Fly lady system. House cleaning, daily tasks, magazine, book. American fly lady system, adapted into Russian style
The popular fly lady system also covers our country. More and more women are beginning to learn the basics of cleaning a fly lady, which does not require enormous physical effort. Work, children, home - how to manage everything and remain cheerful and cheerful?
How to properly clean using the Fly Lady system? The online magazine Korolevnam.ru will tell you about this and much more. So, we present to your close attention step by step instructions Fly Lady cleaning systems.
1. Cleaning time
Initially, we suggest remembering the simple commandment of the “flying housewife”: 15 minutes a day for cleaning and not a minute longer! And without laughing, a timer will help you. To be honest, 15 minutes is a convention invented by the founder of the fly lady movement, Marla Cilley.
In fact, you can independently determine for yourself the time that you are able and willing to devote to the daily system. This should be a realistic amount of time that you will definitely spend on cleaning every day. You can have 15, 20, 30, or even 10 minutes.
It is important to remember: you cannot violate the system. By violating it once, you will create more actions for yourself next time. And this will lead to chaos, because it will knock you out of the circle. At the same time, you also can’t overexert yourself if you don’t want to “burn out” with this idea forever.
Here you need to realize: it’s unrealistic to immediately remove all the trash from the house, unless you have 10 pairs of arms and legs, and you don’t break into “a hundred little bears” in the cleaning process...
2. Fly lady house cleaning areas
So, over time, you have decided. Most likely, you already know about the audit trail where you should write everything down (if not, you can read it here). All that remains is to divide your home into zones for easier and more effective cleaning.
It's not difficult, even children can learn it. If you work alone, the effect, of course, will be, but not so lightning fast: so everyone is good at littering, but only you should clean up? Save yourself a little, or rather, your nerves.
Cleaning the house will be much easier. We understand that your family will not get used to this right away, and may not even hear you the first time. Be patient and have stickers: initially, place small reminders in places where “family” trash most often accumulates.
Now you can divide your house into cleaning zones with a clear conscience. Marla Seelly offers us the following division:
- Zone: dining room-hallway-entrance
- Zone: back door-laundry room-kitchen-pantry
- Zone: children's room - additional bedroom - workshop - bathroom
- Zone: master bedroom-toilet-another bathroom
- Zone: living room
However, in the conditions of Russian apartments, such a division becomes impractical; yours is another matter. a private house. Fly lady cleaning in a private home can be distributed across the presented zones, and depending on the type of structure of your home.
A private house may not have 2 bathrooms, but 3 and 4; there may not be two bedrooms, but 4 on each floor of the house. And there may be no living room at all, or it may turn out to be combined with a dining room... There are many options, but there are also many solutions
Here rough plan cleaning an apartment, say, a two-room apartment:
- Zone: living room (children's)
- Zone: bedroom
- Zone: kitchen
- Zone: entrance-hallway
- Zone: bath (+toilet)-balcony (storage room)
It is not necessary to adhere to this specific plan provided to you for clarity: you can always organize the zones at your own discretion. Maybe you want to make the bathroom and hallway one cleaning area, and the kitchen with a balcony another.
Or even create not 4 or 5 zones, but, say, 3: a studio apartment would also be suitable for this option. In short, it all depends on your imagination and the time you have available. Try it - and it will be easier for you to relate to cleaning.
The fly lady system is designed to make your life easier *wink*
Be careful when creating your zones, since you will be tidying in one zone throughout the week and for, say, 15 minutes a day. Next week - another zone. And so on in order until you finish all the zones within a month. Then - all over again.
3. List of things to do in the zone
Once you decide on your zones, give yourself a detailed list of what you need to do in a week in a specific zone. For example, in the bathroom area you need:
- Wipe the mirrors
- Clean the sink, bathtub (shower stall) and toilet
- Wash the toothbrush holder
- Wash the baseboards
- Clean the ventilation grille from dust/cobwebs/mold.
- Polish the faucet and handles
- Wash the door
- Throw away empty bottles and packaging
- Place all your cosmetics neatly
- Wash the floor
- Wash towels
- Check availability of toilet paper, toothpaste, etc.
You also make a to-do list for yourself in the bedroom, living room, kitchen and hallway: you can check out our zone cleaning list, which we attach to our checklist. There is no need to try to do everything at once in one day.
This is not spring cleaning. It is important to take small steps (baby steps) towards the intended goal - cleanliness and order in the area. Therefore, in order, God forbid, not to overwork, we advise you to get yourself a timer. And so on day after day. Life, routine, you sigh. Well, since you’re sighing, here’s the concept of “routine” in the Fly Lady’s cleaning system.
4. Routines
In addition to cleaning your area daily, you should develop good habits such as a morning and evening routine. Actually, these are the things for which you also allocate 10-15 minutes every morning and every evening.
For example, after you wake up, water the flowers, remove the cat's litter box, or lightly tidy up the bathroom: wipe the mirrors, hang a clean towel. In the evening, after dinner, wash all the dishes, wipe the sink (Marla Cilley dedicated a whole philosophy to the sink), disassemble “hot spots” (tables, bedside tables, window sills and even chairs) in 2 minutes. With this approach, Fly Lady cleaning the apartment will not seem like something “cosmic” to you.
5. "Hot spots"
The so-called “hot spots” are easily accessible horizontal surfaces on which most often your whole family “stores” garbage. Ideal for such purposes are bedside tables, tables, window sills, shelves at the level of your eyes and hands.
They definitely need to be disassembled. Every day. You can spend 10-15 minutes on them if you see a “specific blockage” on them. Any mess that takes longer than two minutes to clean up can be called a rubble.
6. Decluttering the Fly Lady
Or, in other words, ridding your home of junk. Rubbish is considered to be everything that has been lying dead in your home for years and, in fact, is never used for its intended purpose. These can be old magazines, books, clothes, shoes, dishes, accessories for animals, jewelry and even gadgets.
We understand that it is very difficult to part with household rubbish that you have stored and cherished for so many years. You have almost become one with him, but you will have to get rid of it if you do not plan to acquire your “regalia” from head to toe.
Throw away, donate or sell unnecessary items. The process may be a little lengthy, but believe me, it's worth it. You can’t even imagine how much space you will free up in the house. This is the holy law of the fly lady for cleaning the house.
Marla Cilley generally suggests throwing out 27 items. We suggest you start with at least 10 things, once a week. You can do it three times a week. Nobody forbids you to get carried away with this process *rofl*
7. Monthly cleaning plan
Now you are ready to create your monthly cleaning plan. In fact, this is a list of tasks, scheduled by day of the week, in addition, of course, to the daily cleaning of a specific area. You make yourself 4 lists of tasks for each week and thus you get a monthly house cleaning plan.
You can read about how to draw up such a plan (with illustrative examples) in our specially prepared article:. Nothing complicated, really!
By the way, the list must include the ECHU (weekly cleaning hour, or house blessing hour), which you perform once a week on a day you have previously marked. Then it won’t even occur to you to spend a lot of time on general cleaning of the fly lady at the end of the month. Professional “flying housewives” spend at most an hour on general cleaning. But this is subject to compliance with the system, of course.
Although, to be honest, we cannot guarantee to talk about such figures if you have a huge three-story cottage with six rooms on each floor, with an attic, a garage, a garden... In this case, you either definitely must be an Indian Shiva with six pairs of hands, at least , or have such a Shiva at your disposal
8. “Island of purity”
If it is difficult, difficult, unrealistic for you personally to take on all this, or, frankly, you are too lazy, then you can organize your own “island of purity”. This is the place in your home that you will clean every day, despite a storm warning, meteor shower or earthquake. No, we're not talking about an entire room or area right now.
We are talking about a small area that you will keep perfectly clean. Remember how we mentioned Marla Seelly's shell philosophy earlier? So, for Marla this island became... a sink!
Marla says a clean, polished, sparkling sink keeps you relaxed and adds a little meaning to your life. The result after the actions taken will be visible immediately: in theory, you should enjoy contemplating your shiny shell and strive to maintain the beauty and cleanliness of your surroundings.
Moreover, you can immediately praise yourself: run to the bathroom and throw yourself a “foam party” with aromatic oils, masks, candles and champagne. Take a lot of everything into the bath: then you can immediately develop the ability to carry out routines. You will have to put everything in its place and tidy up after your “mini-holiday”.
But who’s stopping you from making your dressing table your “island of cleanliness”? Or the dining table? Or a stove? Or a bedside table? All in your hands. Start small and move gradually: who knows, maybe the “demon of purity” will attack you too
None of the above is an immutable truth. You are free to do everything as you see fit, except for one thing: violating the regime. Once you get it wrong, you'll start forever
Try not to get carried away with the process: take care of your nerves. Remember, the Fly Lady cleaning system was invented just so that you learn how to properly manage your time and save energy.
In general, our dear aspiring “pilots”, we wish you a pleasant cleaning, lots of free time and, of course, success at work or in your favorite activity!
Maybe you just want a system to help you keep your home in order. Most systems of this kind were invented by Americans, who generally like to organize everything. One of the most popular is Flylady. Flylady in the Russian way is more adapted for our compatriots.
A little history - Marla Cilley the flying housewife
Flylady, or “flying housewife” (from the English Flylady, fly - to fly), is a system invented by the American Marla Seelly based on the book by Pam Young and Peggy Jones. The name “Flylady” was born at the very beginning of the system’s existence and had nothing to do with flights. FLY was an acronym English phrase finally loving yourself - “love yourself, finally.” However, very quickly fans of the system introduced flight terminology. Newcomers to the system are traditionally called “Flybaby”, even if their age has exceeded retirement age.
Flylady movement
In 1999, Marla Cilley began sending materials about her system to e-mail. 2 years later, the website www.flylady.net was launched, which still sends out daily reminder letters to registered participants about what needs to be done around the house. As of 2010, over half a million people around the world were active subscribers to the mailing list. Plus active sites of the FlyLady system, translated into many languages of the world by fans of the system - the FlyLady movement is gaining increasing popularity all over the world.
Flylady system and its basis
According to Marla Seelly, there are people who are organized from birth; these people usually do not have problems with the cleanliness of their home; you can come to them at any time of the day or night, and everything will sparkle. Such people sincerely do not understand that someone cannot cope with cleaning.
There are also disorganized housewives who have problems with everyday life; a mountain of dishes in the kitchen and unironed linen in the room make such housewives sad, and cleaning on weekends turns into torture for them, because it is not clear where to start, there is a mess everywhere. For such people, the Flylady system was invented, offering a series of simple sequential steps, following which you can significantly reduce the level of clutter in the house and stop suffering at the thought of future cleaning.
Ideally, followers of the system can come to the point of stopping doing general cleaning altogether - daily minimal effort allows you to keep the house in order without a fierce battle with chaos twice a year.
The system is based on two ideas: getting rid of unnecessary junk and moving forward in small steps.
How to get rid of junk?
Flylady offers followers a simple idea, trash cannot be organized. As long as there are too many unnecessary, unused things in the house, cleaning turns into moving trash from place to place, wiping the trash from dust, organizing the trash and other worries about it. Therefore, followers of the system begin to get rid of unnecessary things.
“Your home has been cluttered for days and will not become perfect overnight” is the basic principle of “decluttering” your home. The system offers different ways, how to get rid of junk: you can quickly walk around your apartment, pick up 27 unnecessary items and get rid of them. You can set a timer for 15 minutes and during this time collect unnecessary things. There are days when the newsletter reminds you: it’s time to go and throw out some old stuff.
It can even take several months to completely empty an apartment, balcony, mezzanine, storage rooms and closets of unnecessary things, depending on the size of the home and the passion for accumulating “emergency reserves” in case of a nuclear war. Marla Cilley suggests keeping only the things you love and actually use, passing on to other people or throwing away the rest.
In the future, Flylady recommends taking a balanced approach to purchases and purchasing only what you really need. Having bought, say, new jeans, it would be a good idea to throw out the old ones, otherwise in a year you will again find several worn pairs that you no longer wear in your closet.
In addition to the obvious benefit of freeing up space, this measure clearly reduces the amount of dust in the house. Which, without a doubt, is good for the health of all family members.
Cleaning plan
Any major or emergency cleaning drives a disorganized housewife into depression, since it implies great accomplishments in everyday life in a short time.
After such cleaning, you usually don’t want to pick up a mop and rag for a long time, and the house gradually returns to its original state.
Therefore, the Flylady system suggests taking small steps, but every day. The basic principle is that anyone can do anything for 15 minutes. You just need to set a timer and during this time do what the system recommends for today - always make a cleaning plan. This technique allows you not to get tired. In addition, driven by a clear time frame and having certain instructions, people manage to do much more than if they were thinking about where to start.
Breaking down any task into small steps and moving forward slowly and steadily is truly effective, as has been proven by positive reinforcement training experts in humans and animals. Moreover, the principle “if you drive slower, you will move further” ultimately leads to faster results when developing new behavior skills, be it cleaning, diving or rhythmic gymnastics.
Cleaning with planning
The Flylady system has a certain set of tools that allow you to bring cleaning to automation. The main ones are zoning, cycling, planning, performing routines, weekly cleaning through planning. In addition to these purely practical techniques, there are psychological ones: wear lace-up shoes at home, dress every morning so that you are not ashamed to open the door to the postman, wash the kitchen sink every evening. There are also a number of special techniques that you can learn about on the system’s website or in the newsletter. Let's talk briefly about the basic tools.
Weekly cleaning
Flylady divides the house into zones, and devotes every week of the month to work in a certain zone. The zones, of course, were created based on the average American house, which has more rooms than in an ordinary Russian apartment. However, they are easy to adapt to our realities.
Weekly cleaning lasts for five weeks. So, the first week of the month Flybaby devotes 15 minutes daily to cleaning the hallway and dining room. The second week they spend 15 minutes daily in the kitchen. The third is in the bathroom and nursery (in our apartments this will have to include the toilet). The fourth week is spent worrying about the bedroom. The fifth is in the living room, the common family room (what we usually call the “hall”).
Cleaning by zone
Thus, during the month we devote time to every corner of the home - we clean it by zone. At the beginning of following the system we're talking about mainly about getting rid of unnecessary junk, paper deposits and the like. When there is no trash left in the area, it’s time for detailed cleaning, wiping the baseboards one day, cleaning behind the toilet the next, and so on. The newsletter will remind you what to do, so there is no need to think about what to do today.
It may seem silly to follow a to-do list, for example, in the hallway. But for those who get discouraged by the thought of decluttering, this may be a good choice because someone else has already come up with the sequence of actions, and you just need to follow the beaten path.
Flylady principle - cyclicality
All housework is not only divided into zones, but also looped into weeks and months - this is the main principle of Flylady. That is, a series of actions you perform in a certain sequence, depending on the day of the week. The system offers a ready-made option. You can come up with your own. Let's say, if it is more convenient for you to make purchases for the next week not on Thursday, as Flylady suggests, but on Saturday there is no need to follow the precepts of the guru with religious fanaticism. Each month is also a cycle to develop a new healthy habit. Let's say one month you work on getting rid of unnecessary paperwork, another month you get into the habit of drinking a certain number of glasses of water per day, etc. Again, no one forbids you to choose your habit (daily morning exercise is no worse than getting rid of electricity bills ten years ago) and work on it.
There are also larger cycles in the year preparing for New Year's holidays is one of them. Flybabies start buying gifts and preparing the house for Christmas not at the last minute, but almost a whole block in advance. The big plus is that at this time there are still no queues in the stores and you can plan your purchases instead of rushing around the shops, frantically remembering whether the children of your mother-in-law’s second cousin are in for surprises. Cyclicity is actually always present in our lives, days, weeks, months, seasons. Even fruits and vegetables ripen and are present on our table according to certain cycles. Moreover, smart followers healthy image life, training is carried out in cycles of strength, fat burning, increasing endurance, etc.
Cleaning sequence
Flylady suggests planning almost everything, from the menu for the week, continuing with the shopping list and ending with errands and meetings. This implicitly means having a pair of diaries, one for work tasks and meetings, the second, called an audit trail, for monitoring the completion of household chores according to the FlyLady system - it is very important to follow the cleaning sequence.
This may seem a little excessive, but if your house is a complete mess, it might make sense to check in every day: the sink was washed, the shoelaces were tied, the bed was made. Each checkmark on your to-do list means that you are already doing well and serves as a certain reinforcement. The need for an audit trail can be left open. But it is known for sure that planning menus and purchases allows you to significantly save money, eat more balanced and control the availability of food and household chemicals. And of course, there is no doubt about the need to plan meetings, visits to the doctor, school affairs, clubs and sections for children.
Daily routines or cleaning rituals
Marla Silley herself calls daily routines the most important tool of the system. This sounds scarier than it actually is. Cleaning rituals are simply a list of tasks that are completed every morning and every evening. It is not mandatory, you can adapt it to suit your rhythm of life.
In the very general view The morning routine may include making all the beds, wiping the mirror and sink in the bathroom after washing, loading the washing machine, putting yesterday's dried laundry in its place (relevant for those who work at home or stay with a child). An evening routine may consist of a quick scrubbing of the toilet with a brush and a dash of detergent, wiping down kitchen surfaces, preparing clothes for the next day, making sure to clean the kitchen sink, etc.
In general, routines should not take more than 15-20 minutes and do not involve washing as such, only superficial cleaning in those places that easily and quickly get dirty. ordinary life, because they are constantly used by all family members.
To answer a possible question - yes, Flylady suggests wiping down anything that looks clean every day. Then it just won't get dirty. For example, a kitchen stove that has been washed once will remain shiny in the future, and the bathroom mirror will no longer have to be scrubbed of toothpaste stains.
Washing clean may seem a bit redundant. On the other hand, if you wipe once a week, you will have to work hard on surfaces and plumbing fixtures. You can try it, maybe the proposed mechanism suits you.
Cleaning by day of the week
Flylady suggests calling (and considering) cleaning a blessing at home, rather than a tedious chore. This is, of course, a matter of semantics. No matter what you call the mop, it still just cleans the floor. But there are a couple more rules about weekly cleaning: it should last no more than 1 hour 10 minutes - that’s the first thing. And second, any cleaning by day of the week is better than none. In the sense that there are no ideal, verified, documented and carved in stone ways to do cleaning. And even if you don’t live up to your mother’s or mother-in-law’s high standards and simply wipe the floors in the center, it’s better than not mopping the floor at all.
Timer cleaning
They also suggest doing cleaning on a timer, no longer than 10 minutes per operation, and you need to act superficially and quickly (because you already quietly clean the corners during the daily fifteen minutes in the zones). In general, such cleaning involves spending 10 minutes each vacuuming in the rooms, mopping in the bathroom, toilet and kitchen, wiping dust, mirrors and glass doors, changing bed linen, throwing out unnecessary newspapers and magazines (for those who has them), throw out the garbage from all baskets (for those who keep a basket in each room).
As you can see, some of the points are not particularly relevant to our realities, so they can simply be omitted or replaced with more pressing tasks. Flylady sets aside an hour of cleaning on Monday, which is not particularly suitable for working people Russian women. No one forbids you to choose any other day to clean up or simply divide this hour into ten minutes and do one thing every day. Dust on Monday, vacuum cleaner on Tuesday, etc.
Photo Flylady - shoes with laces
Flylady suggests starting the day by wearing lace-up shoes. These don't have to be shoes - T-shirts are fine.
The point is to feel more collected, this time. Being ready to immediately take the trash to the trash cans is two (more relevant for the American middle class, which has a personal trash can in the backyard). Three - for those who do not work “in the presence”, this does not allow them to let loose and walk around in wrinkled pajamas until their husband arrives. Four - laced shoes are difficult to take off so you can lounge on the sofa in front of the TV, instead of ironing three shirts on the timer. Relevant for those who do not go to work.
Flylady's photo is how you should look to feel comfortable.
Dress decently every day
This is, of course, more important for those who spend most of the day at home - housewives, young mothers, freelancers and shift workers, like “every three days”. You are not required to wear evening wear or a business suit. But Flylady suggests dressing neatly and neatly before starting your daily activities. The explanation for this is very simple: when you look neat and fit, you feel better. In addition, you don’t need to rush around the apartment looking for pants if your neighbor rings the doorbell.
Wash the kitchen sink every night
Despite the quite visible results, this tool can rather be considered psychotherapeutic. The sink is the starting point of the entire FlyLady system; it is suggested that you take the first step: just go and clean the kitchen sink properly. And this is the end of each day: wash the sink if it needs cleaning, or just wipe it dry.
What's the point? Also in positive reinforcement for those who are depressed from the inability to restore order. In the morning I came to the kitchen, and there was an island of cleanliness. In the evening I washed it again, made an effort, well done.
One can argue about the advisability of such a fixation on the kitchen sink. In general, no one forbids you to choose your starting point, maintaining which in order will help maintain strength and confidence for further work to get the house in order.
Common cleaning questions
The system has existed for many years, so it has been chewed up and sorted out down to the smallest detail. However, there are a number typical questions cleaning problems that arise for those who have just become acquainted with it and are deciding whether to try it. The biggest complaint is the shoes.
Is it true that you need to wear heels every day?
No it is not true. The height of the heels is not regulated in any way by the system, we are simply talking about comfortable shoes in which you can spend the whole day. The meaning of the laces on these shoes is described above.
What's wrong with slippers?
Because they are easy to throw off. You can try to perceive shoes simply as part of the work uniform at home. Well, they exist, and the author of the system believes that they are needed. In reality, of course, Marla Cilley will not come to you and check whether you are barefoot or wearing lace-up shoes.
Is it true that to successfully implement the system you need to buy a special diary, cloths, brushes and universal remedy for everything right on the Flylady website in America? Not true. You can do without all these wonderful items. After all, your goal is to get rid of unnecessary things, and not at all to buy new ones.
Common cleaning mistakes
Despite the short time spent on housework every day, the Flylady system quickly produces results; the house becomes more orderly. At this point, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and start making cleaning mistakes—over-structuring your life and your home.
Very often, fans of the system begin to buy every conceivable box, chest of drawers and containers for folding and organizing anything, purchase tags and stickers in industrial quantities and organize everything in their closet simply in order to then post photos on the Internet in the community of fans of the system.
Flylady does not require a complex system for labeling things and serious care for boxes and folders. If you find yourself buying up the entire assortment of a Swedish furniture store or an entire stationery store, you may be in over your head. Think about whether you really need all these things that you are going to put in so many boxes? Flylady proposes to make life much simpler, and not complicate it by introducing a sophisticated system for storing and packing a bunch of things.
Also, don’t go into a cleaning frenzy and buy all kinds of cleaning products for everything in the apartment. First, mixing detergents with different actions can easily lead to unpredictable chemical reaction and, for example, poisoning. Secondly, you probably have unused supplies of all-purpose detergents waiting in the wings. And thirdly, after a few weeks or a couple of months after starting to use the system, you will wash away the most depressing dirt (yes, in small steps every day). Then you definitely won’t need any special strong detergents. different types dirt, you will need something universal to keep it clean.
Charging the batteries
Last on our list, but not least, Flylady suggests planning everything, including recharging your batteries. On the list of things recommended to be done every day, be sure to include a little time (the same 15 minutes) for yourself. This could be a salt bath, a short yoga session for relaxation, or a face mask. No matter what, but every day.
At first glance, it seems that 15 minutes a day is nothing. However, 15 minutes in a warm bath is enough to relax tense shoulders. And this is already a lot. In addition, the system reserves weekends for communication with family, friends, relaxation and entertainment. All this will allow you to recharge your energy without waiting for complete exhaustion and breakdown.
Does it seem strange to schedule time with your family and put it in your planner? On the other hand, if you can’t otherwise cut it out, and the whole weekend is spent on ironing and cooking, then why not try? After all, what do you have to lose? Apart from a bunch of junk?
Fly lady in Russian is when you come home and find a mountain of unwashed dishes in the sink, things scattered around the apartment and flower pots overturned by your beloved pet. In general, this is when cleaning the home does not take up everything free time.
The main secrets of a fly lady in the Russian way
This system involves running a household with the greatest efficiency, without wasting maximum effort on it. All that is needed for such magic is compliance with the rules and principles of cleaning according to the fly-lady system, developed by one American housewife in 1999.
You should never forget about your appearance. Of course, spending the whole day in pajamas or a worn-out but cozy robe is great, but not so great that it turns into... A woman should always be beautiful, even when no one sees her. So, it is recommended to prepare your clothes in the evening, so that in the morning a trip to the dressing room does not take the whole day.
Fly Lady teaches you not to forget about self-care. This concept should include: cleaning with rubber gloves, after which the delicate skin should be lubricated with a nourishing cream.
Before you start cleaning, the entire house should be divided into zones, each of which should take no more than 7 days to clean. So, in your notebook (in which you should write down everything you need so as not to forget later), you need to note that from such and such a date to such a date, only the bathroom or, for example, the living room needs to be cleaned.
Sometimes cleaning the house can take up all your free time and, as a result, there is no time left to read your favorite book or apply a mask to your face, but the fly lady strongly recommends getting a timer. You should spend no more than 15 minutes a day on each cleaning.
It won’t hurt to reconsider things that have not been in demand in the house for a long time. It is a mistake to move them to the pantry, etc. As a result, they still clutter up the space. This audit should be carried out every month.
Everything should know its place. In order not to waste valuable time searching for the right thing, set aside appropriate places for this in advance. So, the Russian fly lady always knows where her receipts are.
You should never leave certain things for later. Otherwise, at the end of the day, so many things will accumulate that it will be impossible to clear them all before the morning.
If there is a room in the house that is so abandoned with things that it seems impossible to free it from them, devote about 5 minutes to cleaning such a room for 27 days.
Fly lady system for working people
First of all, you need to create an audit trail in which all the things necessary for tomorrow will be recorded. So, they should be ranked in order of importance. Coming home from work in the evening, you should take on the task indicated by number one.
There are so-called hot spots in the house - the sink, countertops, that is, what gets dirty every day. These are the ones that should not be launched.
Cleaning, washing, cooking - there is no end or end to these household routine tasks. Everyone loves cleanliness and order, but it takes a lot of effort to maintain them. Many women seem to be mired in a swamp in the infinity of household chores, not seeing any way out of it.
One day, an ordinary woman, mother and housewife from America named Marla Seelly, got tired of investing all her energy and free time into cleaning the house, and she developed the “FlyLady” system, which translates as “flying lady”. This system helped her organize her life so that the house always remains clean, and a little more than an hour a day is spent on cleaning. Her innovation has spread throughout the world and now we can get acquainted with FlyLady in the Russian way. Thousands of ladies have already accustomed themselves to live by these rules and no longer feel captive to everyday routine.
The essence of the Flylady system
Flylady is not just a system, but a certain philosophy and lifestyle, the cornerstone of which is self-love. What does cleaning and love have to do with it? If a woman feels like a “cornered horse,” she does not love herself. “FlyLady” helps to cultivate self-love through organizing the household in such a way that a lady always looks like she’s on holiday: she’s wearing makeup, her hair is done, she’s wearing Nice dress, and not a housecoat at all. In addition, she has a lot of free time for rest, leisure and personal affairs, and the house is always clean.
House cleaning using the FlyLady system
1. Divide the home into zones
To live according to the FlyLady principles in the Russian way, divide your home into zones, distributing them over 5 days (you dedicate the weekend only to yourself and your family). For example, Monday - kitchen and balcony, Tuesday - bathroom and toilet, Wednesday - bedroom and corridor, etc., depending on your living space. Keep this list on paper or electronically. Clean the area corresponding to the day of the week every day, spending no more than 15-20 minutes cleaning. Marla argues that if you move energetically, this is enough time to restore order in one area.
2. Get rid of trash
Without regret, throw away everything you don’t use, be it clothes, kitchen utensils, household items and even furniture. The less clutter in your apartment, the easier it will be to maintain order. Do you doubt whether you need something? Think about when you used it in last time. If an item has been sitting around for more than 2 years, you really don't need it.
3. Daily rituals
Every housewife has a number of tasks that need to be done daily. For example, washing dishes, cooking, cleaning shoes. Flylady recommends not to deviate from them under any pretext and to complete them promptly and strictly within the planned time. If you miss one such task, the routine accumulates like a snowball, which one fine day “knocks you off your feet.”
4. Hot spots
Marla Cilley calls hot spots areas where chaos occurs every day. This could be a nursery, a kitchen or a work desk. To prevent such places from becoming completely cluttered, be sure to go through the “hot spots” at the end of the day and quickly clean up the mess. This should not take more than 15 minutes.
5. Everything has its place
Train yourself and all your household members to return things to their places. Mugs have a place in the kitchen, things in the closet, toys in drawers.
6. Diary
Keep a notebook and write down your to-dos for the week. This will help you stay on schedule and not miss any activities. Leave room for additions by reviewing your planner every night and adding items to your schedule as needed. Once you organize your plan on paper, you can easily transfer it to life.
7. Love ourselves
Self-organization according to the FlyLady system in the Russian way allows you to free up enough free time. You shouldn’t let him do extra household chores and get ahead of your plans. Give this time to yourself: relax, walk, read, watch movies, spend time with friends, reward yourself with gifts and pleasant little things. After all, the system is designed to get out of the “funnel” of everyday life and, finally, feel the joy of free time.
The cleaning system called Fly Lady allows you to take a more competent approach to cleaning work at home. The general principles of the technique allow you to evenly distribute work around the house and leave time for yourself.
Cleaning system for a real housewife
Short story
The Fly Lady system was invented by an American housewife after her husband left her. He explained his action by his reluctance to live in a dirty house, where there is no order, comfort and there is chaos all around.
After analyzing her shortcomings, a housewife from the USA streamlined all household chores, combining them into one large system. The name of this system, as you probably already guessed, is fly lady.
This name is translated into Russian as “a woman who has finally fallen in love with herself,” although many publications often use the not entirely correct interpretation of “flying or hovering housewife.” Although to some extent this name is quite true.
System
A modern housewife starts cleaning
In the Fly Lady system, all household chores are divided into certain groups, and an apartment or house into zones. In Russian apartments, walls can be considered zone separators, but in cottages they are often absent, so in such dwellings problems with separation may arise.
Based on the theory of the cleaning system, an apartment or house is divided into the following zones: bedroom, living room, children's room, kitchen, toilet, bathroom, hallway. This division is necessary so that we can pay attention to one specific area.
For example, we devote time to the bedroom area for a whole week and spend 15 minutes a day cleaning this area. Moreover, you need to make a list of places that need to be cleaned in advance. This list must include all work, from mopping floors and vacuuming to washing curtains and washing windows. Following the list, we devote 15 minutes every day to cleaning this area, and strictly maintain this time interval.
To measure time more accurately, use a timer. Once it is triggered, cleaning stops and you can do whatever you want.
Thus, every week we only need to clean one specific area of our home.
Of course, the time interval is not a dogma; you can adjust it to suit yourself. If you feel comfortable cleaning for half an hour or twenty minutes, set a timer for that time. And the distribution of zones over time can vary greatly, since in our small apartments there is not so much space for cleaning.
An excellent solution, adapted to our reality, would be to distribute the cleaning of zones by day of the week, when every day you will clean only one zone.
Cleaning for 15 minutes does not take much effort
The main thing that the Fly Lady system advises us is to choose the so-called “island of cleanliness in the house.” In the interpretation of the American housewife, this is the kitchen sink, since in her understanding it should always be clean.
Ideally, the kitchen sink is not only washed, but also wiped dry, as it to some extent represents cleanliness and order in the house. In your home, you are free to choose any place that you like and that is always clean.
The next rule applies to a lesser extent to cleaning the house, but it is also extremely necessary to follow it. You should always watch your appearance, even if you are a housewife, even if you are a non-working woman. You must always look attractive, clean and tidy.
Cleaning in heels is overkill, but by and large the principle is followed
The system gives an example with clothing. You should wear a wardrobe at home in which you can always receive guests, this will be the criterion of attractiveness.
Let us note that the cleaning system fundamentally does not accept wearing gowns at home.
American housewives typically use shoes at home. The fly lady system involves using lace-up shoes at home. Adapting this thesis to domestic reality, we can conclude that at home, as well as on the street, it is necessary to use neat shoes.
Terminology
An interesting term that often appears in the fly lady system is the “house blessing hour.” Despite the epic name, this is just general cleaning, for which, according to the Fly Lady method, exactly 1 hour per week is allocated.
Getting ready for spring cleaning apartments
On a given day, you clean for an hour instead of 15 minutes. This cleaning involves fairly infrequent cleaning activities. For example, cleaning dust behind a cabinet by moving it away from the wall or washing a chandelier.
The method refers to routine as daily tasks, which are graded into morning and evening. Accordingly, the fly lady divides all the daily chores of cleaning the apartment into a morning and evening routine.
Hot posts or hot spots are all horizontal surfaces in the house (tables, countertops, window sills, chests of drawers) that can accumulate all kinds of debris. The fly lady system assumes that you clear all hotposts every evening.
A large table is a typical hot post that requires regular cleaning
The term “decluttering” involves disposing of unnecessary items on a monthly basis. The frequency of decluttering is one month, the number of things is 27. The principle is very simple, collect twenty-seven unnecessary things around the apartment and throw them away or give them to someone. To adapt to domestic realities, the quantity must be reduced by 2-3 times, although you can throw away everything that is not needed.
Implementing the principles of the fly lady system into your cleaning processes will allow you to do homework faster and better quality. However, it is advisable to slightly adapt the methodology to your own taste, rather than using it within the framework of general principles.
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