Following FlyLady's BabySteps | Day 22 and Day 23
On Day 8 of our FlyLady adventure we were introduced to the idea of a Control Journal. According to FlyLady, “a Control Journal is just a place to put your routines, basic weekly plan, your zones and other information. With a Control Journal you have a place to keep important items without them getting lost in your numerous hot spots."
From the get go, I didn’t like the sound of it. I’m not a list person. I thought the idea of writing down my FlyLady routines was silly, but I complied. I had a little fun with it a few days later as we were instructed to add an inspirational page to our Control Journal. After that day, it was filed neatly on a kitchen cabinet. I haven’t looked at is since.
Now three weeks later we are supposed to start working on it again. Since Control Journals have their own BabySteps, I decided to look them over to see if I could find any value in making one. To my chagrin, there actually was some merit in making a Control Journal. FlyLady considers it not only a place to hold your daily routines, but also some very important information.
- Information for your babysitter including your address, phone number and directions to your house
- Contact information for immediate family.
- Contact information for your parents and your spouses parents
- Phone numbers that might be needed incase of an emergency. This could include, Poison Control, doctors, veterinarians, or dentists. Its basically anyone you might need to look up quickly incase of an emergency.
- Insurance information
FlyLady really had a great idea there. It would be nice to have all that information right at my finger tips. I instantly started thinking of other things that I’d like to have handy at all times.
- The school’s phone number
- Carry out/delivery menus
- Phone numbers for the utility companies
- Financial Institution phone numbers
Generally all of this information is somewhere in the house , but I definitely do not have it all in one place. I have a list here, a scrap of paper there, a few things in my phone, and the yellow book nearby. It would be nice to just open a book and flip instantly to the number to my daughters school rather than my current method of digging through a pile of paper to find the annual calendar. Of course, all of this information could also be stored on a computer or phone for easy access, but to have a hard copy just incase the technology demons visit me would probably save me time in the long run. Its something I have never really thought of compiling, but I think anyone could find value in doing it.
DAY 22 - WHERE IS YOUR CONTROL JOURNAL
Today FlyLady reminded us we were supposed to be working on our Control Journal. I haven’t been working on mine, and I’m not sure if I am going to at any point in the near future. I am, however, going to start compiling some of my most used contact information. So, in a way, I’m making my own version of the Control Journal. My friend, being an excellent FlyBaby, already ordered a pre-fabricated Control Journal from FlyLady’s website. She is a total list person, so I know she will make good use of it.
We both spent our 5 minute Room Rescue in our toy rooms. I am still amazed at the power of 5 minutes. Running around like a chicken with its head cut off for 5 minutes really does pay off. We’ve both decided that we could rescue our toy rooms everyday with the trail of toys our children constantly leave behind. I frequently get my kids to help me with the room rescue, they really don’t mind because it is only 5 minutes.
The best part of doing a toy room rescue is the feeling that you haven’t wasted much time. Both of us would spend much more time picking the room up in the past, only to find that a few minutes later our children have come in and destroyed it. It is actually a bit depressing to know that an hours worth of your hard work became null in void in such a short period of time. But, with only 5 minutes invested, they are free to destroy away and everyone is still happy.
DAY 23 - SET YOUR AFTERNOON ROUTINE
By Day 23, we were both completely invested in our FlyLady routines. We had morning and before bed routines that FlyLady asked us to stick to each day. We both were doing what she asked of us, and were loving the results of our cleaning and organizing efforts.
So, for today, she wanted us to include an afternoon routine. It was really quite simple, all she wanted us to do was write down our afternoon routine in our Control Journal.
I didn’t.
Yes, I am a slacker, but come on. It wasn’t as if she was asking us to add something new in the afternoon, she just wanted us to write down what we were already doing. Pssh! I know what I need to do when my daughter gets home from school.
Day 22 and Day 23.…kind of complete?!
I really don’t feel bad about my resistance to using a Control Journal. One thing I have realized as time passes is that FlyLady is trying to help FlyBabies get into routines by giving them tools that simplify their lives. A Control Journal is one of the tools she offers. Just because I choose not to use it the way she intended doesn’t make me a FlyBaby failure. My sink is shining, my house is cleaner, and its all thanks to FlyLady. How on earth could that possibly be a failure?
