Secrets of Fly Lady, or How to turn cleaning into a holiday

The new-fangled trend of successful housewives everywhere is gaining momentum among Russian women. How to organize everything, quickly clean the house and at the same time remain beautiful and successful? Nothing could be simpler! To do this, you need not only to correctly distribute time and energy, but also to create a special “women’s” book - a fly lady control log. What it is? The online magazine “Korolevnam.ru” will tell you in detail about this necessary accessory for the modern fly lady and provide visual examples.

Content

1. Who is NOT suitable for Fly Lady? Three bold disadvantages of system 2. 5 main principles of the Fly Lady system 3. Fly Lady: let's take off! Where to start mastering the system?

• Decluttering
• Storage systems
• Fly Lady audit trail
• Weekly plan
• Family calendar

4. Fly Lady’s daily habits

• Get yourself in order! Who is suitable for lace-up shoes?
• Why do you really need a clean sink?
• Timer - helps or hinders?

5. Cleaning according to Fly Lady - 6 unusual options

• Crisis cleaning for emergencies
• Ordinary MIRACLE
• Routines. Rituals. Hedgehogs
• Hot Spots
• 5 minutes to save a room

Structured

And here you combine the graphs. Experienced fly ladies divide the recordings into 4 parts:

1. Introduction. Goals for the week are written here. All your possible wishes.
2. Housework. Actions you need to take: cleaning, cooking, children. You can simply write down the days of the week and make a rough plan. For example, on Monday we are preparing to eat (write what exactly). Then, we clean the area and work with the child. And so on every day.
3. Shopping lists for groceries, medicines, chemicals, cosmetics.
4. Self-care for your loved one.

I'll tell you a little secret. Some flyladies start several notebooks at once. One contains information on housekeeping, the other contains telephone numbers. And in the third event for the weekend, the so-called holiday magazine.

Which template you choose is up to you. Just don’t try to fit into someone else’s scheme. This will be a major mistake. Develop your lists.

By the way, I'm waiting for your options in the comments. I wonder if you have ever tried to set up your life according to this principle? Did it work? If not, why not? Leave responses and become blog subscribers. Until next time. Bye!

Who is not suitable for Fly Lady?

In my opinion, the Fly Lady system best helps two types of housewives:

1. For those who have a wild mess at home because they have very little time. Especially often these are mothers with many children or mothers with small children. And also business women who don’t have time to put things in order, but have someone to mess up and make a mess at home.
2. The opposite situation applies to those who have little time, because they have an ideal order. They constantly walk around with a rag, wash and polish something, are obsessed with cleanliness and because of this, they don’t have time to do anything else in life. Of course, I would like to do everything faster, but the desire for ideal does not allow me to stop.

That is, if you have plenty of time, nothing special to do, no crazy passion for order, and you don’t suffer from perfectionism, then it’s quite possible to do without any Fly Ladies.

Like any system, Fly Lady has not only pros, but also cons. And it’s better to understand and take them into account from the very beginning, so as not to be upset later that you can’t teach a fish to climb trees.

Three main disadvantages of the Fly Lady system:

1. Marla Seelly (the author of the system) initially invented it for herself, to suit her needs and tasks. And people are very different, each with their own personal characteristics, habits and lifestyle.
2. This system is American and yet for some reason still not fully adapted to our realities, to our mentality.
3. This is a very tough system. There is an absolutely insane amount of instructions and nuances.

Therefore, most likely, in its basic version, the Fly Lady system will not work in your life. You can try to master the system using a standard 31-step algorithm, as described in the book and as taught in numerous Takeoffs (Fly Lady trainings) that you can find on the Internet. But after such ups and downs, many people are disappointed - it seems to work at first, and then for some reason it doesn’t work.

Therefore, in no case should you fanatically follow the tips and recommendations so that everything is as in the book, or as they say in the video tutorials. Try to understand the meaning of the techniques and methods of the system, adapt them to yourself, take only what suits you. And then the result will please you.

Focus not on the minuses, but on the pluses of the system, because Fly Lady has a lot of sound, correct, unexpected, and interesting ideas.

Why is an audit trail needed?

Indeed, they came home from work, cooked dinner, cleared the table, and did homework with the children. And on weekends there is general cleaning and cooking. When will you live? You want to break out of this circle, right? So, let's learn to put our thoughts and actions in order.

It seems to us that there is a lot that needs to be done. And this makes one give up. But the eyes are afraid, but the hands do it. Remember the famous saying? It is quite possible to complete a weekly plan in 5 days. And spend the weekend with your family. You just need to think about how to spread the work planned for the weekend across weekdays.

So, you will kill several birds with one stone:

1. Systematize your chaos in your head.
2. Now you don’t have to worry every day about what to cook for dinner. This is planned in advance. You just need to look at your records.
3. Finally, you will begin to manage your time, and not it you.

But the sections of the control journal (CL) contain not only household chores. This can include self-care and various recipes... Even a page for the soul can exist, with poems, for example! In general, the whole life of a real fly lady is described here!

How to organize it?

Fly Lady: Let's take off! Where to start mastering the system?

In my trainings I call some elements of the system “Feats”. Feats are something that can be done once, and then thanks to this it is much easier to maintain order. That is why it is better to start with them.

There are five such “Feats”:

1. Decluttering.
2. Storage systems.
3. Audit trail.
4. Weekly plan.
5. Family calendar.

Decluttering

While there are too many things, it is impossible to organize them. And as a result, all our cleaning, all our putting the house in order, comes down to simply moving things from place to place. Therefore, if you understand that you still want your house to be in order, first of all, throw away everything that is not urgent, everything that you can refuse, and first declutter.

Get rid of the unnecessary things and determine for yourself how many things you actually need and which ones fill your home with joy.

Read more about the difficulties and psychological side of decluttering in the article “Decluttering your apartment: how to stop regretting old things” (opens in a new window).

Storage systems

Find a place for every item you own. Think through storage systems so that using things is truly convenient.

The basic principles of organizing space are described in the article Organize your home once and for all: how to get rid of chronic clutter, organize your space and start a new life (opens in a new window)

Control Journal (QOL)

If you are a fan of some kind of diaries, planners, organizers, you will most likely be captivated by this idea of ​​​​making a special notebook where all the information will flow.

But, most likely, you will scour the entire Internet, find out what sections there are in this audit trail. You will learn about the weekly plan, lists of daily routines, detailed lists of cleaning areas, grocery lists, lists of medicines in the first aid kit, phone numbers, birthdays, travel lists, inspiration pages.

Then you will dig up some forms. Afterwards, decide that they are not ideal. Then, most likely, you will do everything your own way, and, most likely, you will get stuck in this planning.

Therefore, learn to limit yourself wisely. To begin with, you can focus on the following maximum planning standards:

• 15 minutes to plan your day;
• an hour and a half to plan the week;
• 7 hours to plan things for the month.

Gradually you will most likely come to other numbers:

• 2-3 minutes to plan your day;
• 15 minutes – planning the week;
• 1-2 hours – to plan the month.

If we start downloading these ready-made versions of the audit trail and start trying to fill it all out right away, then it most often does not work that way.

The situation is even more interesting when you are not a fan of planning.

Think about this interesting thought: keeping all the information in your head is a completely thankless task.

You may have heard about this rule: “Seven plus or minus two.” This means that an ordinary normal human brain (not the brain of a genius) is capable of keeping approximately 7 plus or minus 2 tasks in active memory. These tasks can be both global (make a large financial report at work) and some small (buy food for the cat).

Let's be honest, most often it is still 5, not 9. And when these tasks become more than 5-9, we begin to run out of RAM, we begin to forget something.

Imagine that you have 7 light bulbs, and every time you need to do something, one of the light bulbs lights up. Normal energy consumption is 5-9 light bulbs, and the scale is not important, the quantity is important.

To turn off the light bulb, there are two options: either do the task that the light bulb reminds you of, or write down this task. When we write down things on a list, instead of an infinite number of light bulbs, we have one - “look at the to-do list.” And thus we significantly save space in our RAM.

That is, when we start using a to-do list, we have free light bulbs, free energy to think and do. We have the energy to live, to look a little further than this crazy tangle of things that need to be done in the near future.

Therefore, it still seems to me that planning and maintaining some kind of audit trail is necessary. But in order for your audit trail in which you plan to be a real helper, don’t do it just for show. Write down only what you will actually use.

You can make an audit trail either in paper or electronic form, whichever is more convenient for you. The main thing is to do it gradually, filling it as needed. Remember that the audit trail is something personal. Something that should grow from your experience. Do not take ready-made options, because they are good as a collection of ideas, but in practice they are useless and do not work.

Weekly plan

A weekly plan is a planning option where you distribute all your usual activities that require some kind of regularity by day of the week. For example, on Monday - travel, on Tuesday - all paper work, on Wednesday - purchases.

I’ll say right away: in my experience, this idea looks very nice, but in practice it suits few people. More precisely, this is only good for people who have a very established, calm and measured life. Yes, there are such people, but they are a minority.

At the same time, if you try to keep a weekly plan, it is very likely that some kind of long-term planning of your own will gradually develop from this. That’s why in my marathons and trainings I usually talk about the weekly plan, what options there are, what alternatives there are, and still recommend trying it.

Family calendar

This sheet is usually A4 or A3 format. An ordinary piece of paper. It is hung in a prominent place in the house, and all the activities of each family member are entered there. According to my observations, this is convenient even for small families. In a large family, this often becomes a super-tool, which helps to relieve the burden of the head in a very cool way to remember everything and avoid overlaps.

Therefore, if the family is large, if the children have clubs and sections, if one of the family members has an unstable work schedule, sometimes a family calendar in which everyone’s activities will be entered really helps a lot.

Download the free PDF book “A Woman’s Way to Get It All Done” (link will open in a new window). The book contains practical ideas and techniques that will help simplify your life.

Kinds

It’s not difficult to guess that records can be stored in two available ways:

• on paper.
• electronic.

It's convenient for anyone here. It’s easier for one girl to put a notepad in her purse, and for another to open a tablet or laptop.

And then only your imagination! If you prefer the paper version, then take what you want. You can write it down in a notebook, notepad, or diary. There are no restrictions on sizes either. There are options that have been underway for several years!

Fly Lady's daily habits

Habits are what shape our lifestyle. If you want to live differently, then the truth is that you will have to become a different person, acquire different habits.

Here are 3 basic habits according to the Fly Lady system:

1. Appearance.
2. An island of purity.
3. Timer cleaning.

Here I would like to draw your attention to the fact that from any system you need to take what really suits you. If you feel that you don’t like some element, then the best thing is to figure out what its meaning is.

It is often useful to go your own way. This is a good skill - to think about everything, adapt everything to your life, and not take it for granted. At the same time, you don't need to reinvent the wheel to learn how to ride it.

Therefore, if you understand that you do not have strong internal resistance, then try to do as suggested in the system. Yes, maybe you don't understand how it will work in your case at first, but try it.

If you have strong internal resistance, put this idea aside. There is no need to force yourself through “I can’t” and “I don’t want.”

No habit will become established until you enjoy it. No matter how much we want to control something completely (body, brain, life), one way or another, for some fairly large part we are animals. And our brain ultimately agrees only with what causes some pleasant emotions.

Only that which gives pleasure or helps to seriously avoid some problem is successfully integrated into life. If you don't like something and don't understand the meaning, don't do it. This is a completely useless activity.

There are many psychological nuances, taking into account which you can easily instill in yourself new habits and get rid of those that bother you. So, three main habits that help to establish systematic cleaning according to Fly Lady.

Get yourself in order! Why it's not about lace-up shoes

If you follow the Fly Lady system, then first thing in the morning you need to get yourself in order and put on comfortable lace-up shoes, so that they are not so easy to take off.

It is worth noting here that this idea of ​​the Fly Lady initially meets with resistance from many.

• Some people don’t wear shoes at home at all.
• Sometimes the climate is not suitable.
• It happens that walking without shoes is required by etiquette or religion.
• Many see health benefits for themselves.
• Many people simply enjoy walking around the house barefoot or in socks.

But it seems to me that this is not about shoes. It's about how you look and how you feel.

Right now, try to remember this state: I woke up in the morning, quickly put on slippers and a robe, and somehow I didn’t even have time to comb my hair in the morning, there was no time.

Either in the evening: you find yourself squeezed out of lemon after a whole day at home with the children, or you come home in no condition after work.

And then it’s important to do something that will help you switch, get into a working mood. And often wearing suitable shoes (and generally suitable clothes for cleaning) is a good idea.

But even more important than appearance is the internal state. Give yourself three minutes of rest, drink a cup of delicious tea. You are a living person, you need the opportunity to stand by the window, breathe deeply, look outside the window, and just relax. And there is a chance that you will want to smile at yourself in the mirror, put on cheerful and pleasant music, and you can feel that you still have the strength and desire to do something.

Why do you really need a clean sink?

In the Fly Lady system, special attention is paid to a clean sink. Marla Seelly recommends cleaning your sink thoroughly and then regularly maintaining it in perfect condition.

There is a very wise hidden meaning in this slightly strange idea.

• First , you learn to create a habit on something very simple and obvious.
• Second , you develop the skill of cleaning cleanly, without waiting for the dirt and clutter to grow and become noticeable.
• Third , you have an island of purity that gives you inspiration and the desire to move on.

Yes, the sink is an island of cleanliness, it is the starting point from which order will spread throughout your home. But it doesn’t matter what exactly becomes your “sink”.

For some, it turns out that the sink is not important at all. And, for example, keeping the washing machine in order is very important. Or a clean kitchen table. Or neatly arranged shoes in the hallway.

Therefore, if you don't want to polish the sink, don't do it. Find something that makes you happy. Something that, even with a quick glance, will make you want to smile.

Timer - helps or hinders?

When you start cleaning, decide for yourself how much time you are going to spend on it now, and set a timer. Of course, the timer also raises many questions.

For some people it is convenient to work on a timer, for others it is not. I highly recommend trying to use a timer at least for a while, because, firstly, a timer helps you cope with perfectionism.

Sometimes you get the feeling that it’s better not to start doing something at all, because you still won’t be able to do it completely well, there won’t be enough time. An interesting point here is that housework is eternal. And the timer helps to squeeze it into some kind of framework. We need clear, measurable goals, and the timer provides them.

The second thing a timer gives you is the habit of feeling time, the habit of understanding how many minutes have already passed. A sense of time is a basic skill that any time management coach will tell you about. In a couple of months, you won’t need a timer, because you will have your own internal timer, built right into your head and into your feelings, when you yourself know how much time has passed. But for starters, a timer often helps.

If the very thought of doing something using a timer annoys you, then don’t, it won’t help you. Precisely because irritation will appear, and if irritation and a dissatisfied face appear, then it is unrealistic to build a new habit, it doesn’t work that way.

But if you can somehow accept this, I highly recommend living with a timer for at least a month or two, the main thing is that it is convenient and can be set literally with one movement of the hand.

Please note that it is absolutely not necessary to set the timer on the timer that is written somewhere in the system - an hour, 15 or 5 minutes. These time periods specified in the system are not convenient for everyone.

Homes and families are very different. Some have five children, while others live alone. Some people have animals. The habits of our loved ones are a completely different story: some are neat, some are not at all, and some torture everyone around them with their neatness. Therefore, you need to look at exactly how much time you are willing to spend right now, and try to get the maximum result for the time that you have.

Be realistic and evaluate time realistically, learn to feel it, but you don’t need to focus on the numbers that the system gives.

Adviсe

• For the Audit Log, you will need a thick notebook or notepad. If you prefer a notebook, check how securely the sheets are attached to it. You don’t want it to scatter into separate leaves after a couple of turns.

• Let your family know about the Audit Log too. Firstly, your husband may be very surprised to see how much you have to do around the house and may want to help. Perhaps your children will also get involved in this exciting game, because they will also want to fly. Cleaning with a timer adds excitement. You can organize whole races! Secondly, if you go somewhere (for example, on a business trip) or, God forbid, go to the hospital, your family will know what to do so as not to neglect the house. Nobody wants to live in dirt. The Control Book also contains all the phone numbers your family needs - just look at the end of the notebook.

Improve your audit trail, make the necessary changes that are convenient for you. This is your personal productivity tool and you can organize everything exactly the way you want. Good luck!

Cleaning according to Fly Lady - 6 unusual options

Often we get stuck in the cleaning methods we know. Usually we do the cleaning option that was accepted in our family. We put things in order the way our grandmothers and mothers did. But there are other options that are better suited to specific tasks.

Crisis cleaning for emergencies

Crisis cleaning is a top-to-bottom cleaning option when you need to quickly bring the house into more or less decent shape.

According to the classics, this cleaning should take 2 hours, and is done in 2 circles:

• Circle 1 – Kitchen, Hallway and Living Room. In each zone you work on a timer for 15 minutes. After this, take a 15-minute break to rest.
• Circle 2 – Kitchen, Bathroom and toilet, Bedroom or Children’s room. And also 15 minutes to rest.

For a detailed description and step-by-step instructions, see the article “Cleaning an apartment: where to start and how to clean - step-by-step plan” (opens in a new window)

An Ordinary MIRACLE (Hour of House Cleaning, Weekly Home Blessing).

The next cleaning option that the Fly Lady system offers is an hour of house cleaning (in other translations - an hour of house blessing, or MIRACLE). This is a superficial cleaning that is done according to a pre-planned plan.

Usually, we have an hour for cleaning the house on Friday, and our task is to do superficial cleaning, refresh the entire house, and prepare it for the weekend. We spend 1 hour on this type of cleaning.

The general scheme looks like this: there are six operations, we devote 5-10 minutes to each of these operations.

1. Change bed linen.
2. Vacuum or sweep.
3. Mop the floors in the center of the rooms, kitchen and bathroom.
4. Wipe off dust from surfaces, mirrors, switches, door handles.
5. Collect all accumulated papers.
6. Throw away trash and other trash.

Working in zones instead of general cleaning

This type of cleaning is, in fact, a replacement for classic spring cleaning.

All rooms of the house are conventionally divided into zones. A month is approximately 4.5 weeks, so there are 5 zones. It is assumed that you work in each zone for 1 week; 15 minutes are spent working in the zone.

Our task when working in zones is to thoroughly clean: wash the floors in the far corners, baseboards, wash the curtains, wash the chandelier, etc.

Marla Seelly offers the following breakdown of premises into zones:

1. Hallway, dining room, veranda.
2. Kitchen.
3. Bathroom, children's room, guest bedroom.
4. Master bedroom, master bath.
5. Living room, common room.

This breakdown is classic and greatly simplified. Perhaps you have storage rooms, balconies and loggias, or a porch at home. Simply add such “unaccounted for” to one of the zones. Or replace the area that you don’t have (for example, a children’s room or a dining room).

This requires a little thought, but if you want to really “customize” the system for yourself, and not stupidly follow book recommendations, you will have to turn on your head often.

Each zone has its own cleaning time. For example, this week you only focus on the bedroom and don’t pay attention to other areas. In each area, first get rid of everything unnecessary, declutter, and only then begin detailed cleaning.

What if we actually have fewer premises?

If there are fewer rooms in the house, you simply allocate several zones in each room.

Participants in our Fly Lady trainings and marathons found another interesting option. You can move from one zone to another not once a week, but every day. Then on Monday you will have a hallway as a work area, on Tuesday - a kitchen, on Wednesday - a children's room, on Thursday - a bedroom, and on Friday - a common room.

This is often convenient for those who spend a lot of time at home, have a large family or small children. Because if in a family with children we take a whole week to tidy up one room, the rest end up in a completely neglected state.

Of course, in one approach you will not do a general cleaning of the area in 15 minutes. But if we devote a week a month to each zone, then little by little each zone is cleaned out. Agree, it is not necessary to wash the chandelier every month - some months you will wash it, some months you won’t.

Routines

The next cleaning option is what in Fly Lady in standard translation is called Routines. To be honest, the word “Routine” hurts my ears. When I hear it, I immediately don’t want to do anything. Therefore, in my trainings I use the word “Rituals” or “Hedgehogs” (from “daily affairs”).

Rituals are certain sequences of actions that we do every day. Our task is to bring these things to such automatism that they are done as if by themselves. When you don’t have to think about what to do and why, magic happens.

For example, during the Morning and Evening rituals, I turn on a book, think about tomorrow, or chat with my mother on the phone through a headset. And it turns out that I talked with my mother for 20 minutes, had a great time, but I don’t remember what I did. But the house is clean as a result.

And when we start doing some boring things in this format of automatic habit, they cease to be boring because we don’t notice them. Because at this time you can think about something of your own, listen to music, an audiobook, chat with your child, talk to a friend on the phone. And then these matters are perceived completely differently.

The time spent on rituals is completely individual, because for someone such a ritual will include “get up, wash, get dressed and have breakfast,” for example. And for some, a whole bunch of things start to be added there.

For example, my morning ritual now consists of the following:

• I wake up, wash my face, douse myself with cold water, and wake up the baby.
• While he washes his face and douses himself with cold water, I apply makeup and all my morning creams.
• After this, we drink a glass of water and do exercises.
• After that, we prepare breakfast, my husband wakes up and we have breakfast.

All this is part of my morning ritual. What exactly will be in your sequence of actions is up to you to choose. The list of things you include in each routine is very individual and is formed gradually. Start with one item, and when it becomes a habit, add the next one.

Don't try to take any lists from the Internet. It is important that your Ritual includes exactly what you need, and in the sequence that is convenient for you.

Hot spots (Hot spot)

Everyone has places in their home that somehow magically attract things. If you have some kind of sofa or chair that attracts things to it, then as soon as the first thing appears there, this means that very soon this chair will simply not be visible. It will be buried under things.

If you have such places in your house and there is one in each room, this is normal. This means that you just live here. If you have more such places in your house, then you need to declutter and then think about organizing the space. When we work with these hot spots, our task is to simply extinguish them very quickly, to sort things out so that they do not have time to accumulate there.

FIVE Minute Room Rescue

5 minutes to save a room is an option for decluttering a room that is heavily littered with things. For example, there may be some kind of storage room in the house that is so filled up that the doors cannot open or close.

We do this cleaning on a timer, in short bursts, whenever possible, ideally 1-2 times every day. Of course, this option is not suitable for everyone; for some it is easier to set aside a day and sort everything out at once. But for many, this is a good option for saving a heavily littered room.

What should I contribute?

Whatever you want! Some will say that they already remember everything and there is no need to waste time filling out all sorts of paperwork. And they will be wrong. Why? Take, for example, your job or the institute where you once studied. After all, there you had to keep diaries or notebooks. Write down tasks and plans. After all, it’s easier to live according to the system. Do you agree? When the scheme has already been written down, all that remains is to follow it.

Think about what you usually do at home, weekends are included here too. What would you like to do? But let’s agree honestly and include everything in this list! Even time to meet friends or go to the movies. Now organize it into graphs. This will be your first step towards your goal. For example:

• Cleaning.
• Cooking.
• Income - expenses.
• Garden care.
• Children.
• Personal care.
• Animals.
• Entertainment.

And for each column, make a weekly plan. Some even include phone numbers of relatives, friends, emergency services, and others. Birthdays also have a place here.

And now a small example by sections.