Why Fly Lady is Right in her House Cleaning Tips and Routines

I know there are many, many women and even men out there who know about Fly Lady and her ideas and ways of cleaning house. There are many who are still searching for help with how to clear clutter. She is definitely not a traditionalist by any means. Her ideas can be seen as revolutionary especially to those of us who practically threw up our hands of ever getting our house spotless let alone clean. Her free system can be found at www.flylady.net

Her system not only deals with the clutter in your house, but also helps with the clutter in your life. There are times you just can’t deal with the clutter in your house unless you start to deal with why you are letting the clutter in your life. Her inspirational e-mails help along with reading replies to her that she sends out. Sometimes she does deal with hard subjects, and how clutter can become an emotional attachment.

There are two things she says that many bulk at. One is to keep your sink clean, and the other is to wear tie up shoes. Why those two things in particular? They don’t seem to make any sense. Yet for those who have tried, somehow they just make a difference. There is something about seeing a clean sink in the kitchen that helps put you in a good mood, and inspires you to keep cleaning. What woman wouldn’t want matching clean counters to go with the clean sink? Emotionally it does put a smile on your face when you wake up knowing you don’t have to look at a sink full of dishes.

The shoes are another wonder. When wearing them with socks, laced up, and tied, it does somehow give me the extra push to get something done. It is like I’m ready for the day even if I don’t go anywhere. That means you do need to get dressed also. One thing I know is when I don’t wear the shoes, it becomes a lazy day. I have found myself not wearing them because I don’t want to clean or do anything. You know, the old rebellion thing going on, while making up 1001 good and stupid excuses not to do anything.

The most important thing for me is the routine and the 15 minute cleaning sprees. You will have to go to her website to see what I’m talking about if you don’t already know. She is right with the routines. There are base routines that you do need to do everyday from caring for your self to making sure the dishes are done every day. Without those, everything can go south fast.

With the 15 minutes she gives us a release on not having to everything at once, and become worn out while doing so. Something my spouse didn’t understand. After one day of over doing everything thinking you have to get the entire room clean that day, or it is not clean. Who wants to touch anything the next day? The 15 minutes will eventually get things cleaned over time. As she says you didn’t create the mess over night, so you are not going to be able to clean over night. Most people can carve 15 minutes out of the day, and not get worn out or tired. Even just doing the 15 minutes a day I have seen a noticeable improvement.

Her two most important tools to have, I believe, is her timer and calendar. I love her timer, since it can be used for more than one thing. It can be an extra timer for preparing meals when everything needs timed, and you don’t have enough gadgets that have timers to help you keep the food from over cooking. It can be used as a stop watch to see how fast you or your kids can do something. You can easily carry it around in your pocket, put it on the fridge, or stand it up. My kids and I have had a lot of fun with that timer. The calendar has saved me on appointments more than once. It is big, easy to read, and has enough space to put everything down on all in one place.

The big question is does her system actually work, or am I just blowing a lot of fluff around? It does work, and has worked for me as well as many others. It only stops working if you stop putting forth the effort into it. There is really not that much physical effort you need to apply for it to work. It can work even if you are working outside of the home. Actually it takes more effort to deal with someone who thinks her way is taking too long, and is a bunch of fluff. From personal experience, I found it is harder to get back into her basic principles after my husband put too much pressure on me to stop doing what she said, and to do things his way. He now regrets badgering me to quit using her ideas.