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Getting organised
Discussions : General discussion : Getting organised
ejsmum wrote:
I have been thinking about starting a discussion on organising your life for a while, and I have just seen that camsmum is 'getting organised with the Flylady' so I thought this would be a good time to start!
I also love the Flylady, and in my never ending quest to get organised in my life, I have found a lot of her advice very useful. Just really simple things like making sure that all the dishes are done and the sink is clean before you go to bed at night - it makes a huge difference, especially to those like me with no dishwasher! Waking up in the morning to a sinkful of dirty dishes is so depressing to me. Also, trying to establish some routine in the day and week. To your typical right brain thinking creative type like me, this does not come naturally at all, but making the effort to do it has really helped me to get things done.
Some other Flylady wisdom that I now subscribe to:
Do one entire load of washing per day - that means wash, dry, fold/iron and put away. I used to try and do all the washing on one day, and then end up with some of the clothes on the line, some sitting scrunched in the basket, some sitting folded on the bed, and inevitably some left wet in the machine all night that had to be rewashed the following day. No wonder I hated laundry!! I could never find anything that I wanted, and there were piles of laundry all over the house. Now it just chugs along smoothly, and there are (usually) clean clothes in the wardrobe ready to wear.
Make a weekly menu. This has absolutely saved my sanity. I used to be the sort of person who would never plan what we were going to have for dinner. We would then end up looking at each other at 6 o'clock at night saying 'what are we going to eat?' Not good. Now I take some time on a Sunday to write a menu for the whole week. This goes up on the fridge and I then buy ALL the ingredients for those meals in my weekly shop. So then, I just check what's on my menu plan for that night and make it - everything is already in the cupboard or fridge, so no more late afternoon dashes to the supermarket with a toddler who hasn't had a nap (which usually ends in tears - his and mine).
I would recommend having a look at her website http://www.flylady.net. A word of warning though - if you subscribe to the newsletter, they send you about 15-20 emails a day, with little reminders if you are following the 'program' for want of a better word. I stopped getting the emails because there were just too many and I wasn't reading them. Some of what's on the website is a bit too "Oprah" for my liking as well. But if you look past that, there is a lot of great advice there.
There is also a fantastic store called kikki-k, which is heaven to a stationery nerd like me, and they have a lot of tools for getting organised. http://www.kikki-k.com.au
I got a great Weekly Planner pad from there, as well as my weekly Menu Planner.
I'd love to hear how you are going with FlyLady camsmum, and also what everybody else does to organise their life, family and business.
OK - I'll shut up now!
DanielleDK replied:
Thankyou so much for sharing that!!!!! I've really been finding it hard getting organised and keeping up with the house work (which is so depressing when you feel your house is always untidy) since my little mans come along (now 14months old), working part-time and planning a wedding.
So after reading your post i've gone onto the flylady website it has some great tips that i hope will get me organised!!!!!!
Danielle
sweetangel replied:
I've known about flylady for about 12 months. I too used to suffer from CHAOS - Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. I still do, but what do you with 4 kids. My house will be a showhome when they all move out. Until then I have resigned myself to the fact that I will always have handprints on my windows, there will always be a ridiculous amount of washing and the dishwasher will always be my best friend. Oh almost forgot, living with 4 males, there will always be someone who can't aim straight in the toilet.
love2party replied:
Yes, I too think the Flylady is great. I haven't been to the website for a while because as mentioned when you sign up you get email after email so I stopped it and now forget to go there.
I think I will visit tonight.
Thanks for the reminder.
noone replied:
You all beat me to it HAHA at least I know you guysread the bylines lol. I had to race off to the doctors yesterday otherwise I would have started this thread :) Thanks for doing it anyway!!
Well my sink is spotless - as well as the surrounding benchspace etc and I'm Dressed To My Shoes (even when you're at home, FlyLady suggests you be dressed completely - hair, make up and shoes to make yourself feel better and ready for the day - before yesterday I didn't bother brushing my hair, my make up was collecting dust and I was a devil for being so used to being barefoot I'd get in the car and be half way into town before I realised I didn't have my shoes!)
I've got my one load of laundry out on the line, and will have it put away by the time DH gets home - usually doing so many loads I'd have washing in the basket for a couple of days before I got around to putting them away! Not good!
Who else wants to get organised? You can start today!
mishmashmama replied:
Oh how I love FlyLady!
I still struggle (almost daily) but I'm slowly learning the strategies I need to have a home I can be proud of.
I've always made excuses for why the house is in the state it's in, I have some pretty good ones. But ultimately I was cleaning ineffectively - I'd never been taught how to 'keep house' (growing up in the ultimate house of CHAOS - my dad used to call it 'the house of no-routine'!). Flylady has been teaching me what to do, step-by-step and I'm sloooooooowly getting the hang of it.
*ahem* so the point is that I'm loving FlyLady and the progress that I'm making with her help!
Oh, and if the amount of email you get is annoying, I've got my reminders set for daily digest. Admittedly you get them all at once and they don't seem as effective, but it's better than nothing and I use each daily email as a springboard for the next day :)
- replied:
I love flylady too. I changed my email setting so that I only get one email per day. It was too ovrwhelming to get them one at a time.
For me the best part about the flylady system is waking up to a clean kitchen. It starts the day off well.
ejsmum replied:
Thanks girls, I didn't know you could get just one email per day, so I have subscribed again with this option.
Yes, waking up to a clean kitchen is such a great start to the day - for anyone who doesn't believe it, try it for a week and just see the difference it makes. It sounds strange, but it works - that's why it is the cornerstone of the whole Flylady system I guess. If I achieve nothing else in my day, I feel good when I get into a made bed at night and wake up to a clean sink in the morning!