The bills are easy: As soon as you get a new bill – and it shows your previous payment was recorded properly – toss the old one.
Really. You have no need to have more than a single bill each from your gas/electric/charge cards/whatever.
And, if this ever worries you, know that your bank keeps copies of all your checks virtually forever. So the absolute worst that could ever happen is you have to pay a small fee for a paper copy if you need to prove you paid your electric bill in June 2004.
As for the divorce stuff: yes, you should probably keep it, but you need to realize there is “keeping” and “keeping.” Your filing cabinet is absolute primo filing location, intended for stuff you need to get at frequently. As in, at least several times a year. Go to Staples, buy a packet of Banker’s Boxes. (They’re cheap, generally a three pack for a few bucks.) Use a “Tall Kitchen Size” plastic bag to line the box and pack all the divorce papers into it. Seal the bag well, close the box, tape and label it. Then shove it into the most out of the way, useless space in your house. Attics are good, basements are okay (that’s why you lined it with the plastic bag, to thwart humidity.)
Then enjoy the extra room in your filing cabinet for stuff you actually use.
That’s really good advice, about keeping vs. keeping and what kinds of things go in a file cabinet. A new way to think about something that seems obvious once you hear it. Thanks!
Has she ever said why this is forbidden? I subscribed to her emails for about a day but was inundated with the same crap about shining my sink and whether I was wearing proper shoes or not, so I unsubscribed pretty quickly.
This will change by location, since it involves what does the legal system accept as a document, but one reason I pay and charge anything that’s going to be on my tax statements to a single bank account is that the statements from it are considered valid documents in my legal system.
That is, once I can download the pdf from the bank saying I paid 43.34€ to the power company on Feb 10th 2013 for a power bill for the address Mystreet 6, 3B, Myvillage, there is no need to keep the bill (either paper or pdf). The look in the faces of the most technophobic people at the Treasury when they ask to see a bill and I pull out the netbook with its USB modem is just priceless and, since I move a lot, it means there is no need to worry about where the pile of paper is: no pile of paper!
I don’t recall her reasoning, or whether there was any beyond her personal taste and her refusal to acknowledge situations differing from hers (such as not everyone having a laundry room with folding table/counter available).
I do not wear shoes at home. I don’t care if others do wear theirs in my home, I just don’t care to.
Yeah, that was part of what drove me batty about Flylady - wtf? What’s this about polishing my sink? Putting my shoes on first thing in the morning? What does this have to do with the piles of paper on my desk?
Oh, and the “pile everything under the sink under the sink” is just not going to work for me. If it’s out of sight it’s never going to get cleaned up.
And I agree - she focuses entirely too much on SAHM’s.
Flylady’s overall system, not surprisingly, seems to appeal most to people in her former situation, which seems to have been ‘Christian SAHM experiencing a major depressive episode.’ I’m sure that’s the reasoning behind things like ‘put on shoes no matter what’ and ‘clean and shine the sink no matter what’; those are on the ‘probably able to get out of bed’ scale of things one can accomplish and take some level of pride in having done.
Missed the edit window: And that’s fine, and there’s certainly a need to target that market, but I think that’s why it bothers a lot of people as well. Her system is aimed at a core audience of Christian women who at the very least have low self-esteem if not depression and whose main job revolves around keeping their own houses clean, and uses a system of following her special rules to get things done, because they may at this point need someone sweetly ordering them around in order to progress at all.
shining your sink is something small and easily accomplished and gives someone struggling with cleaning something to hold on to as being clean. It is a daily task so it gets someone in the habit of doing a small thing everyday that they can look at and take pride in.
The shoes are because you are more likely to stay on task and complete if you are dressed properly. she suggests that if you don’t wear shoes in your home get a pair of “inside only” shoes.
I don’t know why the laundry shouldn’t be sorted on the bed except maybe she has found you less likely to complete sorting and putting away laundry if you get all comfy on the bed.
I get tired of the constant emails to throw away stuff (21 item flings)when I am not at home. She also told me that it doesn’t have to be 21 things thrown away but I could find 21 things to donate (like the piles of paperback books I need to get rid of)
I looked at Flylady once, but I found her to be annoyingly cloying and sexist, assuming that only women have these problems. I’m a single guy. I’m practically the definition of clutter.
I do have a bit of cat hair on the blanket (I don’t bother with a bedspread). OTOH, the stuff pretty much floats around until it has something to land on, so nothing around here is cat-hair-free anyway.
I am off work until Monday. I was supposed to finish cleaning my kitchen today. Instead I cooked, napped and then cooked some more. I now have chili, an improvised sausage and white bean dish, and rice all ready to go in my freezer. I think tomorrow will be finishing cleaning the kitchen and then Friday and Saturday will be more cooking.
It was the notion that the sink is “smiling” at you, and piling anything in the sink under the sink - which does NOTHING for clutter - that annoyed me.
Yes, I understand the notion of starting with one daily task and that’s laudable, but explain it in those terms without the fluff, and be flexible enough to let people start at one of several daily tasks rather than this and only this.
And she says “if you don’t wear shoes in the home you will now, missy!” How condescending and insensitive. And not just you - EVERYONE has to now change to accommodate Flylady’s notions.
I understand the concept of being dressed for the job, I disagree that that will mean the same thing to everyone.
Oh, and now you have to get up 15 minutes before the entire rest of the family - really? What does it matter, so long as you do that “get dressed thing” right away? Or, here’s a concept, eat a good breakfast first THEN get dressed for the day.
She is terribly, terribly inflexible and, as others have said, sexist. I half expect her to start lecturing about being a “surrendered” wife or something.
I’m OK with her system working for someone else, I just find her outright offensive and annoying. It’s why I don’t like her.
Yep. You’ve encapsulated it nicely. My shoes are the first thing to go when I get home (for comfort, not for any No Shoes On In The House rule) and - you’ll all be shocked at this I’m sure - sometimes I don’t even get out of my pjs when I start cleaning/tidying up. If it’s likely to be a particularly dusty, sweaty chore I’d much rather have a shower and get dressed afterward. Or it likely won’t get done at all. So which is worse - cleaning in my pjs or not cleaning at all?
My home sink is steel; if I dry it after use, it’s shiny. The one at the rental is a speckled brown composite; unless it’s got something as visible as soya sauce on, there’s no visual difference between “freshly cleaned” and “hasn’t been cleaned in a week”. So this one wouldn’t be much help; rather, the opposite, as you clean it and it looks exactly the same as before.
I’ve only had it installed for about 8 minutes, but I like what I’ve seen so far.
It’s only indirectly related to decluttering and cleaning, but I said “no” to someone who asked me to do something. That’s kind of big for me. It was to sub in a particular job at our church on a Sunday, which wouldn’t be a big deal, but there’s a few hours of prep involved (unless I were willing to half-ass it, which is I suppose a different thread).
Thing is, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it in this thread yet. I’ve made myself a loose schedule that I believe will let me get my home closer to my vision of it before January 1, 2014. Not much before. That way my New Year’s resolution can be to KEEP my house clean rather then GETTING it clean.
Taking on this task, even though it’s small would keep me from, or give me an excuse for not, meeting my goals for the week.
