Welcome jig.

Flylady works for some of us, not for others. It has changed my life like nothing else--honestly!

Read her intro letter and follow the steps she says. You will delete most of the messages for quite a while. Focus on building your bedtime and morning routines and declutter for a full rotation of zones before even trying zone cleaning.

Once you try zone cleaning, you will quickly see what is important or not to you and adapt the cleaning jobs. My zone jobs look nothing like Flylady's but the totally meet the needs of my family and my home.

It's a system which you add on just a little bit at a time. I know it looks like you are suppose to jump in and do everything. You are not. You build on habits and that takes time.

I have 4 kids ages 6-22. I keep us in good shape in around 45 min. a day. 15 min. for my morning routine, a few minutes after work, and a bit more later in the evening. I'm on leave from work this year and have way too much time. It's definately a system for both SAHM or for those working outside the home.

We've been using the system for around 4 years. My kids follow my lead.

If you need a Flylady email buddy, just let me know at gloria@ak.net.

Gloria

Flylady has really helped me! I especially love my morning and evening routines, and I use a timer for everything! Each week she has a different zone and sends out daily missions. For people like me, these really work! (Right now the weekly zone is the bathroom.)

The major complaint with flylady seems to be all her e-mails. I simply read what I want and delete the others. No big deal.

thanks quiltglo and intherain!

i woke up this morning all excited to start the first day of my new resolution to get this house under control. well, i was excited until i walked into the kitchen (fully expecting to see a "still shined" sink) and realized my 17 1/2 year old came home last night and left dishes in the sink! i think the hardest part of this will be getting my family on board. sometimes i think they sneak into rooms i've cleaned and deliberately mess them up again right away!!

:) jiggreen

Getting the family on board will take a bit of time. They need to see you really stick with this.

Sit the 17 yo down and tell him that you are trying a new system and will appreciate his support. Part of that support is that he picks up after himself and does not leave it for you. Tell him about the shining sink idea and that if he dirties anything after you have loaded the dishwasher, to please wash the items and put them away.

I have one in college, still living at home. He often works well past the time we are all asleep. He knows if he leaves dishes, I'll have him up when I get up and he will have to clean them.

The biggest part of this is "you don't clean up behind people!" Any family member over the age of 2 is capable of picking up after themselves.

Part of our evening routine is making sure we have all picked up our items from what I call the public spaces. When we first started, I would have to set the timer and it really would take us 15 min. We are so much better about picking up after ourselves that all I have to do with the smaller kids now is tell them to "zoom their stuff" and it takes all of a minute.

Ready, set, start decluttering!

Gloria

I'm a fallen fly-er... I got the emails for a a couple years (set to digest, so I just got one email per day).

Just focus on decluttering in the week's zone and don't worry about anything else. That way the system won't be so overwhelming (and it's what she tells newbies to do anyways).

Why don't I do flylady anymore? Personally I have a lot of trouble cleaning on a daily basis. And I really can't seem to keep my sink empty. And after a while, the emails are very repetitive.

Still, I did get a lot out of it and I still try to apply some of the principles.

My favorite one is that it didn't get messy in a day and it won't get cleaned in a day. That helps me a lot when I'm feeling overwhelmed, even though it's only my garage that's super messy and cluttered now.

Using a timer and learning that doing *something* is better than nothing was another hard-learned lesson for me. I can tell you that my stepson does a *much* better job if I tell him to work on his closet for 15 minutes than if I simply tell him to clean his room.

Finally, flylady helped me learn to get rid of stuff - that I don't have to keep everything, that not every childhood toy is of sentimental value, that it's ok to throw/give away things that were presents.

My point is that I don't use her system exactly, but she did make a difference in how I keep house. Is my house perfectly clean? Ha! No. But I could have it presentable in 15-30 minutes and ready for overnight guests within an hour or so. A vast improvement over the sty I used to live in.

I've recently signed up with flylady again - not so much for the "deep cleaning" type things (I'll get to the baseboards when I get to them), but more for the constant reminders to keep up with my routines, and the testamonials, which I find motivational. I think with a system like flylady, it's easy to take what will be most useful to you in your situation, and leave the rest for someone else. The laundry reminder I get at 11am every day does nothing for me, since I'm at work then, but it's easy enough to ignore and focus on the "what's for dinner" reminder at 9am (which does help, even while I'm at work).

I'm focusing on my routines - morning, after work and before bed. I'm doing some of the zone cleaning (when I have time), but I don't generally have a lot of time to clean on a daily basis, so I generally "save up" those emails, and then do the zone cleaning on the weekend. You'll have to figure out what will serve *you* best, and concentrate on that.

In any case, it doesn't cost anything to try it, so no harm done there - good luck, and I hope it works out for you! :-)

I also love Flylady! Follow the directions in the Welcome Letter and you'll do fine. I also delete the emails as they arrive, but I know what most of them say.

Flylady's system has really made a difference in MY life, with the inspiration to clean a little a day before & after work instead of having one big cleaning day on the weekend. The first years made the biggest impact because of all the decluttering. I sure wish I had before & after pictures now!

And I know what you mean about that shiny sink not staying shiny. DH insists that dirty dishes "go" in the sink, I say they go in the empty dishwasher. He grew up in a house where they didn't wash dishes every day, so it's hard to convince him that dirty dishes setting around is not OK.

I just signed up again for Flylady a couple of days ago, largely for the reasons Jamie mentioned - and in the hopes of shoveling out my office. I'm pleased to say that in about five 15-minute sessions over the past few days, I'm making great headway, though there's still tons to do.

About the emails - if you sign into your Yahoo account at groups.yahoo.com, you can set your email preference for no emails or just the daily digest. Just go to the "Edit My Groups" tab.

Flylady works for many people because it cuts the overwhelming task of "clean the house" into less scary "clean the living room zone" chunks.

Flylady also concentrates on decluttering and staying decluttered, and clutter is the thing that makes cleaning hard.

hmmmm...i haven't done so well at this flylady thing....it's been so darned nice outside i have concentrated 100% of my efforts on cleaning up and remulching the garden beds, mowing the lawn (1st of many, many times this season!), draining, cleaning and refilling my pond and pressure washing my house. i'm ashamed to say my sink needs a shining and i just don't have the energy or motivation to do it tonight (the darned dishwasher needs emptying too!)

oh well, tomorrow is another day...........

:) jiggreen

jiggreen - as flylady says: "You are not behind! I don't want you to try to catch up; I just want you to jump in where we are. O.K.?" That's what I love most about her system. It's so forgiving! So you didn't shine your sink today. The great thing is that you CAN tomorrow!

I had to clean our carpets last weekend, and I only had a day to do so. I started to get very uptight, thinking there was no way I could get it all done "properly" in that amount of time. Then I thought of flylady and realized it doesn't have to be perfect! Just do what you can - it's better than nothing!

Sheryl

Some tough love here, jigggreen. You have to work the system. You get up and do your morning routine, THEN you go work/play in the yard.

The family won't get on board with this if after a couple of days you are back to the same old, same old stuff.

It takes effort to get started, but it's very little effort. My morning routine is full blown and I can do it in less than 15 min. My bedtime routine is full blown and it takes less than 15 min.

Get up in the morning and do the stuff first. Then you'll be able to get on with the day.

Gloria