Fly Lady Is Incredible!Valerie has started something called FlyLady and it's incredible! So what's FlyLady?
It's a system for keeping your house clean that teaches you how to clean your house in baby steps and then KEEP it that way! It's just incredible!
She started it probably about 3 weeks ago (I think, I'm sure she'll chime in & say for sure) and it's done amazing things to our house!
The first thing you do is Shine Your Sink. I know, kind of dumb, but it works. She shined the crap out of our sink. Comet, Sponges, the works...she made the sucker shine!
Next came another step and from there each day (or week, can't remember), there's a new step that you add to the routine.
The coolest part is that this isn't like some other House Cleaning Systems where they give you a massive list of stuff you should be doing & wish you luck (ie. Queen of Clean, Don whats-his-name Aslett?), instead this is a life system approach where you slowly integrate something new to your routine each day that helps you keep the house clean.
Not only that but there's just plain good sense ides in there too like going to bed on time, getting up on time, exercising, getting completely dressed every morning & quick clean ups at night.
For example, every morning there's this thing called Swish & Swipe (I think that's what it is anyway). You basically do a micro cleaning session in the bathroom after you've showered & gotten dressed. We've all gotten into it too. In the basement bathroom she has some paper towels and windex cleaner and every morning after I shower, I wipe down the sink & mirror. Emily now wipes down the toilet every other day too.
The upstairs bathroom is the same way. Every morning after Val's completely dressed it gets a "swish & swipe" too. I gotta tell ya, it's amazing how much cleaner the bathrooms stay. They are MUCH cleaner! Granted, they don't always stay that way, but every morning they get put back into shape & pretty much stay that way most of the day.
It's so nice to use a super clean bathroom. My thought is that it's just good for the psyche, but I must be weird that way.
The cool part about all of this is that it's starting to become a habit around here. I get a kick out of cleaning the bathroom every day because of how nice it looks the rest of the day (the basement bathroom is right outside my office so it's what I use throughout the day if I need to. It's also the bathroom any of my customers use if I have any "stop by" customers so it's nice that it stays nice & clean all the time.
The other cool part about all of this is that we've started to go to bed on time and wake up on time every day. At 12 at night one of us drags the other to bed & we then get a pretty good nights sleep (we were going to bed at 1 or 2 am before pretty much every night & then were kind of groggy throughout the day). We're also now up at 7am every morning, bed gets made, & away we go!
It must be sinking in because for the first time in my life I'm finally starting to exercise on a regular basis (trust me, it ain't much. I get on the treadmill & walk for about 15-20 minutes, but it's a start). We're all starting to feel a lot better from it too, myself included.
Once you master the routine there's these things called Zones. About once a week you have a big project to work on (last week was the master bedroom). The kicker is you're only supposed to spend 15 minutes a day on it (Val even bought a cheap timer at Wal-mart that counts down) so you don't get caught up in the project & then not get anything else done.
Last week included gutting the closet (you take everything out, & get rid of stuff you don't need) and cleaning under the bed (my gosh! I never knew how many dust bunnies could live under a bed!)
Anyway, the point of it is that it's working! And working well! Is it perfect? Well, no, we still fall off the wagon occasionally (Saturdays & Sunday's can really knock us out of schedule), but the fact is it's working & all of us are loving it!
You can learn more about this cool system here:
http://www.flylady.net
They even have a Yahoo group you can join where you can read through encouraging emails (Val say's they're kind of overwhelming at times though if you let em), but if you get a chance, check it out. It may just save your house too!
Graydon
Livin' in a much cleaner house...
