How do you keep the house running?

[MomoMcSleepy]

I have been trying to use the flylady system to keep my house I order, but I am finding it to be enormously frustrating,  Sometimes I don't get home from work until late, and flylady wants you to use a timer to accomplish tasks, and I  end up literally shouting and swearing at the timer when it beeps: "ok!  I get it!  I should be done by now. Well screw you, timer, I'm not done, and I'm not leaving three dishes in the dishwasher just because I'm supposed to "stop everything" when you beep!"
Generally the swearing takes over.  I just get so mad.  I want to complete a task to my satisfaction, and I know the flylady says not to be a perfectionist, but seriously, I can't handle stopping ALL work like that.

argh!

I have ADD and need a system, and on some ADD websites, people recommend flylady.  I think I was having more success with the Happy Housewife one thing a day business, but either way, I really really want to get the house in ship shape and have a system so that I don't feel hopeless every time I walk in the door.. We also have huge projects to tackle around the house, it's a fixer-upper.

What do you all do?  Has anyone else tried Flylady? I do admit, I have never been able to 100% follow her advice, so I keep trying, but it's not I haven't been trying.  If I have a stomach bug or infection, forget it, I am cooked.

[Deanne]

I tried Flylady for a while, but I wasn't dedicated enough. I've mostly accepted that my house will never be perfect, but I try to keep it clean. I have two dogs, three cats, am a single homeowner with several raised vegetable beds, landscaped areas (flowers), and a bit of yard to keep up with. I work full-time.

What ended up helping me is minimalism. I still have "stuff" but I pared it down quite a bit and have more to get rid of yet. Having less really helps a lot with keeping what's left organized and clean. For example, I bought several wicker backets to put on my linen closet shelves. One basket for bath towels, one basket for sheets, etc. Whatever didn't fit into the appropriate basket went to Goodwill. I did the same with dog toys, books, clothes, etc. I allocated a specific amount of space and the rest is gone. Less clutter = less to pick up and clean around, so even if the house isn't perfectly clean, it looks pretty good most of the time.

[WishIKnew]

I am not a system person.  I try to keep up with the basics (dishes, vacuum, visible bathroom gunk, laundry) daily as the spirit moves me.  i try to clean it when I notice it's dirty.  My house is seldom "clean" as in spotless, but almost always not embarrassing and we always have clean clothes to wear, so, good enough for me.

[Cordelia]

My priorities:

Dishes

Laundry

Vacumming, keeping the ceramic tile clean and washrooms decently clean.

EVerything else after that is secondary, meaning not a priority and it will get done when it gets done. So, if I dust my house every two weeks, that won't bother me.

My house is 3,000 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2 living areas, dining area and kitchen and laundry room.

[Desert Dancer]

I wish I could help you but I was raised by a woman who makes Martha Stewart look like Roseanne Barr. Cleanliness and organization are embedded at the cellular level with me. 

[MooseMom]

I whine to my husband, but he seldom picks up on my hints.

[Katonsdad]

Will wait for my wife to read and respond to this ine . She does Flylady and it helps.
Also helps she works 4 hrs a day . But is now saddled with me not being able to drive for a while.
I dont mind dustbunnies . I do dislike clutter but we both need to work on that.

Love ya Dear   

[galvo]

Please give me a rundown on Flylady.

[Deanne]

www.flylady.net

She encourages taking small steps every day and following a daily routine to get and keep home chores under control. The idea is to do a little bit every day.

[Lindia]

MomoMcSleepy --   do NOT beat yourself up ---  that is the most important bit of advice to get from FlyLady.   I used Flylady's website several years ago, and wish I had known about her when my kids were small.    Did you make a simple "control journal" ? ?     I found I did best - when I had a real simple one, with the pages in plastic sleeves,  that I could use a dry erase marker on and check things off.      Since then -  life has gotten crazy again -  hubby with constant medical issues, and doing hemo dialysis at home and pretty overwhelmed.   I've often thot I need to make a simple one for hubby ---  so he could do a few things while I was at work, and check them off -- because,   he pretty much sucks at doing housework on his own !   

[jbeany]

But, if you sign up for Flylady's email reminders, they overwhelm your in-box.  Digital clutter doesn't help me either.  I did read flylady's site, and some of the tips are good, but my life isn't scheduled enough to do things the way she wants them, in the order she wants them done.

That Fling Boogie thing is really good, though.  Set a number, grab a trash bag and a donation box, and don't stop until reach that number of things is "flung away".  I forget how many she usually started with.  27?  47?  You don't think when you start that you have that many things to pitch, but when it makes you finally sort that pile of junk mail so you can count each piece out as one thing, you'd be amazed how fast you get to 47.

My best friend was www.unclutterer.com.  They have a chat board that is a support group similar to IHD, only for those with clutter and organizational problems.  When I was clearing my gram's hoard, as well as packing to move, it was a great help to me.  I used the A-Thing-Day post all the time.  It helps to list things so you can look back and see what you have done, and you get positive feedback from the other members on your progress.

I found that once the clutter was gone, cleaning was much easier.  It's a lot faster to dust when you only have one or two knickknacks that you love on display, instead of dozens.  It's easier to vacuum when you have no extra stuff on the floor to move. All of it adds up to a faster cleaning session when you do have time. Even the stuff I couldn't get rid of got better organized, which makes the real cleaning a breeze.

[paris]

I agree, Jbeany.  I have decluttered 3 rooms and slowly working through the house.  Dusting and cleaning is simpler with less things in the room.  I realized that I didn't have to display every single thing someone gave me, or belonged to long gone relatives, so things got boxed up.  It was a great relief!   In the past few months, I found out just how much stuff I had let go the years pre-transplant.  I didn't care and couldn't keep up with spring cleaning. 

Keep sharing hints everyone.  I wish I could afford a cleaning lady once a week -- someone to scrub things.  Or and clean the refrigerator!

[jbeany]

The other flylady thing I love -
C.H.A.O.S.

Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. 

I cured mine!  Everything has a place now - which makes cleaning fast and easy.

I got up and started cleaning after my last post.  The house has been neglected for almost a week - dishes in the sink because the dishwasher had been run and was full.  Trash cans and hamper overflowing.  The desk, storage bench, and table were covered in clutter and papers.  I had homework, job search stuff, house hunt stuff, and car shopping stuff scattered all over my desk.  I did buy a car finally, which involved cleaning the stray stuff out of my other car, since it was going to a family member today.  All that stuff landed inside.

An hour later, I sat back down to sort email.  Everything else is put away.  The only thing left to do is the last load of laundry.  I even shredded some old insurance files from the car I just got rid of.  (I do occasionally suffer from schizophrenic cleaning - I start on one thing, go to put something else away in another room, and end up cleaning that spot instead of what I started out doing.  Still, it all gets done in the end.)

But, with places to put things, it all gets put to rights in a hurry.  Some of the Zen ideas about feng shui are a bit out there for me, but the idea that a clear space with a place for everything in it being good for you is certainly true for me. 

My rules now:
7 second rule - if it will take less than 7 seconds to put something where it really belongs, do it now.  Don't set the plate in the sink when it will take less than 7 seconds to open the dishwasher and put it in immediately.

Don't sit down when I come home until everything I just brought in is where it belongs.  That means hang up coats, sort mail, put away an purchases, unload my bookbag and hang it on the peg rack - everything that might look like clutter later should be taken care of before I take a seat.  Otherwise, it gets put off. 

One In = One Out.  Clothes, books, magazines, knickknacks, kitchen gadgets, whatever.

Don't just talk, walk.  On the phone, that is.  I've got several friends who I talk to frequently, sometimes for over an hour at a time.  I've learned to stop sitting in a chair during the calls.  I've still got one free hand to dust with or scrub with.  It's not stuff that requires a lot of brainpower, so I'm not distracted from my conversation.  But my sink will be clean and my house will be dusted at the end of the call.
I used to walk on my treadmill while talking, too.  I'm out of the habit at the moment because I'm in a second floor apartment and I don't want to drive my neighbors crazy by thumping over their heads while I'm talking late at night with a friend.


I'm not perfect at any of these, obviously - or my house wouldn't have been messy today.  But at least doing them the vast majority of the time means when I my life does go into overdrive like it did this week, the mess is a small one and easily dealt with.

 

[Gerald Lively]

I am retired, so is my wife.  In accordance with our retirement plan, we hired a housekeeper who comes in twice a month.  The housefkeeper likes me and we discuss religion and lesbiasnism (which she is)(and she is intelligent).  I don't know why but women do seem to open up to me.  Wife likes what she does and we are considering giving her the house when we croak.  She doesn't know that. 

I wanted to leave the house as a battered women sanctuary, wife vetoed the idea. Anyway, I have been wearing my hoodie to see if anyone would shoot me, no luck so far.

gl

[jbeany]

Giving it away is one way to keep it up, Gerald!

(And you have to buy some Skittles to get shot at.)

[gothiclovemonkey]

I wish I could help you but I was raised by a woman who makes Martha Stewart look like Roseanne Barr. Cleanliness and organization are embedded at the cellular level with me. 

  thats awesome! I wish that were the case with me. I guess in most ways i grew up rather spoiled, and while i had some chores, i am fefinitely not a house keeper. I am a borderline horder too so that doesnt help. (nothing like the hoarders on tv though, thank goodness!)
I dont even know what you all are refering to with this firefly lady and such, but i do what i can when i can, the everyday crap that we have to do, and usually every sunday i do a bigger once-over scrub down.

[Poppylicious]

I'm a little bit obsessive about cleaning and tidying, but my spare room and office are cluttered because I keep everything. The doors to these rooms stay closed!

 

I do a thorough clean once a week (hoover, dust, polish, scrub) and keep things clean and tidy in between.  If I see a crumb on the countertop I have to wipe it down immediately.  Crumbs on the floor get swept away immediately.  I like the bed to be made straight away (and as Blokey gets up after me during the week it doesn't get made till I get home, but it is the first thing I do when I get in from work!)  Plates and things go into the dishwasher immediately, and the dishwasher gets emptied as soon as it's finished its cycle.  I can't go to bed without fluffing up the cushions in the living room and putting things in their rightful place.

I have been known to panic and cry about the state of the house (even when it's just been cleaned and nobody but me can see the thing which is wrong, but it IS wrong dammit!)  Blokey thinks I'm OCD.  I actually think I'm undiagnosed ADD. 

 

[paris]

An unmade bed makes me cry!   Rumbled sheets, pillow, and blankets shout at me "make me pretty!".  Even if the bedroom isn't dusted or swept, a made bed is all people will see.  Plumb pillows and a fresh bed ---- ahhhhhhhhh, heaven.

Since reading this thread, I find that I am trying to pick up things when I am near them.   I did a big cleaning last week, before company came.  Now if I can follow flylady and Jbeany's advice, I'll be doing good.     Now how do I get the husband to push in his chair (another thing that I can't stand) and pick up the odd things he leaves where ever he has been.

Keep inspiring me!!

[galvo]

If any of you neat and tidy folk have a spare minute, would you mind dropping around to my joint.

[MooseMom]

    Now how do I get the husband to push in his chair (another thing that I can't stand) and pick up the odd things he leaves where ever he has been.

Men leave trails.

I heard some professor of "prehistoric anthropology", for lack of a better term, explain that in humans' early days when men did the hunting and women did the gathering, men would have to travel over long distances to follow herds of mastodons or some such thing.  LOL!  Anyway, to help them find their way home, they'd leave bits and pieces of things along their trails, trail markers, if you will.  And today, the remnant of that behaviour is men leaving their socks and their other daily detritus so that they can find their way to the fridge or something.

I've told my husband that he will never be able to keep any secrets from me because I can always tell what he's been doing by way of examining his trail.  I know what he's been eating and drinking because there are cheese wrappers or bottle tops or empty cans of pop scattered about the house.

I heard a great story about this guy who stayed out late with his buddies, drinking and carousing.  He didn't want his wife to know that he had come home late, but before he snuck upstairs at 3AM, he got hungry and made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  The next morning, his wife had a pretty good idea of what had gone down because there was peanut butter smeared all up the bannister.

The only thing I've been able to "train" my husband to do is to put his dirty man panties in the hamper.  I told him I refused to sleep in a bedroom where dirty panties were strewn about.  But I still have to practically follow him around with a hoover.  He says he just doesn't "see" his trails.  I'm going to have to start playing the kidney card, I think.  I've told him that once I start getting really sick and blow up like a balloon, I'm not going to keep picking up his damn socks.

Galvo, do you leave trails?  I bet you do because you're a MAN!  LOL!

[gothiclovemonkey]

MM my SON does that !!!! I always wondered if someone had read him Hanzel and Grettel... haha
hes terrible about throwing trash to the floor too, and it drives me bonkers! Idk where he got that habit but i think we have sloooowly started to deter that behavior! And it is sooo true, boys are icky!!!
I hear often women complaining the man leaving the seat up, but I think id trade for that, considering my dear son pees allll over the place sometimes (wake up to pee ... scary!) and I dont see that well, so I SIT IN IT...
Strangely enough, my son learned at an early age that getting sick in the toilet is the quickest clean up, and he always attempts to do that there... and since he is a great and awesome sweetheart, one night, in the middle of the night i hear something stirring in the kitchen, it sounded like someone playing with the paper towel holder... My son had gotten sick in the middle of the night, he didnt want to wake me up, and was attempting to clean it up himself!!! he said he knew i wasnt feeling well either. Isnt he sweet? So we made a lil 'camp' in the living room with the trashcan lol  Sick camp.
When he was a kid he couldnt stand to be dirty, but hes starting to become more llike the little boys that like dirt and bugs. ooooh no! lol

One thing I have to say, I personally do no know how in the world im going to keep up house with him, and now my bf. Whose job is basically crap. I mean that litterally. He worse for sanitation. Poop. yay.
i NEED a washing machine!!! lol

cleaning has never been my strong point, but i dream of being like Joan Cleaver

[galvo]

Hey, Momsie, the only reason I leave trails is for females to follow me.

GCM, you'e got a good kid there.

[MomoMcSleepy]

Gerald Lively, good grief!  Desert Dancer, Anne's house was more organized than mine growing up, sadly, though Dad tried.  We all had jobs to do and I feel that was good, I learned to cook, take care of a house and fix things (as did my brother) so it wasn't scary to move out, other than financially.  I was surprised at how much I knew how to do.  But, my whole immediate family has a clutter problem, especially with paperwork.  I'm terrible with papers, afraid to toss them, but no place to keep them.  I forget they exist when I file them. 

I had some luck with Darla's schedule from happhoisewives club.com, but at the time I was in a 900 sq ft apartment.  Our house is nearly 1800 now, though that's not huge, there are just a million little things to do to keep up.

jbeany, great rules, especially not just sitting when you get home.  I feel better when I move around, too, though I'm tempted to just sit.. And lindia, my control journal is a mess, I have been thinking of splurging some birthday money on an already-made journal from flylady.net.  It is hard to turn the pages on mine, and hard to read, and I didn't get those plastic pages, either.  It IS good to have everything in one place, though! 

MooseMom, I'm the one who leaves trails, not my husband!  He used to tidy up for me, but my whirlwind of activity undid all of his good work!  He has started making the bed in the morning, though, he offers up second' too, and I was going back up and making it when I went to feed our little kitty cat house guest (he's locked up, he starts fights  )
the other day I told my husband that breakfast was ready, then added, "Make sure you make the bed, please!" like he does it every day, and he DID it!  The next day, and the next, he did it without any prompting.  I have been making it for the last few months, and I know he likes that.. It makes me clean up the bedroom more (though there are still clothes baskets in there, working on it!)
 
decluttering is obviously key, I made some headway then fell back.  I'll try to focus on the closets.  I don't follow the zones well, there's always something else I'd rather do...just need to get with the program.  Thanks, guys!

[RightSide]

I use Microsoft Outlook's Calendar feature to organize everything:  When to take my meds.  When to go to a doctor's appointment.  When to do the laundry or vacuum the carpet or (as happens often) repair my computer or repair the plumbing in my home.   When to make important phone calls.  Etc. 

You can set up recurring appointments (like doing the laundry weekly), and it will remind you when it's time to do those.

Android smartphones have sync software that will sync the smartphone with MS Outlook.

[smcd23]

I do certain things on certain days, and then have a few things that must get done every day (dishes, for example)

So I do dishes every night.

Sunday - laundry
Monday - vacuum and clean living room
Tuesday - I get my nails done, so the house suffers (gotta make time for me)
Wednesday - Dining room
Thursday - Bathrooms
Friday - Bedrooms (because if I end up taking my son to my parents for the weekend, I don't get upset that I didn't get to the bedorooms, because those are the least of my concern)
Saturday - big projects/tasks day.

I also have to do many things after my son goes to bed, so that makes it even tougher, and I am often up late cleaning. Since my SO is the sick one, I sometimes ask him to do some of the stuff (like wash bedsheets during the week if I didn't get to them on Sunday, or vacuum during the day when myself and my son are not home) I also make him responsible for breaking down his dialysis boxes, hauling them to the dump, cleaning the dialysis storage room and cleaning up before and after his delivery because the driver always tracks dirt through the house. I do not touch the dialysis related stuff. Personally, I think having a schedule, task list and delegating when possible helps a lot. I also have ADD, and the only way I survive is with lists!