Sunday, May 2, 2010

FLYbaby

I recently heard about a website called flylady.net.  I had to go check it out because I'm always looking for a way to get/stay organized.  When I first visited the site I felt a little overwhelmed at the amount of information provided yet it said to just do things in baby steps...seemed a little confusing to provide so much detail for me to start out slow :)  One thing struck me in particular when I started looking through the website...get dressed all the way to the shoes in the morning.  Just having shoes on makes you feel like you should be doing something.  She suggests lace-up shoes as opposed to flip flops since you can't just kick them off, but I felt more like my crocs today :)  It's been amazing just the past 3 days of how much less I sit around doing nothing just because I have shoes on!  The one thing that seemed strange to me was that the first thing she instructs you to do is shine your sink.  Weird, right?  Well, I got my sink as sparkly clean as a composite granite sink can get (including rubbing it down with baby oil...) and my kitchen already looked 10 times better!  It makes me wish I had a stainless steel sink to keep shiny :)  Before bed I didn't want to leave anything out on the kitchen counter because it made the kitchen look messy next to my clean sink.  I find it amazing how such a simple thing made me want to keep the entire kitchen clean!

Well, I made my "control journal" and started out with making a bedtime routine and a morning routine.  You just start out by putting three things on each routine, that way you don't overwhelm yourself.  The point is to make those first three things a habit and second nature before you begin adding more items to the routine.  Today I went on to add more to my control journal and jumped in on this week's "Zone".  Each week they focus on one zone of the house, this week it's the entry way, front porch and dining room.  They provide a detailed list of what all should be done in this zone for the week and you just spend 15 minutes a day working on it.  That's it!  The point is that "anyone can do anything for 15 minutes".  I set my 15 minute timer (it makes it more fun when you're working against the clock) and got to work in the foyer. Now, we don't have any clutter in the foyer so it was pretty simple to do but I got sidetracked by an overflowing plant in the dining room (I guess I put too much water in it..AGAIN!) so I didn't quite finish the foyer in the 15 minutes.  But that's ok...I'll pick up where I left off tomorrow.

I've read a lot of testimonials from people who have been following this organization plan and I've seen a lot of before/after pictures and it's absolutely amazing how much you can accomplish in just 15 minutes a day.  I think a lot of times I look around at what all I have to do and I just start to feel overwhelmed.  It seems like it will take so much time and so much energy to accomplish everything so then I'd rather sit and watch tv than to do anything.  I'm trying to let go of the "all or nothing" attitude and just do what I can in 15 minutes a day (plus the morning/afternoon/bedtime routines).  I'm optimistic about how this is going and I'm hopeful that once I get into a really good routine I can stop using a cleaning lady and save us some money!

Let me know if you check out the site!!

1 comment:

  1. That sounds wonderful. I'll have to check it out. You know me, I'm always trying to find ways to be better organized!

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