housekeeping for geeks

I am kind of embarrassed to admit that the Flylady method of housekeeping actually, apparently, works for me. Embarrassed because it is possibly the least cool thing in the history of ever -- I mean, when you follow a system designed for and by middle-aged Christian stay-at-home moms, complete with twee inspirational messages and purple fairies on everything, you pretty much lose all claim to being hip. (Granted, I already have pretty much forfeited claims of being hip, what with, e.g., my tendency to go to bed by 11pm, but there you go.)

That being said, I feel much more satisfied with my "Control Journal" (basically, the list of housekeeping routines, shopping lists, etc., stored in a three-ring binder) now that I've replaced the cheery house-fairy image on the front with a picture of Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang (from Fullmetal Alchemist), and added another picture of Celes Chere and Locke Cole (from Final Fantasy 6) to the back. I may need a cute binder of housekeeping routines to keep the house in some semblance of order, but I can at least have asskicking women and the men who love them on it, dagnabbit.

(I may post more about my trial and error with the Flylady method, and how I've tweaked it for my own, non-mom, day-job-working, no-shoes-in-the-house, non-conservative-Christian self, later.)

Cora Interprets FlyLady So You Don't Have To, Part One: Caveats, and Things You Can Ignore

Since a few people have asked!

First things first.

* I feel no desire to proselytize the system. If you have a housekeeping system that works for you, or can keep your home clean with no system at all, I am very glad for you and am not trying to get you to switch. If you don't have a system but don't want this one either, or if you are perfectly happy living in cluttery environs, that's fine too. This is just for people who have expressed interest in how I adapted this particular system, because it works for me personally. You don't need to explain to me why you don't want to use it. (And, in fact, if your comment is going to boil down to 'this is not useful for me and/or stupid and/or pathetic,' plz do not make the comment, ok? I'm pretty insecure about my housekeeping as it is.)

* Yes, the e-mails are twee, the website is ugly, the aesthetic is not cool at all. This is all true. It's also such an easy target for mockery that I really don't feel compelled to spend much time on that aspect of it. (Fish, barrel.) If you can't get past that, this is probably also not for you. (That said, you can pretty easily strip the plan down to its bare-bones and then 'reskin' it with an aesthetic that makes you smile, if pink and purple doesn't do it for you. My control journal has anime characters and snarky commentary. The principles work just fine in that context, too.)

* This system has made me a considerably, noticeably better housekeeper than before, and has made me more chill about it, too. That said, it still hasn't made me a great housekeeper, as those of you who've seen my place can attest. ;) The place is still often in disarray. So I am not trying to set myself up as an expert, just describing something that Worked For Me. I hope it's useful for somebody, but it won't be useful for everybody.

Okay, that out of the way!

The first thing that's important when tweaking FlyLady is to get rid of the elements of it that don't work for you. There will probably be a lot of them. They might not overlap entirely with me, but here's what I ditched, and why, and why you may or may not want to ditch it yourself. (The FlyLady is pretty vocal about some of these being Vital! I suspect they were vital for her, and that's why she thinks they're the most important things. They aren't vital for me. You can ignore the 'you must' statements on the website. In fact, if you're snarky like me, you may get a certain amount of pleasure out of ignoring them.)

(You actually don't have to go to the website unless you want to -- I'm going to try to outline what I use in the next post sufficiently that you could just use that -- but if you do, this is what you can/should ignore.)

( Stuff You Can Safely Ignore )

Next up: having ditched all of that, what do I use, and how? Onward to Part Two: What I Do Use.

Cora Interprets FlyLady So You Don't Have To, Part Two: The Stuff I Actually Do Use

So, having jettisoned all the stuff that doesn't work for me (see Part One: Things You Can Safely Ignore), what's left? (Note: You probably want to go read that one first, since it has important introductory information -- if nothing else, it will explain to you why I don't need you to enumerate why you don't want to use this system. ;) )

Basically, I use three parts of the FlyLady method: the Control Journal (which in turn is made up of sets of routines), Zone Cleaning, and the 15 Minutes Won't Kill You principle. Plus some miscellanea.

None of this is rocket science, and in fact many of you have probably independently invented a lot of these tips. But, as before, it's a set of systems that works for me, so.

( Details behind the cut. )

And that's it. If anyone is curious as to what's on my personal routines/zone cleaning schedules/etc, I'd be happy to share that.