Jump to content

Menu

"Fly Lady" -?


Recommended Posts

Went and traveled around that site for the 1st time due to the chatter about it. My first thought was "who names a site for cleaning 'fly lady'?"

 

My mental image was that of a lady surrounded by houseflies. Eww.

 

But I get it now..lol....:D

 

I can see where it is really useful for people with the lists and the focus it provides that way.

 

Are any of you out there raving fans?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think her ideas are great, pretty much common sense on a lot of things....but it was nice to get the reminder. I have failed miserably, twice. I get overwhelmed by the emails and quit. I just try to implement a few of the strategies that really help me....like the 15 minute declutter. I don't swish and swipe the bathroom daily and I don't get dressed foray thinkin the.morning.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have mixed feelings about Flylady. One the one hand, I truly believe it can be a great system that has helped many many people get a handle on their lives. On the other hand, I can't stand it. She has her first babysteps and several of them don't have anything to do with cleaning your house but have to do with feeling better about yourself. Sure, I would like to feel better about myself. I would if my house was cleaner! Teach me to do that and let me worry about my own self esteem. Then there's the tone of a bunch of her emails being rather sappy. Some people love that. I do not. I need Flylady for snarky people. ;) Also, she is very rigid about things that don't make sense to me. I admit to be rabidly anti-shoes and she wants people to wear shoes inside all the time. She says to put makeup on even if you are staying at home. Um, just no. Then there's the emails. A huge number of the emails are testimonials about how great the system works. She gets lots of emails from people talking about how their lives are better now that they follow Flylady and she passes these on to the rest of us. I guess these are supposed to be encouraging, but it feels like she's trying too hard to "sell" her system. Even though it's free.

 

I probably am overly negative about the system. I was on the Flylady list back before she had a site and a book and a line of cleaning products, back when she was amazed that she was getting thousands of people joining her email list. I've unsubbed from her list and resubbed several times throughout the years. I make an effort to look past the things I don't like about the system because I believe that it really can work. But I've never been able to do it. :p

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The website and emails are of no help to me. In fact I think the website it way too cluttered (oh the irony! :tongue_smilie:) but her book - Sink Reflections is what got me started and I have adapted and developed my own routine since then. I think if I had never come across the book I would be a miserable and crabby housekeeper because I would feel like I have to do it all right now. Now that I have routines and a plan I can relax in the knowledge that it will get done in an orderly fashion and I don't have to stress right now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first intro was via the book...It took me a few tries, but I'm pretty much a fan now. I was resistant to the shoe req, but I made it work even in my house shoes.

 

The e-mails were a bit much for me, but the sit down and have a glass of water ones, were an ah-ha for me. Baby steps, and small bits of time cleaning here and there throughout the day/week/year add up to a much easier job. I was one of those power-cleaners who wanted to spend a few hours and clean the whole place top to bottom in one day...It was workable before kids, but a miserable failure with a family and big house.

 

I esp. like the daily missions for a room from the site. One week of focused cleaning on a room keeps the place pretty organized. (I can almost always get the week done in two days with very little effort.

 

The bag-boogies are what hooked me; I'm not a perfect fly-lady, but I love knowing if things get out of hand, I can get a handle on it without going crazy.:lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love it in theory, but I often fail miserably. At one time I was FLYing really well and I loved it then. I do still try to implement her ideas. Setting a timer for 15 minutes really does make a bigger difference than you'd think. It really helps me to not get overwhelmed with bigger cleaning projects. The emails are a pain if you get them all, but when I was getting them I set it to digest so I only got one a day. If I cared, I could browse through it, if not it was just one to delete instead of dozens.

 

Now I don't really use her system fully as intended, but I have learned to tweak certain parts so it works for me. I like the idea of zones, but I don't do a zone of the week for deep cleaning, deep cleaning rarely happens! Instead I have a zone of the day that I focus on a bit more than the others. And I zone my house my way, not hers, though it's similar. I also like the idea of morning and evening routines, but I put what *I* want on them.

 

I think flylady really helped me when I was clueless as to how to make all this housekeeping stuff work and really needed my hand held. Once I got the hang of it, I dropped the specifics and can now use the ideas but do my own thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...