I was feeling really awful today as a result I wanted to do something that was results driven so that I could see a really shiny result and I knew straight away what that should be Shine My Sink.  

One of the very first blogs I read though I suspect back then it was simply called a website was Flylady.  I never did work out why it was called Flylady and I have had another look today but nope nothing.  I suspect given that Oprah is all over the Fly lady website there is a fair chance I was either reading O! or one of the O emails or maybe even watching Oprah and she suggested checking out Flylady.

Flylady is the millennials equivalent to Konmari (this links to a comprehensive guide of how to Konmari from Happy DIY Home) At its core Flylady is all about decluttering and cleaning your house in 15mins!  The truth is I had a small baby I was trying to do full-time uni and had a couple of jobs so ANYTHING at all that was going to get my house clean and tidy in 15mins a day I was up for.  First of all you sign up for the daily emails.  At some point I think I actually changed my email address to stop getting them!  One a day doesn’t sound a lot but I certainly went through a period of signing up for every self help email going around.

Here is another post about shining your sink from tips bulletin (and getting it unclogged should that be necessary) which is I think really important. When you can look into the kitchen and it is sparkling then you can feel a sense of peace, well at least I do. 

As with everything there is a process.  Flylady is no different.  You need to follow the process step by step to make sure you are only spending 15mins a day (and of course in the beginning it is longer!)  

Step 1.  Shine the sink  – everyone knows that the heart of every home is the kitchen so you need to shine that sink baby!  In truth this is probably the one thing that I do still do from my Flylady days and I have been known to shine other people’s sinks too.  Generally I ask first though!

Step 2.  Getting dressed – we all get up and get dressed most days.  Ok too be fair I am not sure I always did on the days I wasn’t leaving the house.  But the theory behind this I think is if you are up and dressed (including shoes) you are in a better frame of mind.  Don’t know about you but it actually just means that when I wash my stupid cream coloured tiles wearing shoes just means I don’t leave dirty footprints on them as I walk across the floor!  I am so not a fan of shoes, thongs yes, slippers yes but shoes not unless I am leaving the house.   (Floor Tile colour tip:  NEVER, EVER go for a plain cream or white tile, get something mottled it hides the dirt better!)

Step 3.  15 minutes a day  this is the step where it all starts to get real.  The crux of it is that you pick up and handle everything only once!  I think I got excited and somehow thought that it would be possible to clean my house top to bottom once a week in 15mins um no!  It is 15mins per day which actually always blows out to longer!

Step 4.  27 Fling Boogie – this was a little bit fun at first but I stopped it became tedious and I became lazy and well frankly some days chasing around after 3 children I don’t think I could count to 27.  Basically you walk around the house with a plastic bag pick up and town 27 things and pop it straight into the bin!  I actually think I thew away one too many important document so I stopped.

Step 5.  Zones this is pretty self explanatory but the house is divided up into zones with the theory that doing 15mins in one zone per day by the end of the week the house is clean.

In addition to these basics there were emails, lots and lots of emails on how you could declutter your life.  The truth of it was then (and now) decluttering can be completely overwhelming.  At the moment I am focusing on decluttering my mind and emotions.  My mind and my house is functional so the decluttering will have to wait.

I would actually rather spend 1-2hrs one day a week usually a Friday (so it’s pretty for the weekend) clean the house from top to bottom and then I can kick back and relax for the rest of the time.  Of course in a house of five plus two dogs I am perpetually picking up after someone but maybe I need to start getting ruthless and if it is something that belongs to anyone else except me it can go in a central box that the owners (including hubby) need to sort through before bed each day.  What is left behind in the morning I toss.  My problem is that I feel so mean doing this and I know that we have spent good money on things!  I wouldn’t say that my house is overwhelmed with clutter but it could do with a clean out couldn’t we all.

I did however, spend a couple of hours with my psychologist and we have a plan to declutter my emotions, it is going to be really, really hard and quite often painful, I guess Sam is like my very own Flylady without the copious emails because she knows how overwhelming that is for me.

I also didn’t get to Shine my sink today, it was full of dirty dishes that hadn’t been dealt with and my head was enough of a mess today so I have left the dishes for someone else to deal with because one mess a day is enough to clean up.  Hopefully I will be able to get to the sink tomorrow!

Cath xoxo

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