Flylady questions (Margery or anyone)

**homesteadmamma** · 10-01-2004, 12:39 PM

Is this lady for real - I'm totally serious. Now I know her first letter said not to whine. I'm not whining, I have legit questions.

I couldn't get to my e-mail account yesterday at Yahoo because I had both carrots and Swiss chard to get out of the garden and to freeze. That was an all day thing. So you can imagine how many e-mails I had, plus Yahoo is screwing up and some of us are getting 3 e-mails of each e-mail. She sent us an e-mail in regards to that and said "just delete the extra". Huh!!!!

Does she have a garden???? Because if she does I'd be awfully surprised. I was freezing carrots and Swiss chard until almost 9 last night, then had to go clean the post office. How can one do her fling boogies and 15 minutes is beyond me.

While doing the above, I was also homeschooling. She doesn't homeschool I'm thinking And teaching lifeskills to the 2 boys.

Putting on shoes - excuse me, I live in the country and refuse to put on my shoes during the day. Has she never felt the wonderful feeling of walking through the dirt with no shoes?

I'm trying to figure out how one reads all her e-mails and gets done what she wants us to do, along with homeschooling, gardening, taking care of 3 special needs kids, a dh, a puppy and a cat.

I'm thinking I have to stick to my own plan. I don't want to sound critical here of her plan. I'm sure it works for her and thousands of ladies. But it sure isn't going to work for our family I'm thinking.

Does anyone else feel swamped with e-mails (the ones who just joined). And does her plan sound realistic to you and your home?

**QuilterMom** · 10-01-2004, 12:42 PM

I tried Flylady twice and the emails overwhelmed me. Even selecting them in digest form (does she still give that option?) overwhelmed me. It's just better for me to do my own thing and I've been quite inspired by the Mrs. Cleanjeans book I've been reading.

**homesteadmamma** · 10-01-2004, 12:48 PM

Yes Kim, she still has the option of having them in a digest form. But you would either have to delete the whole e-mail or it would take you forever to go through it all!!

**kimmee** · 10-01-2004, 12:59 PM

I couldn't handle all the Emails either - and I am not the kindof person that can half-ass a job all week ( vacuuming only the middles of the rooms) Evidently she doesnot have pets (ok maybe I have whats called a herd!) or children who walk in and explode like confetti from a cannon. If I only intensely cleaned one room a week my house would be condemned.

**canadian gardener** · 10-01-2004, 01:00 PM

OK LOL I know where you are coming from, that used to irritate me too.

For one thing I'm NOT doing everything her way.

But it takes a while of reading before that comes across in her writing that she actually is telling you to develop your own routines.

I find that barefeet is fine in the garden too.

But I have heel spurs which make wearing supportive shoes on hard surfaces a must or I really hurt by the end of the day.

I do take my shoes off to rest, and once the housework is done, they stay off till supper prep.

**canadian gardener** · 10-01-2004, 01:07 PM

The main thing isn't to necessarily do HER patterns, it's determine what YOUR baby steps are.

And delete delete delete anything else.

So about keeping it small to start

those fling boogies, and the hot spot drills and so forth aren't on the baby steps.

I wish she would make baby steps a bit clearer.

The baby step routine for starters is simply clean your sink and that doesn't mean do it with comet every day, just windex it or wipe it out, so that once a day your sink is empty, dry and clean.

That was sink detail.

Shoes on, hair combed means ready for the day in whatever way works for you. There are ladies who cant' wear shoes, so they adapt. It means that if someone came to the door, you could answer without embarrassement.

there, that is the morning routine.

baby stepping to the midday, having lunch. Not everyone stops for lunch, and this prevents low blood sugar by 4 pm, and the exhaustion that goes with it.

The nightime routine for baby steps if I remember correctly is check your calendar for tomorrow, and pick out your clothes and have a hot bath.

I NEVER bathe in the evening if I can help it, I like showering in the morning and my skin is too dry to do it more than every other day

so my adaptation is ignoring that, and just starting my dishwasher so I wake up to a clean kitchen.

**canadian gardener** · 10-01-2004, 01:16 PM

About gardening, a job, kids, homeschooling and the like.

Again this is adapting the system to suit you.

you start with the baby steps, then add in one or two other steps, continueing to ignore the rest and delete them. Eventually the subject lines filter thru and you either realize, oh I did that anyway in my own way and time as you begin to subconsciously add it in.

No I still don't burst up from my machine, and do a 27 fling boogie.

for one thing I'm never going to count what I toss. For another, that is part of how I take out the trash.

My way of doing the 27 fling boogie is that I take out the kitchen gbg once a day (usually when I run the dw) and I run it thru the house tossing the contents of each rooms trash into it as I head it out to the garage to it's final resting place.

And the 27 fling boogie is also about running thru and flinging stuff into the giveaway bag or box. Well I simply have an open box for giveaways and we all toss stuff in, when it's full I tend to to a big junk sweep and then call the charity van.

But no, not jumping up and ripping thru the house counting like a mad fiend.

Then there is the hot spot drill.

I find that works for me to help me see my hot spots, but more important it just keeps me in mind of clearing them, which I do once a day or so. It's helped my family learn not to pile junk there "for later mum".

Doing the strip down the middle, for vacuuming. Well I do that on Mondays and I find it comforting to not have to do more. I have a dog that tracks stuff in and my kids are adults but I still find that stuff lands on the carpets sooooo

I modify that a bit, by leaving the vacuum out (not where it's a trip hazard) handy and doing a little bit as needed to keep up.

If I get tired in the middle of the Monday one hour binge, I leave it where it lies and do my usual 5 minutes at a time, work my way round the house, leave it lie where I stopped like a bookmark on the page I was last reading.

**homesteadmamma** · 10-01-2004, 01:20 PM

Margery is lol at cj - I can just see her now.

But I'm with Kimmee about the vaccuming. Just around the middle doesn't make any sense to me at all. Our cat doesn't lay in the middle of the floor, she always lays behind the couch or by the walls where there isn't any furniture. Not in the middle of the floor.

Margery like I said I wasn't able to get to Yahoo yesterday because of gardening and freezing. When I went this morning, there were 54 e-mails just from FlyLady. Guess what, I deleted all of them because I didn't have the time to read any. If I hadn't, by tomorrow there would be even more.

I'm going to unsubscribe to her for now. I just can't spend the time reading all those e-mails or doing even 1/2 of what she says.

I'm a firm believer in baby steps and have been for years. I'm also a firm believer in decluttering and then decluttering more. But I also believe in simplifying my life and going with FlyLady isn't simplifying my life. Life it too short for me to be reading upmteen e-mails each and everyday just from FlyLady.

btw - if someone comes to my door, I'm not the least embarrassed by what they see. I have kids, pets, gardens, homeschool and there are days when my house doesn't look like it should. But I would hope people are coming to visit me, not coming to see my home. Yes I like to be made aware of when company is coming so my home can look half way decent, but if it doesn't so be it. Life it too short to have to have it perfect because company is coming, kwim. There are days I'd rather be out playing in the leaves with my kids rather than being worried about whether my kitchen sink is clean or my dishes are done, when others expect them to be.

**canadian gardener** · 10-01-2004, 01:22 PM

What you ladies mention is the one serious downside to flylady and that is getting past her routines, and starting to see your own routines when the emails come.

With kids, it's not going to be reasonable to keep it perfect, nor will it work to do a once a week clean, with detail work once a month.

But you need to find a workable routine within your own home and needs.

If you keep at it, you'll find a bunch of suggestions by busy mothers, working women and people with chronic illnesses who've adapted the system to fit them.

That is where I found some of the best stuff, was in the testimonials or the parts of her site where people write in with their own adaptations, like working women who can't do a Monday house blessing and adapt it by breaking each 5 minute job up and doing one a day.

That and the emphasis on less clutter, faster and easier maintenance.

By creating a small routine that works for you in your home, and keeping at it, it's way better than the crash and burn syndrome where it's all or nothing and you are exhausted to death by it.

It brings closure on it too, so that you aren't constantly cleaning up after people. Do it, it's done, and if it gets trashed, it can wait till tomorrow because IT"S DONE FOR TODAY.

i think i'ts hard sometimes to quit, and accept a lower standard, and that is another part of the puzzle to making flylady work at home.

**canadian gardener** · 10-01-2004, 01:34 PM

I just saw your post CJ and you are right, 54 emails is about 45 too many. It is the opposite of simplifying. I really wish she would do the baby step set of emails again. Don't know what happened to that but you aren't alone. And yes, the vacuuming down the middle isn't going to work for you.

Another thing you said that I totally agree with is this:

"I have kids, pets, gardens, homeschool and there are days when my house doesn't look like it should. But I would hope people are coming to visit me, not coming to see my home. Yes I like to be made aware of when company is coming so my home can look half way decent, but if it doesn't so be it. Life it too short to have to have it perfect because company is coming, kwim. There are days I'd rather be out playing in the leaves with my kids rather than being worried about whether my kitchen sink is clean or my dishes are done, when others expect them to be."

Something that doesn't come across well with flylady, is she actually is teaching people to move away from the "company ready syndrome". To find your level of "good enough" and relax there and quit doing too much.

But along with that is that daily flood, and it's overwhelming to a lot of people.

Maybe what I should do is continue to just give the gems, the readers digest or margery's digest version of her stuff.

**homesteadmamma** · 10-01-2004, 02:02 PM

Maybe what I should do is continue to just give the gems, the readers digest or margery's digest version of her stuff.

That sounds good but remember to keep your life simple too.

**forestdale** · 10-01-2004, 04:30 PM

CJ, I feel exactly the same. Each day I was getting 27 emails from flylady + I got one yesterdy asking me to join the flylady mentors group - Crikey! I was also getting emails about going to bed at 1pm! I deleted all of them and unsubscribed. I decided that I would rather do margery's version of flylady. So I'm searching for all margery's cleaning threads and doing that instead.

**DaisyLady** · 10-01-2004, 04:52 PM

Glad to see these posts about FlyLady and that you are being honest about it not working with for you. I am the opposite. I am finding it very easy to follow. Of course I seem to be getting very few emails (I only got about 4 yesterday). The ones I got today, I glanced quickly decided I didn't like that idea and hit the delete button or in one instance I did Kelly's Mission. Cleaning my front porch was a definite need to do. I only took 5 minutes! I haven't had much time to check my email today. I am also very glad that I took the time yesterday morning to shower and dress first thing. I ended up having to rush my DH to the emergency room and for once I was clean and dressed!(more about that later)

Ladies, I think the most important thing is to find what works for you and go for it. If it is an added stress instead of a help then it completely defeats the purpose.

**canadian gardener** · 10-01-2004, 05:24 PM

That is it in a nutshell Chriss, and CJ and Bethany and Kimmee.

It's about finding a bottom line minimum effort system or routine that works well for you then making it a habit, one small step at a time till you are able to manage it without any extra thought or effort.

It's about learning what level of cleanliness you want to keep the place at, and its got to be to suit you, not your guests, not even your dh, but doing it for you.

That gives you a quitting point. You can say OK done for the day, no more.

The problem with housework is that it's 24/7 and the temptation is to go into all or nothing mode. If you do it all, all of the time, you are doing too much, that is inefficient

but if you do nothing, sooner or later you have to play catch up and meanwhile the stress of living in a mess eats away at your subconscious while you try to give your attention elsewhere.

I think it's got a lot to do with that overused word

Closure.

When is it done for the day?
When can you turn your mind off it, and on to other stuff?

How LITTLE can you do and still get by without causing more work?

In fact I think that is a new thread, I will go launch that concept now.