Dear Flylady,

I’ve been with your system off and on for many years now and it’s no surprise that when I actually follow your system, it works beautifully. I have a terrible tendency to go overboard, leading to the crash and burn syndrome. But no matter how I strayed, there were some things that always stuck in my Flywashed little brain. My sink was almost always shining at the end of the day. My bed was always made in the morning and I was always dressed to shoes. In my perfectionism, I had a hard time stringing together routines much beyond that, but here’s what’s working better for me now.

Your daily videos have been a huge help. If I just keep moving and doing things while I listen to your encouragement, I find I stay on track much better. I also purchased some of those little domino tiles you use and pretty much put my control journal on them. Morning routine on light blue tiles, evening routine on the darker blue, weekly home blessing on purple, of course and pink for pampering and so on. I have two little milk glass jars on my dresser and I dump out my morning routine tiles before I go to bed.

When I get up and start the day, I put them back in the jar as I accomplish them and once they’re done, I dump the evening routine tiles out. This gives me permission to start the evening routine any time during the day! So I can check my calendar and put out tomorrow’s clothes at noon, if I want. As a result, swishing and swiping (your rags and swisha work great for this) happens every day, laundry gets checked every day (I’m single, so I can’t come up with enough laundry for a load a day, but I can check it as part of my routine and start a load if needed), and I’m actually rolling the dice and picking up the next tile for weekly home blessing and getting all the pieces of it done through the week.

So, I thought I would share this, just in case others might get overwhelmed with a notebook full of tasks, but can cope with one small pile of tiles at a time! I have just about all of your tools (and multiples on some, like purple and silver rags and feather dusters) and I got the pink rags for my entire family for Christmas last year because they’re so perfect for cleaning glasses, camera lenses, phone and tablet screens. They fit easily in a pocket or purse, so everybody always has one on hand when it’s needed.

Everybody also got a rubba scrubba – they’re so good with pet hair! Anyway, many thanks for all you do – you have seen me through an unfortunate divorce, a major move and job change through the years and made all the transitions so much easier, even when I wasn’t fully on board!

All the best!

Flying in Northern Michigan