#flylady

I wanted to listen to something "self improvement" wise, and downloaded a Mark Manson (Mason, I forget) book he did on hope and its importance some years ago (2019) and when he started the book out with a story about Auschwitz and how nothing WE deal with is THAT bad I have a visceral response, returned the audiobook to the library and downloaded another book on wardrobes because I was listening to something to chill out, not listen to some smug, overpriviledged nitwit.

I downloaded Project 333 (it's about using 33 clothing items each season as your wardrobe)

So…

About that.

This woman goes on and on an on about how she was unhappy and in debt and blah di blah di blah until she cleaned out her closet and started wearing only 33 clothing items per season.

Clearly, the lady was what we used to call a shopaholic. Which, okay… That can happen to a person.

So, as kind of a reality check, I reviewed the rules, pulled out a spreadsheet I'd written a couple of years ago to inventory my clothes, updated it, and checked the numbers based on what I wear during what season.

36 for winter, 42 for summer. (I have dresses I only wear in summer)

I would in no way call myself any sort of minimalist, so that made me crack up. I do absolutely have a capsule wardrobe. But boy howdy tell you what, I also haz an amuse.

As I am thinking about all the organization, self-improvement, and other systems and literature of this sort, I do notice a common thread, but none of 'em say it.

I'm extremely busy right now with life things, and those life things include a need to do a heavy declutter/purge.

I am still in Vine and pulling in lots and lots of random stuff, though, and one thing that came in yesterday was this:

Not an affiliate link because I'm no longer an affiliate.

Anyway, my immediate reaction was EXTREME OVERWHELM and disappointment with the quality. I mean, they're fine for a notebook that WILL be consumed, really, but the pages are difficult to turn and that annoys me, personally.

Why are there four?

I don't know.

Every page is completely packed and it's overwhelming. There are SO MANY TASKS on the daily task list.... Who has time for that????

I had to set it down.

After a bit I came back to it and it's obviously designed for stay-at-homes and not for people that work outside of the home or even who work from home. This is for someone who's job it is to keep the house clean.

Sat it down again, came back again, and noticed some things.

So it's basically a breakdown of tasks by day, week, month, year, etc. and you're supposed to write in the book both to check off tasks and add your own. There are layout sheets in the back of the book where you can fill in all of the tasks yourself instead of trying to follow the suggestions in the book, too. The daily checklist, of which there is one, would be fully consumed the very first day. What?

Still terribly overwhelming, and I noticed it's not been proofread very well.

This is a monthly decluttering list. You're expected to do this once a month.

Something that bothers me is things like "Tupperware without lids" and "Scratched pots & pans" being in the same list as "Unusued Appliances" where all the words are capitalized. That's not important but it's something that makes me notice a difference and get annoyed.

I guess we're doing "Scratched pots & pans" and "Unused Appliances" twice every month. But why are we doing that EVERY month and not once or twice a year?

Or like here:

The repeats..... They annoy me..... My brain wouldn't see those as days off, either, it would just run in circles annoyed about it being a repeat day.

But then!

FLYLADY?!?!?!?!?

So this person went and took some Flylady resources, probably from the old-old version of her website, and had them self-published via Amazon or didn't realize Flylady is an established brand because the seller is NOT Flylady. If I click on their store link, it's all phone cases.

Now I understand why it's so damn overwhelming. I tried out Flylady years and years ago (it's very different, now) and hated it. It was very demanding, very, very specific to a point that it was causing me more stress than providing benefit (GO CLEAN THIS ROOM but I don't HAVE THAT ROOM, clean ONE bathroom but I have FOUR BATHROOMS, for example), and extremely overwhelming. Not only because of the program itself, but because by joining the program (which was free), you joined the newsletter mailing list whether you wanted to or not and that woman would email you CONSTANTLY throughout the day. I mean CONSTANTLY. 10+ emails DAILY.

She'd insist that every day you shower in the morning and take a bath in the evening. The bath was your treat for a day of non-stop cleaning. You weren't supposed to stop cleaning all day until bath time unless you were eating.

Flylady seems to have changed since then. Or maybe it hasn't and just looks different. There's an app, now, and a shop where she sells cleaning tools. I'm not tempted to try the program again, no.

In the end these books are just a huge checklist in pastel rainbow colors, times four for some reason, and checklists have never worked for me at home.

It worked ok at the gas station I was working at until recently, but that checklist was also much, much smaller.

I've tried many, many programs similar to this over the decades and literally none of them worked for me. The closest to working was UFYH and even there, the only part that did work for me were the weekend challenges where Rachel would post a task you were supposed to go do RIGHT NOW, then another in about a half-hour or so. For some reason that works for me. I tried her guided cleaning journal and that was not it for me at all. I think I ended up tossing it since I'd already written in it and it wasn't like I could donate it at that point.

It's not a bad guided journal at all, it just wasn't for me.

But here's the link if you want to try it:

Got my shoes on. Got my kitchen timer on. Challenged myself to see how much better I could make the kitchen look in 10 minutes.

I cleared the kitchen island. Put away all the food, got all the dirty dishes into the sink. Started a load of laundry. Made up my third cup of coffee. Washed out some recycling and got it to the bin. Oh, now I can see the acetaminophen which I need to take today.

Do I still have a big mess? Yes I do. I came home from 2-week trip, and I'm still finding stuff I need to put away and laundry I need to do.

But my ADHD ass developed the self-care habits, routines, tips and tricks, originally in the late '90s due to this nice southern lady. She used to send out daily emails encouraging us to take care of ourselves and giving us ideas on how to tackle big home care projects, self-care projects, but mostly home care.

It was a lot of email. And not being Christian, I didn't always appreciate her dropping of God references. But without her structure, without her having figured out that there was tons of us out there, struggling with our lives and managing our shit...

She helped me a lot. The chaos is mostly controlled. (She used to backronym CHAOS as "Can't Have Anybody Over Syndrome" heh)

I'm no longer ashamed of my habitat (and also, thank you, @unfuckyourhabitat for continuing the momentum of this particular way of working).

Gonna finish my coffee ☕ and then set the timer for another 10 minutes. Got a friend coming over for dinner 🍽️ and I can stand to do a bit more tidying up.

At the same time I have added a combination of the flylady "clean your sink" and @unfuckyourhabitat make your bed. The latter really gets the generationally emphasized struggle to keep ones various levels of disabled brainbody shambling forward. I have also started making my bedtime routine start at 8 PM. Likewise a ruthless purge of my physical possessions is ongoing to reduce the chaos to manage.

The Unmade Bed and the Fall of Civilization

I didn’t make my bed, and as I drove away from home, I remembered it and felt a pang of guilt. It’s not the end of the world, I rationalized. How many people actually take the time to make their beds, anyway? I haven’t always been good about it, it’s just that I realized I likethat small spot of order in an otherwise chaotic, uncontrollable world. I might not be able to predict the course of my…

Depression is difficult. It is the reason I haven’t updated my blog recently. 

I want so much to make progress, but sometimes you can’t see yourself well enough to know what you need. This was me last week, where I had a mini-meltdown. Many tears later, I realized a few things (that I wasn’t giving myself me-time, and that my internal narrative of what summer would look like with my husband home isn’t what reality looks like), and recovered. Slowly. 

Mini-meltdowns aren’t good for me. But they aren’t good for my family or friends, either, who freak out. I was having stress-related chest pains and the whole deal. It’s imperative I take good care of myself. 

So I’ve developed a “Just One” approach. It’s similar to the “Do It Now” principal from Fly Lady, where if you think of something you need to do, just do it now so you won’t forget about it later, and her “Just 15 minutes” principal, where you do housework you were avoiding by setting a timer for 15 minutes and only working for that long. 

My Just One principal is that I have to do one thing: take one item of garbage off the living room floor to the can. Take one load of trash to the curb. Lose just one pound a week. I am currently not capable of a lot. I feel overwhelmed sometimes at the sheer volume of stuff that needs to be done, or weight that needs to be lost, I get overwhelmed and shut down. So to avoid this, I tell myself “just one.”

It has worked well so far. I don’t feel overwhelmed by doing just one chore, and once I’ve gotten it done I’m often game for another. My house isn’t spic-n-span, but more gets done with “just one” than if I sit around paralyzed, and this way I avoid feeling badly about not doing anything.

I haven’t been working on weight loss, but I’m getting there. I’ve added the disciplines of vitamins, and working out, and water consumption, and make-up/jewelry to make me feel like I’m taking care of myself. Food is next on the list. I’m building momentum. 

This is a great strategy for anyone who’s struggling and feels like they can’t get out of their pit. Just one. Do one thing. Then see if you can do another. Can’t? Cool, you did the one thing, good for you.