housekeeping for geeks

[coraa]

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.)

Comments

[2gouda4u.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of this before, and I couldn't help but laugh when I read the bit on flylady.net about wearing shoes. Particularly the part about shoes being a necessity for being professional, read while curled up at my desk at work wearing no shoes.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are a lot of individual things like that that are a bit... peculiar. The thing is, they seem to work for a lot of the target audience (I think the 'get dressed, do your hair, put on shoes' thing is aimed at women who are stay-at-home moms and never get out of their pyjamas all day, and I can see how actually getting dressed could have a psychological impact)... but without that context, they just seem silly, and even in context, they aren't for everyone.

Learning to use the method is contingent on cheerfully dumping any element that's irrelevant for you -- for me, the routines and zone cleaning is what's useful; the rest can be analyzed and discarded at will. But it varies from person to person, what's useful and what's irrelevant.

(The whole site is unlikely to be of any use to you, given the immaculate state of your home every time I've been over. I suspect you are what the Flylady culture calls a 'Born Organized.' ;) )

[porfinn.livejournal.com]

mmm....pajamas. I love pajamas. Now where are my big, fat, pink curlers and large, overly-fluffy, magenta slippers.