I learned about her years ago. I think some of her ideas I already did in my daily life.

For example, no dishes left in the sink, always making the beds.

Right now though, I am enjoying having my house cleaned for me twice a month. I always resented cleaning. DH never wanted strangers in going through our things.

But, he now has gotten over it.

For people who don't mind cleaning, any tips like Flylady to keep you motivated is a good thing.

I found her to overwhelming. I used to be a clean freak, but then as the marriage happiness fell apart, I got less and less enthusiastic about the cleanliness of my house. Once I went solo, all that changed, and I became a good cleaning person again.

I still have the place clean, got to, am allergic to house dust along with a lot of other allergies... but it isn't THAT important to me any more.

Anyone can visit me at any time, without me being embarrassed on the state of my house... but it isn't spotless ever. :)

Moni

I hope that you continue to enjoy it, Lucille! I know for a fact that people are not born with housekeeping skills and habits.

I check in with Flylady periodically and have picked up some ideas for products and ideas.

I think that the educational process should start early...."let's pick up your toys".....and progress to simple daily and weekly chores. I am so thankful that I was trained from an early age, as were all of my brothers. I was instilled with 'a little bit every day' and 'clean as you go' habits that have served me well. Both of my parents were such good examples and my life is so much easier because of the very simple practices that I was taught.

Truthfully, it was my dear father who was the teacher....my recalcitrant mother was his first student. ;-)

I'm definitely not a clean freak, but love a clean home. With 4 dogs and a cat, and me going in and out of the garden several times a day, I keep up but I think a 'system' will be helpful.

Rhizo, when I was a child we had a housekeeper, I never saw my mother do any housekeeping and she made no effort to show me how since neither she nor my father ever cleaned that I saw (she did cook, and cook well).

Flash forward to my home while raising my kids, it was always picked up and clean but still, no reliable system , and a system may have helped my stress level as a single mom for most of the time I was raising them.

I actually recently met a nice person who is a housekeeper but decided because of the need for almost daily cleaning that for now I would be happier doing it myself.

I enjoyed watching some of her videos. She has a lot of energy. I'm 70, and have asthma that stops me from doing very much. I am trying very hard to get things in order, but it's frustrating because when I feel rotten I let things go and sometimes feel like I'm starting all over again.

Does anyone have any suggestions for someone who is partly disabled?

I didn't know flylady was still around. The one thing that has stuck in my mind regarding her tips is to polish the kitchen sink every day and it is something I do every night before going to bed.

When I was working, I would do a marathon cleanathon on the weekend only to watch the condition of the house deteriorate throughout the week until the weekend arrived. I was just too tired and stressed out to worry about the state of the house.

Now that I've retired, I put in an hour or so every morning and the house is always clean. Being a person who likes order, this has made me a much happier person as well. And, as Moni mentioned, my house is always company ready!

Regarding having someone come in and clean, hubby and I have talked about it, but I'm not ready for that yet. I look at cleaning as another form of exercise and something that gets me moving, bending, stooping, squatting, etc.

cacocobird, Use a timer. It doesn't have to be for 15 minutes, even 5 minutes is good. Here are some videos that deal with that:

Getting started on difficult days

I don't have time! (Using those Magic Minutes)

Using the timer as a stopwatch

Cacocobird, if you're having a bad day (or even if not), there are tasks you can do while seated such as sorting through mail and/or papers. Perhaps, you could write cards or letters that you've been putting off. Or, maybe do one drawer that needs organizing. Breaking some of these jobs down into smaller jobs often helps with that overwhelmed feeling.

Best of luck to you!

Thanks for the good suggestions, everyone.

Cocoabird, I'd recommend asking a friend or relative to help. Last time I moved I had a relative come help me. She is a good organizer. I was ready to make decisions. I sat down and we went through boxes. We had keep, donate and throw away sections. It really helped to have someone else there who has an objective eye and isn't attached to stuff. I had help so I didn't physically have to do everything. Stuff that I would have avoided got dealt with in a timely manner.

If you're moving stuff out, make sure you have smaller boxes that you personally can carry when full.

I've long known that a clean sink and straightened up bed were good things. Laundry was a sticky spot, now my dryer only fluffs so I dry on the line and the line only holds one load so that makes things easier. I don't do a load a day though, not necessary. Suspect I did see flylady a while ago but the bed thing has been forever.

Right now I'm searching for all the decluttering videos I can stomach, love Dianeflylady a lot, and am working into actual cleaning videos. The internet needs a lot more garage decluttering videos that's for sure. Most are about magic storage systems which don't help the basic issue at all. Loving Messy Minimalist and HowToGYST as they are cute and articulate. Although HowTo swears she does have a lovely Irish accent. A woman in Australia, Knight Designs, is decluttering and packing up a gorgeous house as she downsizes, loving her updates.

Cacocobird, a couple of suggestions to get started. First get up. Set a timer and get up every hour to do something. Put a dirty dish in the dishwasher then go rest up if that's all you feel like doing. Maybe next time you will want to tidy for 5 minutes. Keep that up all day long and a lot will get done. After a week you will have the start of some habits and your mind will be more at ease about the state of your home. I have asthma and know how draining it is even if you aren't actually wheezing.

Another is to set a timer when you are up and really want to get something done. Get up and do something for 5 minutes then sit down and set the timer for another 5 minutes. Evaluate, are you up for another 5 minutes? If so up and do another 5. Rinse and repeat. When I was recovering from a bad fall and legs were weak I needed to do this so I didn't over do it. Gardening was terrific exercise for weak legs but I'd get into a fugue state and not want to stop then I'd be down for a week recovering.

This stuff never ends. Never. It's forever. Somebody on one of those videos said that you cannot control the environmental stuff. Dogs will track in nature, dust will come in the windows, dishes will get dirty. I can control the clutter. I can get rid of the 6 extra stacks of bowls and the dozens of pens and the pounds of paper that aren't needed. I can sort mail right away and take care of laundry now rather than later. Once clutter is gone and you have a system to keep it from becoming an issue then you can vanquish the daily grime!

Kathy, another good one is My Great Challenge. She has been doing the Zone Cleaning and a lot of decluttering. I like her a lot. She is very down to earth and a hard worker. Her problem is that she has too much stuff, which she readily admits.

My Great Challenge

Years ago, I learned sooooo much from fly lady. I don't use the timers anymore but I do use her plan kinda loosely. Before bed I like my sink clean. Being a farmer makes closing the kitchen early , difficult. I also use her old method of decluttering. Pick up 27 items, put in give away bag. More or less. If I don't use it in 18 months, I lose it. Not totally though, with the 3 college kids still moving occasionally, we have an designated basement room for their stuff. I am slowly going through the kids to NO kids time in life . Still have one child that comes home but I am purging and their rooms are evolving slowly. No kid shrines for them. They get their closets but the rest is slowly becoming "ours" again.

The bathroom gets a quick swish most days. I learned to slimline cleaning, emptying trash, etc , with fly lady. The best part is learning to part ways with stuff I really don't need. Like right now, why do I have 300 pencils and pens? (Hint: all from high school kids) so soon I will thin that out to only a few with maybe a few pencils bound for future use. I have a lot of house tasks in the near future but fly lady makes me feel at ease about getting it done. Baby steps!

Oh yes! The mail system. The fly lady got me on board her system from day one. It has saved us truly so much time. I pull out all the mail , throw out ALL the outer envelopes,extra ads,crap paper. I only keep what is necessary and put in a nearby organizer that has address labels, extra writing paper. My husband would be the king of clutter if I didn't do this daily!!

I've started using a bullet journal. Writing things down gives them a better chance to get done.,

I sort of do that. I send emails to myself listing what I did that day and what I want to do tomorrow. Some days it's scary how much I did and other days it's scary how little I did! On really busy days I'll make up a time line so I'm not overwhelmed by how much I need to get done. Doing half a dozen chores and errands on a single day sounds impossible until I break it down and put breaks in there. That's the wonderfulness of flylady, doing a little often keeps one from having to do a blitz like that.

Do not know how anybody survives paper unless they have a system. I keep a basket in the house for junk mail that's emptied on trash day. Started that back in the 1980s because DH thought he needed to look through every flyer and read the newspaper completely whenever he pleased. He had the chance for the week, rarely took it, house wasn't covered with paper. Not clean mind you, just not covered in paper.

Thanks for mentioning My Great Challenge. She's great.

Having a little bit of a system is definitely helping. It just goes to show, I guess, that no matter how old one is, one can still learn and improve.

I'd gotten in the bad habit of leaving a few things in the sink and washing them along with my coffee cup in the morning. Now, I actually feel good waking up and seeing a shiny clean sink in the kitchen.

And the whole 'baby step' concept is very encouraging for those bigger chores.

I'm getting the Flylady emails. For some reason this one from Flylady and one of her readers really touched me (because during my work year I would come across exhausted mothers who were down and out) so I decided to post it here. It is pretty long, though:

Dear Friends,

Last night I was touched by the testimonial "I want to live!" If you have never been in that situation you may not be able to grasp the surge of power that comes with this statement.

When you finally have reached the absolute bottom and you think there is no place to go, there is always two more places. You can give up entirely and be planted six feet under or you can scream out for help and start pulling yourself up! The difference is you have to get mad and scream and not give up.

Anger is not a bad emotion. As women we have been taught to just take it and not explode with anger. Exploding with anger is rage and rage is not OK, but giving yourself permission that you are upset and angry is a good thing and telling the person who you are angry at. When you keep it in it is like poison. So what do we do to ourselves? We turn anger into sad and we feel sorry for ourselves for being mistreated. Then WHAT? The anger goes to sad and then to depression. We eat to make the hurt go away or we sleep to not have to deal with what is!

It is all our perfectionism again sandwiched with that procrastination that paralyzes us into depression. I can see you all shaking your heads at me. "How can perfectionism be the foundation to my feeling bad." Well here is how it all fits together!

When something goes wrong in our lives and we can't fix it; what do we do! We can't fix it to make it right again or we can't change the other person; we want everything back the way it was!! Do you see the perfectionism rearing its ugly head? We do everything in our power to CONTROL THE ISSUES! And make it all better! Only to be shot down time and time again! So if we can't do it right what do we do! We were taught to do nothing!! I wish that was all we would do, but we have to turn it inward to abuse ourselves.

When we are unable to fix things we begin to feel guilty because of our inability to make things right or perfect! We then start to beat ourselves up! So we activity punish ourselves. It is bad enough when we have been abused by others but now we are abusing the only person that cares for you: YOU!

This is why anger is good! It is focused toward someone else and not yourself. Now it is not good to be angry all the time because that reduces your adrenaline and causes your body to attack itself in immune deficiency diseases. If you are always in fight or flight mode when you really need to scream out for help you will not be able to.

Adrenalin is an amazing body chemical. It is a power surge that supplies the energy right when you need it! This is how a mother can lift a car off of a child. I have said it many times, "Too much of a good thing can be bad for you!" Try eating a whole chocolate cake!

I have a good supply of adrenaline now! At one time I was totally depleted of my resources. I used them all up by always being upset and walking on eggshells. The adrenalin kept me from feeling what was happening inside my own body. It was a drug! It masked even the most regular pain of monthly cramps. I never had a discomfort until I became calm and peaceful. In other words the stress was not continually pumping adrenalin into my body. Now this was an amazing thing to realize when I felt them for the first time. I actually celebrated having cramps. I will never forget it.

Just a couple months earlier I had reached that bottom I was telling you about! I knew I was going to die and I wanted to live! I reached out for help and was able to scream even if it was ever so quietly that I chose life. I allowed someone to help me! In my perfectionism I had never wanted help. I could do it myself. But I really could not. I didn't even know what was wrong; I just knew I didn't want to die! And I was going to die if I stayed in the situation I was in.

So anger can free you if you use it sparingly! Focus your justified anger toward what is making you angry and not at yourself. Do what you need to do to take care of the situation. Don't turn it inward to punish yourself when you can't fix it! You are not responsible for anyone but you! Let go of the guilt, pain and stress and be good to yourself by getting angry at the right person! Then let it go and get on with your life! Because you have a job to do! You may not know what it is but you choose life too! And if you stick around God will send the breeze your way and you will set out on your journey. Life is a journey not a destination.

So what anger have you been turning inward?

I love you all!

FlyLady

Here is the testimonial that was the God Breeze for my essay!

I Want to Live

Dear FlyLady,

October: a two year old, a newborn, a husband who worked late and 6 or 7 days a week and depression. More than once a day I told myself I wanted to die. I really thought about it, about how it could be an accident so my children would get my life insurance. I was sleep deprived, had to go back to full-time work after 6 weeks, going to school (a condition of my employment), had a mess of a house and out of control finances.

Then I got sick and I thought, this is it, I am dying now. After a week of feeling terrible and coughing I went to the doctors was told it was a cold, go home and rest. It got worse and I moved into the guest room so DH could sleep and when I was up coughing in the middle of the night I would think, "it's almost over, I'm dying now, I can make it a bit longer". I went back to the doctor three days later and I was told it was a bad cold, go home and take OTC medicine for the cough.

It was 4 days before I had to return to work, less than 6 weeks since I had my son and my employer called to confirm my return. I could hardly speak I was coughing so hard. She said I had to have a back to work note before I could come into the office. Went to the OBGYN for my 6-week checkup and he said no way would he extend my time off for a cough, it was unrelated to the delivery of the baby.

In the waiting room I was trying to read some magazine and don't remember anything about it except your website and I remember how I tried, crashed, burned and failed when I attempted it before. I used my task list in my hand-held computer and tasked myself to the point where nothing got done. That night I got up when I was coughing and looked in the mirror, my skin was gray and my lips were blue, "not much longer" I thought. I went to the computer and opened up your site. I thought about some of the testimonials I had read previously and I remembered you and your escape from your first husband to save your life and I got angry. Angry at the health care professionals that were ignoring me, angry at my husband for working so much, angry at my employer - a rage I can't describe but for those who have been there, you know what I am talking about.

In the morning I showered, got dressed to my shoes, holding the wall because I could barely breath and called the doctors office told them I was on my way, I couldn't breath and needed help.

I got there and they wanted all my information. I was coughing, trying to breath and find my insurance card in my purse and then I started crying, standing in front of the receptionist, I said "please help me" and two nurses came running. They put me on a gurney, put a blood oxygen monitor on, it was so low they didn't believe I was conscious. They took care of my baby, gave me oxygen and took x-rays.

Pneumonia in every lobe of my lungs. The nurse practitioner held my hands and said, "you are right, you could have died from this but you won't". Women I didn't know were helping me.

As I was waiting for my antibiotic prescription to be filled I remembered the peace my home briefly had before I crashed and burned and I vowed to take control and get better with baby steps this time. I had to return to work but I made arrangements to work from home for a few weeks while my strength came back. I took naps, I went to bed early and slept in the guest room if my DH wanted to watch TV. DH hired someone to clean our house weekly. I made my before bed routine and my morning routine and didn't try anything else. My before bed routine was long, it took 3 hours but I knew if I didn't include make dinner and eat it, I wouldn't do it. It included taking off my makeup, brushing my teeth and taking a shower. It took months before it felt normal but my routines helped me overcome depression and they forced me take care of myself. I was probably depressed and sick from not eating dinner, nutritious meals and getting enough sleep.

It's been over 6 months. I tackled the laundry monster just like you said and went to the laundry mat. I have kept up ever since. I tackled my finances, shined my sink and added it to my routine. I don't dread weekends anymore, no longer are they a laundry, dishwashing, shopping, cleaning marathon. I have time to take my children to the park and we walk there to get exercise. I have tackled my pantry, freezer, dinner menus, grocery lists and shopping. I take care of myself first and have lost weight, have nice simple clothes and wear my makeup. Dinner time is 6:30.

DH knows if he misses it, there will be a plate for him and he tries to make it home more often. I am working on my stinkin' thinkin' right now. Last night when DH was late, instead of getting upset, calling and nagging him, I did a hotspot drill, and told my 2-1/2 year old we had two cleaning missions in the master bedroom. She said, "yeah!!!" (oh the enthusiasm of a 2-1/2 year old!). I gave her the little flyduster and she said "it's beautiful mommy, there is a purple flower in it", and she danced with her wand as I did the window and ceiling missions. They were the first two missions I have done and I was so happy I had good tears in my eyes because what popped into my head was, "I want to live now". Last night I realized I have not thought, "I want to die", in almost six months.

My anger saved my life and sometimes that is what it takes. Thank you and the FlyLady team for being there every day with the email digest. I thank God for the breeze that made me see your website address at that important time in my life. Peace is returning to my life and one day, when my husband notices the changes, I will sit him down and tell him about my friend FlyLady and her friends who helped me save my life.

Love a Flybaby in Rochester NY

I decided to unsubscribe for now, I love the cleaning tips but apparently the big calendar sale is on.

I saw this article on Apartment Therapy and thought it funny, as are the few comments following. (It is in no way connected to Flylady, it is just a different cleaning theory)

Drunk Cleaning