The Fly Lady System, Lesson 1: Baby Steps

I discovered the Fly Lady probably at least 5 years ago, maybe more. Despite her ability to motivate thousands of followers to clean and organize their homes, she must have one of the most cluttered, disorganized, and difficult to follow websites in cyberspace. It's a classic case of wonderful women who have an incredible passion for what they do and a commitment to sharing it with the world for free, but lack serious web building skills (I see the same issue with SplitCoastStampers). I find this kind of digital-disorganization to be a huge deterrent for young, busy people who simply want an effective system broken down for them in an easy to follow way.

What's surprising to me is that with all of her faithful followers, apparently no one with amazing digital organizational and/or programming skills has stepped up to help her create a website that's more user friendly and visually appealing. Or, maybe she's just not interested. What do I know.

So, until miracle of miracles happens and FlyLady.net becomes easier to understand than the periodic table of elements, let me see if I can't help break it down for you, using my 5+ years of poking around as a guide! Up first: Baby Steps!

When I first signed up as a Fly Lady member, I mistakenly believed that the answer to what I was supposed to be doing would be found in the daily digest emails. Not so. In fact, unless you could use a little extra motivation and think reading a testimonial or two might help, I would suggest not giving the emails much attention in the very beginning. They can overwhelm you and confuse you into thinking that you should be focusing on a zone, or completing Kelly's missions, or checking off a list of 15+ daily tasks. But as a beginning "Fly Baby" this is NOT the case! The ONLY thing you need to do in the beginning is complete your Baby Steps.

Baby Steps are daily tasks designed to ease you into this crazy cleaning bonanza by creating habits, one by one. For instance, the first Baby Step is to Shine Your Sink. And for every other day of the 31 step series (and for all of eternity), you're instructed to shine your sink. But, in addition to shining your sink, a new task gets added each day. She starts slow. Maybe it's making notes (the beginning of your Control Journal), maybe it's getting yourself ready to be seen by other human beings every morning. The goal is that by the end of the 31 days, she'll have you completing pretty much every task contained in the "Routine" portion of the Daily Flight Plan, all without being completely overwhelmed, like you would be if you tried to do it all from day one.

Let's pause for a moment here and talk about the Daily Flight Plan. This is one of those discombobulated things about the website that drives me nuts. The Daily Flight Plan is kind of a big deal. It's your reminder of what you need to do everyday. But I can't seem to find reference to the primary list anywhere on the website. Instead, it's part of the daily email. I understand that there are probably 2 reasons for this: 1. Because the zones/missions change regularly (more on those later), and 2. Because you should be creating your own routines as part of your Control Journal later on in the Baby Steps. However, I still find it irritating that the basic guideline list isn't a page on the website. But I digress.

For your reference (in case you're new to Fly Lady and haven't signed up for the emails yet), here's what the Routine portion of the Daily Flight Plan looks like:

Today's Reminders:

* Morning Routine:
-Get Dressed to Shoes including Hair/Face, Brush Teeth
- Make Bed
-Swish & Swipe (http://www.flylady.net/pages/FlyShop_ss_package.asp)
-Empty Dishwasher
-Reboot Laundry (a Load a Day Keeps CHAOS Away)
-Check Your Calendar (http://www.flylady.net/pages/FlyShop_calendar.asp)
-Check Your Control Journal

* What's For Dinner?

* Drink Your Water

* Declutter for 15 Minutes

* 15 Minutes of Loving Movement

* Before Bed Routine:
-Lay out Your Clothes for tomorrow
-Check Your Calendar
-Put things needed for tomorrow at the Launch Pad
-Where are your Keys? (http://www.flylady.net/pages/FlyShop_lanyard.asp)
-Spend Two Minutes Clearing off a Hot Spot
-Shine Your Sink
- Wash face/Brush Teeth
-Go to Bed at a Decent Hour


So, long story short: The end-goal of Baby Steps (as far as I can tell) is to get us to a point where most every task on this on list (or a personalized version we create for ourselves) is part of our daily routine. And because we eased into it over the course of a month, we're not even terribly overwhelmed by the awesome amount of work we've added to our days.

Want to see what's ahead for you throughout the course of the 31 days of Baby Steps without having to click on every.single.day. individually?? Yeah, me too. Thank goodness someone put together a pdf of the full list. You can find it here.

Clean House: A Challenge

This is not the first time you've heard me talk about the Fly Lady. And it's certainly not going to be the last.  Let's just be honest: I suck at being a homemaker. I'm a terribly unimaginative cook, and I don't even know how to keep a house clean. I'm always envious of those friends whose houses glimmer every time I visit, even unexpectedly. And not in a stuffy way, rather in an I-actually-care kind of way. Sure, I could make dozens of excuses for why my house is never in order: having a baby, having about ten thousand hobbies I find more interesting than cleaning, places to go, people to see, unfinished house projects around every turn, allergic reactions to cleaning products (kidding). However, I'm tired of the excuses that other (very nice) people make for me. I simply want a clean and orderly house. And I don't want to spend my weekends binge cleaning. I realize that I'm not going to get there overnight, and I'm ok with that. As long as I see progress and notice true habits developing, I'm happy.

In order to get a bit more serious about my intentions this time, I decided to issue a challenge. (You all know how I love those!) My girlfriend, Jamie (Eden's mom), had started the Fly Lady system a few months ago, but fell off the wagon after going on a long vacation. While visiting this week, I asked if she was interested in getting started again, but doing it together this time. Baby Steps, day-by-day. This way we have someone to keep us motivated and accountable. And we have help to decipher the system; the Fly Lady website is not exactly what I would call clear and concise! Plus, we simply have someone to talk about it with, cause let me tell you, learning to clean is not currently a hot topic amongst my group of friends!

Jamie accepted the challenge and we started immediately! Last night we both accomplished our first Baby Step: Shining our Sinks. I did it from scratch, yet again, bleach soak, Brillo scrub, Mrs. Meyer's powder and all. Raf came home from his softball game in the middle of it, grabbed a scrub brush and joined the fun! It's looking awfully shiny, if I do say so myself.

Today's Baby Step, on the other hand, I'm not so into: Getting Dressed to Lace up shoes. I don't really do lace ups. But I put my flip flops on instead of slippers, if that counts for anything. :)

Now, I throw it out to you! Anyone else feeling this way about the state of their home? If so, join us! If you commit right away, you can just jump in with us (the Baby Steps start pretty slow), or start from Day 1 when you can, that works too. Whatever helps you feel good about coming home (and having guests)!

2011: The List

It's (well past) that time again, isn't it?! The list is quite lengthy, as usual, but I have a new plan that I'm hoping will make progress achievable. As this is a list of aspirations and goals for the year, my plan is to attack these bullets one at a time, month by month.

Most of these are things I'd like to be part of my daily routine; very few are project type goals. I'll focus on just one or two simple goals per month. My hope is that by giving these acts my full attention, by the end of said month, they will have become a habit; a normal part of my day to day.  Then, I can move right along to the next goal.

So, here's the list, in no particular order:

1. Floss. Cuz I need to. Every.single.day.
2. Grow food. Cuz I want to! This is the year! 
3. Moisturize. Cuz my arms and legs get so dry.
4. Shine sink. Cuz it's the first step of the Fly Lady system and I want a clean house everyday!
5. Swish & swipe (the Fly Lady's daily bathroom cleaning method). Cuz bathrooms are gross. 
6. Learn camera. Cuz I'm tired of taking really crappy pictures with an expensive camera. 
7. Floors. Cuz they're so big. And dark. And dirty! And someone is going to be mobile sooner than later!!
8. Vitamins. Cuz I need to remember to just take them already!  
9. Raf. His suggestion...ha! And no, I'm not thinking what you (or he!) are thinking!! But now that I have a mini me taking up 99.9% of my time and attention, I don't think it's a terrible idea to carve out some time everyday to be good to my man. Cuz I love him. 
10. Craft. You know: Do Something Creative Everyday. Cuz it feels good! Can't wait to start that month! :)
11. Keep in touch. Cuz I should do better. Call more. Send more cards. Get out of the house. 
12. Eat local. Cuz it's important to me. And our local economy. And our culture. And our planet. And I want to keep it top of mind everyday. 
13. Meal planning. Cuz it makes life SO much easier!
14. Make bed. Cuz it feels good to have things in their place.
15. Be presentable. Cuz it can be really easy to never leave your pjs when you're home with the babe 24/7. 
16. Learn to curl my hair. Cuz it's a basic skill every girl should have. Especially by the age of 30!
17. Generate less trash. Cuz we should. And it's really not that hard if we just commit. 
18. No food waste. Cuz we hate throwing $ down the drain!

I'm sure this list will grow (and, let's be honest, shrink!) throughout the year, but these are things that have been top of mind for me lately. Wish me luck!!

The 365 Project: Day 151

I tried another step in the Fly Lady system today. I see all these testimonials about how much women are getting done by setting their 15 minute timers to tackle an area. Some seemed just a little far-fetched to me, so I decided it was time to try it myself.

Before making lunch today, I decided to set my timer for 15 minutes to get the kitchen cleaned up. I finished what I wanted to in less than 10 minutes(!) so I decided to open up our messiest cupboard and take a stab at getting it organized. I made it through everything but the candy by the time the timer went off. (As you can see, we have a bit of a sweet tooth in this house!)

Then, tonight, I set another 15 minute timer to pickup the craft room--otherwise known as "the room where all our clothes currently live" (since neither we nor our wardrobes can reside in the master until the bathroom renovation is complete). In those 15 minutes, I unpacked my suitcase from the weekend, folded 2 loads of laundry, picked up the room, and started a new load of laundry. Craziness, I tell ya! So then I set another 15 minutes for the kitchen chaos. I finished organizing the candy cabinet and had tons of time left, so I read through and organized the ever-growing stack of paper accumulating in our typical Hot Spot.

This 15 minute zone cleaning concept is ridiculous! 15 minutes is nothing--not scary or intimidating at all--and it's seriously NUTTY how much you can accomplish in that amount of time if you set a timer and focus on one specific area. Yay for the Homemaker-in-Training!

The 365 Project: Day 156

Guess what? The Fly Lady timer system totally works in the yard, too! Raf and I built this pile of weeds in 30 minutes. Nice! And that was definitely my limit. I was pooped after 30 minutes of weed pulling! Now if only the weeds would never return...