Why I hate Flylady …
Okay, maybe “hate” is too strong a word.
I know that to many people, Moms especially, Flylady is a goddess. Flylady advocates a shiny sink, getting dressed “to your toes”, and “blessing your house” with a purple feather duster.
But she makes me want to barf.
There. I’ve said it. Flybabies, flame away.
I am a former flybaby, although I would never use that term in public. I even used to quickly get out of Outlook on my laptop if my husband came around and might have glanced over my shoulder to see one of her purple saccharine emails encouraging me to go organize my Christmas ornament tote. Frankly, I was embarrassed to have to turn to a Betty Crocker-type woman to tell me how to clean my house. This is something I should have known innately.
She has great nuggets of wisdom, I’ll admit that. But I came to resent the 15-20 or so emails that poured in each day, most of them religious testimonials from flybabies . To me, these endless emails were clutter. And some of the most important things I had to do each day weren’t addressed in her emails.
Yes, my house was clean, my closets were organized, and no longer did spare change and popcorn lurk under my couch cushions. But my invoicing wasn’t getting done, employees weren’t getting hired, work projects weren’t getting done. So I created my own Flylady system specifically tailored to ME. I used Yahoo calendar to send myself emails at key times during the day, week, and month to remind myself to do important tasks I tend to otherwise forget. I kept the important home ones, like laundry, and added several others. I even created my own zones. I will detail this plan soon in a future post for anyone who is interested. Most importantly, I didn’t send myself a single religious, flowery, inspiring message. I just don’t have time to read them!
Stumble it!
February 12th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
I share your doubts about Flylady. I’ve been gradually modifying her system: for starters, I ignore putting the shine on my sink, which no one including me ever noticed, but work on shining my *desk*. Clean desk, happy desk, happy me.
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Good point. Why bother doing something that no-one notices? Talk about a time-waster. I am going to use your “shine your desk” tip. I feel that I am more productive if my immediate surroundings are kept clean and organized.
September 1st, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Clearly, you didn’t really understand Flylady’s system. Over and over, she encourages people to adapt it to fit their lives. If “shining” your desk is more important to you and works to help keep you on track, I think she would be the first to tell you to do that instead of your sink! It is not about “sink worship,” as I once saw it referred to. It is about finding a way to stay on track to keep your home and your life in order. It sounds like you did that, and with her help. It’s a shame that you can’t recognize the role she played in that. Since you didn’t like the e-mails you were getting, you did the right thing by un-subscribing, but I wish you wouldn’t disparage Flylady. Another option could have been changing to the daily digest subscription and ignoring the testimonials. Your e-mail program has a delete button for a reason! You could even set up a rule that any message that comes in with “testimonial” in the subject line gets automatically deleted, if you felt so strongly that you didn’t even want to see the messages at all.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I am sorry that someone searching for “Flylady” might come upon this site and be turned off by your experience. Millions of women–not all of them Betty Crocker-types (BTW, I don’t really care for your conotation there)–have found Flylady to be a lifesaver. I do not agree that we should all know how to keep a neat house innatley. How would that work? Racial memory? Genetic programming for mopping skills? Housekeeping is a learned skill set, and one that not everyone is taught. Flylady is a great teacher for those of us who weren’t educated in efficient housework and organization, which, judging by the billion-dollar organization indutry, is a lot of people in this country and around the world.
By the way, I don’t refer to myself as a Flybaby, either, but it is not out of some misplaced embarrassment. I have no guilt or shame whatsoever in the fact that I need the help of someone who has been there when it comes to housework. I am intelligent, creative, and easily sidetracked. My higher education is no help at all in keeping my house in order, but the routines I’m learning from Flylady apply to all areas of my life. The same seems to be true for you, but you just don’t seem to see it that way.
November 1st, 2007 at 3:29 am
WEll said Lara.
A core principle of what flylady teaches to is develop your own routines, adapted to your own circumstances.
March 9th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Personally I use Outlook to organize my house cleaning schedules. Tasks can be made to repeat in Outlook. So I just spent on month cleaning the house and recording what I did. Each time I added a new task, I decided how many times a week, month or year that task would need to be done, and had it repeat that often. Now when I get up in the morning, I have a list of things right there for me. As I click them off, they move down the list to the next time they need to be done. I have a strict rule that no task may be kept more than 48 hours. So if I am sick today, I try and catch up tomorrow. If I don’t, then the next day, I check them off. They will come back again and I will do them then.
My tasks include feed dog and cats daily, children’s meds (when they are sick for the duration of the sickness), laundry (each person has a day-3 loads each). I also use Outlook as our family’s calendar, so each morning I can see what I have to do that week while I read my email and see what is on that day’s task list. If a new task comes to mind, I can add it at any time.
No is my house perfect. NO! it is not. In fact, right now we are renovating the upstairs bedrooms and getting new flooring, and those rooms are disaster areas. The kitchen floor needs mopping (on tomorrow’s check list) and there’s laundry in everyone’s baskets. (My laundry day is tomorrow, so I moved it to the Utility room).
I did use Flylady’s system, but frankly, I got tired of the emails too, and found that I not only wouldn’t read them, but that I stopped doing them too. And when I did the system the way it was set up, I was constantly cleaning. Now I clean on Mondays and Saturdays.
Here’s my schedule that keeps our house clean, running well, and peaceful.
Monday (off day for mom)
Clean downstairs rooms (each room has it’s own task)
Mom’s laundry
Clean any trash out of car (great carpool line task)
Feed cats and dogs (every day task)
Tuesday (mom works 4-5 hours each day)
DD10’s laundry
Inspect each child’s room to be sure they are keeping it clean
Wednesday (mom works)
DD15s laundry (she washes it herself in summer, I help during school year)
Sheets every two weeks for each kid on their laundry day.
Church
Thursday (mom works)
DS17’s laundry (see above)
Children rotate taking out garbage
Friday (mom works)
Hubby’s laundry (he likes to iron and watch tv on Saturdays)
Vacuum out car
Clean animals beds and cages-kids help me with these
Saturday
Re clean downstairs rooms as needed
Any household laundry like curtains, rugs, etc.
Sunday
Church
Mom and Dad’s sheets
Refrigerator
Microwave
Pantry
Stove
Yearly tasks include:
Decorate for Christmas, Easter, etc.
Shampoo carpets
Wash windows
It works for me. I spend a lot of time at the computer so seeing my list right there helps me to see what I still need to do. If the computer is working and I am not needed, I can go fold some laundry, or mop a floor and get the thrill of checking off another task.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
This is a great list — I think a lot of people could print your list off and use it for themself. A lot of the issue with housekeeping chores is “where do I start”? “What should I do first?” Your list helps with that. I think I’ll use it myself! Thanks again!
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
My major issue with FlyLady is that she kind of encourages you not to recycle. She states things like — “don’t worry about recycling right now — just get it out of your house”.I just think of the hundreds of thousands of her followers filling up the landfills with her 27 fling boogies… Is it so hard to add a recycling component to your daily routine?
February 18th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
I can feel what you and others are saying. A group of ladies in our ward (neighborhood) have discussed Flylady and we all agree that you have to make it your own. Do you do laundry everyday or just 2xs a week. Do you want a shiny sink or to read to your kids every night. I believe it has more to do with creating good habits and feeling good about how you are doing, than following the system to the T. How do you want your home to be run? Okay, now do it! Way to Fly (or Go You!)!