Is Flylady evil?

[IslandMamma]

Ok mommas... after reading about flylady peppered throughout these boards, I finally gave in and checked out her site.

Whoa!!! What gives? I'm all for a cleaner house, but the first day shine your sink thing? Good grief, I can barely keep the carpet from crawling away on it's own!

Am I missing something here? Or am I just cut out for a life of slovenliness?

[Clarity]

anyone that wants me to wear shoes must be evil.

[cat_astrophe]

Anyone who thinks I should take a shower, dress to my shoes, clean the bathroom, and shine my sink before my kids get up is either crazy or evil (or maybe both). However, she does offer some practical advice mixed in with the madness.

[MomInCalifornia]

I signed up but found I spent more time reading the 40 emails I got each day than cleaning My house is clean enough, and my email box is no longer overflowing!

[ShannonCC]

Re: Is Flylady evil?

Originally posted by IslandMamma
I'm all for a cleaner house, but the first day shine your sink thing? Good grief, I can barely keep the carpet from crawling away on it's own!

That is her whole point. Yeah, your carpet might be crawling away on it's own, but you can't do it all at once without crashing and burning. She picked the sink to start on since the sink is the center of the kitchen and the kitchen is the heart of the home (and yes, she literally means clean the kitchen sink). Get that one little thing done and you feel as if you've done something! Sure the rest of the house looks like crap but you have a clean sink! And then you work from there. You keep the sink clean every day and add other things as you go on. You never, ever, try to do it all in one day. Baby steps

I don't follow her completely (and my sink is a mess :LOL) but she is definitely not evil

[Mom4tot]

The flybabies are listening!!

[Tigerchild]

You know, I couldn't deal with Flylady and her emails. Just not my style. Thanks to her, though, I DID find a system that could help me--the 3x5 "file and forget" method outlined by the people that inspired her--Pam and Peggy (sorry, can't remember their last names). They are the ones that wrote "Sidetracked Home Executives".

I am a very visual person, I get discouraged easily and overwhelmed when it seems like I'm doing a lot and no record. Having a card for every job that I move from one divider to the other not only shows me that even on my worst days I AM getting a hell of a lot done, but also allows me to 'see' what needs to be done, and to organize big jobs by sight. (And it's harder to lose a index card file than a paper list, at least for me).

Flylady's saccharine stories make me want to hurl, and there is a good dose of that in the SHE book too...but their system is nice. I am led to understand now they advocate a day-planner style of organization but that doesn't do me like the cards do. I highly recommend checking SHE out of the library (the only part of the book you need is about 20 pages long, and once you get it set up you don't need to even look at the book again-tweak it for your own purposes) and giving it a shot--if you are visually-oriented and tactile-oriented like me.

[journeymom]

I joined a little before Thanksgiving. I did the morning routine -one time: got up, took a shower, swished the toilet, got dressed to my shoes (I do that anyway, my feet hurt without shoes), went to the kitchen and unloaded the dishwasher.

Having the dishwasher empty for the rest of the day was great. I could tell the kids to put their dirty dishes in the dishwasher and it didn't pile up in my spotless sink.

I really like the idea of the 27 Fling Boogie: walk around the room with a garbage bag and pick up 27 things that need to be tossed in the garbage. Though I don't know about you, I don't let a lot of garbage build up in my living room. Then take a box and pick up 27 objects that need to be given away.

In general, I like what she says about possessions, the fewer the better. Let someone else get pleasure out of that thing you don't need and keep stumbling over. Get rid of the things that make you feel guilty every time you look at them. A cluttered house sucks the energy out of you and is depressing.

It's a moot point, though. In our home I am ruthless with my stuff and don't keep a lot of excess. Dh and dd are the pack rats. Dd has serious emotional reactions when ever I try to declutter her room.

FlyLady is all about making a routine, and introducing it slowly, bit by bit. Obviously, by the testimonials, it works for a lot of people. But she'll tell you herself everyone has a different style and her method doesn't work for everyone.

Since that one time I haven't done anything else! I haven't done any "baby stepping"! My house is no more organized and clean than it was before.

I made a separate flylady folder in my email, so it all gets shunted there. I go through and delete all the routine stuff ("DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR LAUNDRY IS?"), read a couple of the testimonials and delete the rest.

Maybe I'll actually use the system sometime, maybe not. What the heck, it's free.

She's not evil. The woman went through hell with her first husband and finally managed to get herself together. She's come a very, very long way and is a much healthier person now. She's an inspiration for thousands of women. She might be kind of nerdy, but I don't mind nerdy.

[pilesoflaundry]

Originally posted by cat_astrophe
Anyone who thinks I should take a shower, dress to my shoes, clean the bathroom, and shine my sink before my kids get up is either crazy or evil (or maybe both).

I hate shoes, am lucky to get a daily shower, never get up until the kids do and I never shine the sink.

[artemesia]

I hate Flylady. O.k., I don't hate her personally but the mere mention of the name makes me all pissy. My mom got into the whole Flylady thing and was constantly preaching about it, writing about it, posting on message boards about it. The result? Her house was still an incradible pigsty. Get off the computer lady and actually DO something! Oh, and can you tell that I'm pissed at Mom too? Whole other story though.
She actually got up and did a Flylady "sermon" at a peace group I used to attend that she happened to be trailing along to one night. I swear it was so innapropriate that I just wanted to crawl under something!

[IslandMamma]

OK, maybe we need a "secrets of flylady revealed" thread! After reading some of these I get it a little more.

I guess I'm looking for a quick fix for the depressing mess that is my house, when really I need to get off the computer and, well, just do it.

Hmmm. Better go check out activism.

[urklemama]

I love FlyLady! Yes she's twee, but her system works. I was a disgusting slob, you have no idea. After a year and a half on FlyLady, I was able to weather moving house with a month old infant. It's not really about cleaning at all, it's about LEARNING TO DEAL. The whole point is to get your house to pretty much run itself, so you can do other things.

[grumo]

I've just started to dabble in Flybaby stuff. I kinda like it. Though I DO NOT wear my shoes. I figured out how to manage the idiotic volume of email by sending it all to my yahoo account so I could just check it once a day and it wasn't junking up my regular email box.

I am surprised by how motivating a clean shiny sink actually is. I is dumb, but it makes me smile to walk into a dosater of a kitchen, but at least the sink is clean.

LOL it annoys me to death all the LOL she uses.

[jayayenay]

Originally posted by journeymom
I made a separate flylady folder in my email, so it all gets shunted there. I go through and delete all the routine stuff ("DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR LAUNDRY IS?"), read a couple of the testimonials and delete the rest.

Maybe I'll actually use the system sometime, maybe not. What the heck, it's free.

I agree...and I do the same thing with my emails. In fact, I delete everything except for Kelly's daily missions. Sometimes I do them, most days I don't. :LOL

[ShannonCC]

Originally posted by urklemama
I love FlyLady! Yes she's twee, but her system works.

What does "twee" mean?

I filter my email too. I don't do the reminders so I delete them all. I can see how they would be useful, but they just overwhelm me with how much I'm *not* doing right now I mostly read the testimonials because they are very inspiring. I sometimes read the essays, musings. I used to do the special missions but I'm sort of off the wagon right now so I'm not even doing those. I still credit Flylady for the relatively good state of my house though. Even though I'm not reading/doing it all, I still have her in my head whenever I clean up. And she's the reason I'm constantly decluttering, even if it's only a few things at a time.

[AnnMarie]

twee
adj. Chiefly British
Overly precious or nice.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=twee

[Rebecca]

I am a flylady failure. Her worst nightmare! I tried it, was overwhelmed, still messy and dirty soooo..

We now pay people to clean our house. It's really worth the expense! I HIGHLY recommend it!

[tessamami]

I love Flylady; check out my sig. That said, if you don't like the emails, unsubscribe. Nothing says that you have to get the emails. You can just read her website, or check out the recommended books from the Library. I like the emails, I even do some of the missions, once in a while. I picked up a few good habits, and so did DH. I think she's a good thing!

[arthead]

Originally posted by artemesia

She actually got up and did a Flylady "sermon" at a peace group I used to attend that she happened to be trailing along to one night. I swear it was so innapropriate that I just wanted to crawl under something!

:LOL

[Jennifer Z]

I have a friend who is OCD. I gotta tell you, OCD and flylady are NOT a good mix. She sorta skipped that part about "baby steps" and flylady just seemed to feed into her OCD in a very unhealthy way. She felt the need to do EVERY mission with the intensity that only someone who has dealt with OCD can understand. She has since calmed down on her flylady stuff and still has a clean house, it just isn't antiseptic anymore.

I have gained a lot from flylady, but I did have to stop getting her emails to actually accomplish anything. Every once in a while I will go to her site and just to see what is there.

I have found that the "clean the sink" is really essential. I don't windex it or anything like that, just keep it cleaned out. When I do that I am not having to do the "dirty dish shuffle" every time I need water for cooking, a drink, or to rinse something out. Takes a lot of extra, unneccesary work away. I am more likely to clean a few dishes if I don't have to clean it out before I start too.