *chore when you get back. Repeat every evening or morning, depending on when you have time.
Don’t let a perfect house become the roadblock to having an ok house.
Actually, for the naysayers (and everyone has to find their own path!), FlyLady has helped me tremendously. My house is still not “clean”, but she has helped in numerous ways. Some things have become so routine I forget I’ve done them!
One thing she advocates is laying out tomorrow’s clothes, tonight. When I started the program, I would lay out clothes for myself and my (then) 4YO. It got to a point where I would wake up in the morning and think "Thank goodness I have clothes laid out for me and mudgirl. Now it’s gotten so automatic that I’ll wake up and think "Damn! I forgot to lay out clothes for me and mudgirl, only to look in the basket by my bedroom door to see clothes laid out! It’s become so automatic I do it without thinking about it! Likewise putting away groceries (they used to lay in a bag on the floor, at least the non-perishables, for days at a time). Also, I always, always, always, start dinner with an empty sink. Dishes from tonight’s dinner will wait til tomorrow morning, but before tonight’s dinner was served, the sink was emptied of dirty dishes (I don’t have a dishwasher) and filled with hot soapy water. The dirty dishes from dinner will soak overnight, and I’ll wash them in the morning. It’s much less overwhelming to do dishes three or four times a day than once!
There’s more, but my 9YO is ready to go to bed, and so am I! Getting enough sleep is a big part of my “routine”.
Oh, the system is great. She however, is beyond obnoxious, patronizing, and smugly self-aggrandizing. And don’t get me started on when she starts talking about how not taking care of yourself leads to thyroid problems.
Well, at least her tinfoil hat is probably clean! 
I must have quit reading her before I got to the thyroid issue. As it happens, I do have a thyroid problem, and it showed up when I was 14 or 15.
To me, she sounds like a kindergarten teacher, all chirpy and and determinedly happy. I’m sure she’s a morning person. She also is under the impression that I WANT to like housework. I don’t. I regard housework as a necessary evil. The only reason I do housework is because NOT doing housework leads to an even worse situation. Cleaning house does not make me happy, it does not fulfill me as a person, and if household robots (not just Roombas) ever become a reality, I want one.
If I met her in person, and had to interact with her, I’m sure that I would have to slap her upside the head eventually.
Mostly, we just try to keep things picked up so it doesn’t get out of control and then try to do the actual cleaning on weekends when we have free time and/or things start to get visibly dirty.
The exception is the pet hair. We recently moved into a new house with wood floors throughout, and it’s much more obvious when we haven’t vacuumed than when we had carpet. So we pretty much have to vacuum more often than we would otherwise. Right now, I’ve been doing most of it, as Mrs. Giraffe has been super busy at work lately, but I’m expecting to get sick of it soon. A friend gave us their Roomba, which I’m hoping will help take the load off, assuming I can convince it to vacuum and not just get stuck on the bathroom rug.
Thinking about the Flylady method lead me to an important theory about housework “types” (which I will now share with you all of course ;))
This, is my theowy.
There are two types of cleaners. “Little Bit” cleaners and “Zone” cleaners.
“LittleBit” cleaners are natural “do it as you go” types. They may get depressed and overwhelmed by a really big job, but they can wash up a plate or straighten a chair without really thinking about it.
“Zone” cleaners, on the other hand want to be “in the zone”, so to speak. It takes a lot of initial effort for them to start a job, but once they’re doing it they can keep going quite a long time. It’s not really much more of a hardship to wash up a whole sink’s worth than a couple of plates, and after they’ve finished they tend to go “well, while I’m up I might as well vacuum/mop/dust/do laundry/whatever”
The Flylady method is trying to turn “Zone” cleaners into “Little Bit” cleaners, on the grounds that that is Just A Better Way. This is why she’s constantly admonishing her readers “don’t be a perfectionist” and “don’t do too much”. A “Little Bit” cleaner can wander through their day washing a cup here and wiping a mirror there and get to the end of it thinking “wow, I really didn’t do anything much today and look at that - my house is still clean!” because they didn’t spend moer than 5 minutes on a task, so it “doesn’t count”. A “Zone” person might do exactly the same actions, but when the day is over they think “Holy crap, I had to do housework on sixty-seven separate occasions! I’m wrecked”. They don’t care if each separate occasion was only 30 seconds of work, because the mental effort of deciding to do it in the first place was such a significant component of the effort involved in the task.
I’ve had success turning myself into a “Little Bit” cleaner in some areas - laundry, for instance I can just do automatically and not think about it. And I do think it’s generally a better way IF you can do it. But I know I still have big “Zone” tendencies so when I’ve done one job that I hate I always try to admonish myself - now don’t sit down, find something else to keep you occupied while you’re up. Which I know wouldn’t work for everybody, but it’s best for me.
There’s positives and negatives to both sides of this theory. For a “Little Bit” positive, it’s easier to wipe down the stove and countertops and other kitchen surfaces at least once a day, and immediately when one spills the pancake batter on the hot eye of a smoothtop range. This is because wiping stuff down is much easier than soaking and scrubbing and getting out a hammer and chisel once a week…or once a year.
On the other hand, washing the walls or floors is definitely a “Zone” type job, because it makes no sense to get out warm water and cleanser and scrub brushes to only wash a single square foot of floor or wall. Might as well do the whole room while you’re at it.
Housework? Are you JOKING? I went to Walmart the day before yesterday and I still haven’t found time to carry the bags in from the truck, much less put everything away.
(When I go in I’m carrying Celtling + whatever she brought home from school, purse, and if I’m lucky and make it down to the box, the mail.)
I have a housekeeper who comes once a week. If you want to come by on Friday or Saturday, that’s great. Otherwise, I sugget wearing your hip waders.
Yup, I clean as I go in general (spills, drops, pots that don’t go into the washer), but the floors are a “zone” thing; similarly, taking dirty clothes to the two wash baskets (dark and light) is “as I go,” items get folded as soon as they’re dry, but I don’t take the ironing board out for a single item.
I’m a single guy, own my home (1400 sq ft, 2 BR), and have a very large German Shephard. Growing up with a single parent who worked a lot, house work was not always maintained and to this day my mother’s house is very cluttered with various piles of stuff everywhere.
My friends will tell you I have the cleanest house they have ever seen and that they aspire to have their homes as clean as mine when I describe it as “A total disaster”. I don’t think I spend a lot of time cleaning really but do follow* a few simple “rules”:
[ul]
[li]I do laundry. A lot. Every other day on average I’m doing a load of laundry. Laundry never builds up to a mentally challenging obstacle of “There is sooo much to do!”. For me it is as easy as start a load of wash in the morning. Switch it to the dryer in the evening. Fold it the next morning and put it away. Total time working on laundry is maybe 15-20 minutes every other day.[/li]
[li]All mail is received daily, sorted into bills I need to keep and junk mail. All bills are removed from their envelopes and those along with the junk mail go directly into the recycle bin. This is a direct result of living with my mother’s mounds of mail, mostly junk mail, all over her table surfaces. Total time is maybe 1 minute.[/li]
[li]Dishes get rinsed off and go straight into the dishwasher. As a result, there are never dishes in my sink sitting (unless they require a hard, long soak). Total time is maybe 2-3 minutes.[/li]
[li]When cooking at home, I clean as I cook. If I use a cutting board and my good knives, it gets hand-washed while the food is cooking. If a skillet is used in cooking, once the food is removed for serving the skillet goes into the sink to soak while eating. By the time I’m done eating typically the only things left are cleaning the hard items (like skillet) and rinsing off my plates I just ate from and putting them in the dishwasher.[/li]
[li]I have hardwood floors and area rugs downstairs, wall-to-wall carpet upstairs. I vacuum 2-3x a week. It takes no more than 15 minutes to vacuum the entire house.[/li]
[li]My bathroom arguably does not get as much “deep” cleaning as it should. I do swish the brush around the toilet bowl 2-3 times a week, usually after using the toilet (after flushing!). I always wipe off the vanity top and mirror when shaving, brushing my teeth, washing hands, or any other activity that results in splatters. I make sure to close my shower curtain after a shower to allow water to drip off and the whole thing to dry to reduce mold build-up. (No idea if this really works but I don’t have to wash my inner shower curtain as often as I used to).[/li][/ul]
I’m sure there are more things I could put here but I think my overall success in keeping a clean home is this: I don’t let it get that dirty! By taking small steps through-out the day while doing the normal day-to-day things I just clean-up after myself. It takes only minutes per day of effort and the payoff is not having to spend hours (the mind boggles!) cleaning every week. When I do have to dedicate time to cleaning it is usually just dusting, windex the windows (stupid dog nose prints on glass!) and mirrors, and other type things. Maybe an hour or so out of a weekend.
MeanJoe
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- Follow to the best of my abilities. Somedays those dishes don’t get moved as quickly to the dishwasher after dinner and it may be the next morning or the mail sits until the next day’s mail. Sometimes life happens and things get pushed back a bit.
Bravo. This is the method I trained myself into - another poster called it “method mind”. Exactly.
I have NO INTENTION of spending all weekend cleaning shit, so it’s all going to be done properly before it becomes a problem, and in a very short time.
Laundry - in the basket. No exceptions.
Dishes - I might take 2 nights off “vacation”, but wind up so disgusted at the pileup that it isn’t worth is. Don’t make any and you don’t have to wash 'em!
Bed - make it, every day, before you leave the house.
Clutter - don’t let it occur. Sort mail near the trash/desk. File & shred immediately.
Bathroom - quick wipe everyday, general clean (15 or so minutes) every weekend.
I’m sure my mentality is a hangover from 18 years in restaurants & hospitality - another poster from retail mentioned “if you have time to lean, you have time to clean”. Positively annoying to hear from another person, but pretty straight-up from oneself.
Caveat: I’ve implemented this with pets, but no kids. Can’t comment on that.